Why do you still believe? What is there about life that is worth believing in? What great purpose that your life has that you aren't willing to let go of it? What's so significant about you? Those were questions I often pondered in the mirror. Sadly, the guy in the mirror stops talking when you do.
After what happened, happened people laid their curse of hope upon me. They threw it on me and left. "Keep your hope", they said. They forgot how heavy it gets carrying it with every bad news I get, every job rejection, and everything else.
I remember a friend, well, he is a guy I saw once, maybe twice. I don't even think we met, I don't even think we ever talked. But there he was, far away. He was walking and behind him, there were wolves biting into the moon ray. Far away, in front of his steps, there were stars shedding light on top of the trees.
Near him, there was blood coming down from rocks. So, he kept walking, walking, and walking until he completely dissolved. He was eventually digested by the shadows. All I am is that man, and all he is me, we just looked different.
I got obsessed with hope. Often yelled where the hell it was. What am I supposed to believe in? Every time I thought about hope, I got exhausted, I got bored. So, I made up an illusion, I blew it into a balloon and named it hope. I wondered in what way could way I weigh it, how could I measure it?
I looked through the drawers and closest as if that's where I would find my answer. I didn't have the numbers or statistics to explain to people how heavy it was to carry that balloon, I couldn't find a piece of paper issued from the state to prove the high amount of nights I spent under the rain for no reason.
I took a pill of antidepressants after I saw two kittens playing with a dog in a narrow street, above was a dove building a nest. That's when I thought of hope as a talent, a talent the gods gave us to hide how they didn't give a fuck about us. Hope was a gift to imagine what's behind the fog. That's when I went out into the street as I felt the balloon draining my heart, my chest couldn't stop hurting.
I roamed the street and saw a man I decided to follow. A man named Mohsen, a poor man we labeled crazy, made his money doing light labor work here and there. At nighttime, he would walk around the street saying gibberish. We happened to walk the street around the same and I decided to follow him.
He looked like he was trying to entertain himself with small monologues. Saying anything that didn't mean anything. I don't think he wanted them to mean anything. "What is this?", he said loudly "Why is all of this?". He didn't mean it like a complaint, it wasn't really a question, not even a statement. He was merely attempting to scratch a word with another to create a rhythm or a rhyme. Maybe, he didn't even do that, it is just what he happened to say.
"What is this? Why is all of this?", he kept repeating. Maybe he was forming a friend to help him carry the road trip weight. People around him didn't pay attention to him. Some thought he was crazy, some thought he was a dreaming poet, some thought he was just in need of an exorcism.
He didn't care what people thought, he didn't accuse himself of any ill feelings or bad intentions. He just kept walking, he knew he wasn't really harming anyone, he knew he didn't give people real reasons to think badly of him.
"What is this? Why is all of this?", he said as he stopped in a distance. I stared at him, wondering how a person can be so unaware of his surroundings, why is he so content with such a horrible life?
"Are you okay, cousin?", he spotted me looking at him.
"Cousin?", I said with a baffled look on my face.
"Yeah", he said with a wide smile on his face "Why not?"
I didn't know what to respond, but I don't what came over me and I decided to show him my balloon.
"Why do you carry that around?", he asked.
"Trying to keep my hope alive, I guess", I answered.
"What's the point of hope that is so heavy?"
"What do you suggest? I kill myself?", I asked rhetorically.
"No", he laughed "Just pick something lighter. Something insignificant might be easier to carry".
"What's the point of living for something insignificant?".
"What's the point of living for something that is pulling you down?"
He invited me to sit with him, I sat next to him as he stared at a TV screen far away in a coffee shop, it was barely big enough to see that some sort of a basketball game playing on it.
"What about you?", I asked "What's your reason to keep going?"
"Do you see that in yellow?", he said while pointing at the screen "According to people I heard talking about basketball two weeks ago, the season barely just began. Sometimes they wear red and white, I just have been coming here every night in hopes to see them play. My reason to keep going is that I want them to win whatever they're playing for"
I was confused by his answer, he is talking about a team he doesn't even know the name of, doesn't even know what they were playing for.
"Okay", I decided to humor him "What if they don't win?
"I don't know", he answered in a relaxed tone "Maybe I will switch to a team in football"
"Oh. Hahaha", I said while laughing profusely "I was expecting some complicated answer, but, hahaha, you will just cheer for another team in another sport hahaha"
I continued laughing for a good minute or two.
"It is just so simple, isn't it?", I stood up "Come on, let's watch the game inside, my treat, cousin"
"Thank you", he said with a bright smile on his face.
We both started walking toward the coffee shop. We weren't singing, asking, answering, or making a statement, we were just saying "What is this? Why is all of this?"