FOR REASONS BEYOND CONTROL - Second installment
old blanket, others sell lottery tickets, some with cameras taking pictures of those walking by and then handing a ticket to a reluctant hand with which to claim the picture just taken. From stores, sales people luring prospective customers with promises of low, very low prices, nowhere else in the city will you find such affordable prices, we also provide financing. Beggars abound with all sorts of ailments or sob stories of tragedy and misfortune. The spectacles of misery are nauseating, the victims expect to receive pity in the form of money, but more often than not only get contempt and disgust, for instance there was a woman who chose various corners throughout downtown she sat with naked children about her, begging for money to feed her young because she was unable to work due to her pregnancy…there were others who also picked strategic locations of the most travelled thoroughfares and displayed hideous scars from where puss and blood oozes pleading mercy for he is a dying person that can’t work, and yet has to eat and buy medicines for the illness, or perhaps a drunk, druggie, or just an insane person stumbling by and asking for spare change or scraps of food anyone might want to spare. “Raponeros”, -snatchers-, better known as “gamins, see the “raponeros” are relatively well dressed and they often engage in muggings and go back home at night after a day’s worth of stealing, “gamins” however, live in the street and if any have homes they seldom visit them they range between 5 years of age and 18. Both types of entrepreneurs will rip a watch of a wrist, a purse, earrings, necklaces, glasses, jacket, or any bag that might look as if containing anything new and valuable.
It is a struggle day after day to confront the madness and inhumanity lurking at the turn of every street corner and not for the faint at heart. And the weather does not help, oh that horrendous weather often wondered, if it affected people’s character, because the climate’s iciness resembled these people so well, vicious and relentless…or so the thought lingered then because as a child saw everything and everyone as being bigger, powerful, grandiose over me that didn’t know anything and had not seen much; but eventually learned that I was giving too much credit to what didn’t deserve it and holding certain individuals to a standard way above their limited capabilities and will, something they could never achieve and didn’t even know existed, because they were and remain weak and indifferent cowards who excused their narrowmindedness
with words of serenity and would logically explain the inability for wanting more and expecting more. Always relying on religion as a test to survive hardships and that afterwards a suitable reward will be placed at their feet by the all mighty, something that they know it isn’t true, otherwise, they would be happy and always content with the crumbs they possess and must survive with. They know deep
