Spiritual Wounds

Chapter 1: One day, like all, I too shall depart

"Conclusion: The theater of life can be cruel at times, with emotions playing the leading role. They are the source of our sufferings. When we mix emotions such as envy, nostalgia, love, shame, or fear, how can we not think that they shape life? They make us drift into distant and uncharted lands. Even unconscious, our perceptions remain intact through our illusions. No one has perfect control over their feelings. This anarchy sometimes leads to contempt, the abandonment of others and oneself. Like weather influencing nature, emotions unleash themselves in life in an uncontrolled, ever-changing, and powerful way. They toy with our minds." Philosophy assignment by Marie, 17 years old. Topic: Emotions in life.

RINNNNNGGGGGG

You can turn in your copies; the three hours are over.

Unpleasant voice, shatterer of hopes, poorly done assignment...

Pff... Feelings in life... What kind of shitty ass topic is that? Seriously, who cares about writing about feelings? And since they're all much older than us, they have enough experience to know that feelings just mess with our heads, that's all. I don't understand why they make us write useless essays. I'm pretty sure that they're using us anyway, just to steal fresh thoughts and know what's going on in our teenage minds! The teachers, they're just a bunch of wannabe writers who like to steal our original ideas and enjoy giving us bad grades to remind us that we should think like them and their worthless school programs... School = the beginning of a nice little lobotomy.

Laure, 16 years old, 'friend': So, Marie, how did it go?

Me: Yeah, yeah, another bogus topic, again...

Laure: What did you talk about? I wrote about love on a universal and planetary scale, look at Romeo and Juliet...

Me: Yeah, blah blah blah, and we know how it ends... 'Feelings in life', it's more like 'feelings in killer romance' what you wrote.

Laure: Yeah, sure, and we won't even ask about what you wrote: "feelings are useless..."

Another someone who thinks they know me, that makes me laugh, that poor girl who desperately wants to be original with her trendy clothes and brand-name shoes... Pff, and what's the point of fashion anyway? Once bought, worn, and outdated, it ends up in the trash. It's pointless, and it's just recycling. What a scam, basically, we end up wearing the same style of clothes as our grandparents did when they were our age! And brands, they're even worse! I don't see why I should pay a lot of money just because something has a logo that looks like nothing and it's made in China... Fashion and brands, more stuff to make people believe they're better than others. I don't need that to have style. I already know that I'm naturally special. Doing the same as everyone else is not my thing... But in the end, this bitch will probably get a better grade than me because she wrote exactly what the teacher wants. And I'll get a 4 out of 20 like always because I don't think like them...

What time is it? 5:30 p.m. Bus to take, December, winter, night.

By the gleam of the night, all is bright,
The darkness of day continues its spite,
Unveiling shame, disdain, and sorrow's might,
Obscurity! Free me from this oppressive plight.

The bus station: crowded. Spit on the ground, strange people, indifferent people... Smell of cigarettes, cannabis, and above all, incessant noise. Buses hissing, hysterical screams, forced laughter, fake laughter, explosive laughter; cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes, breath smoke; couples fighting, couples embracing. Hatred, love, indifference: the highlights of life in all its ugliness.

5:45 p.m.: Arrival of the bus.

Yeah, go ahead, fight for the best seat on the bus, you bunch of losers... Every time I see them pushing like that, I think to myself that the bus station is like hell. The people fighting are like little devils, with their faces all red, pulling ears, scratching, stepping on each other's feet, making faces, some even growling sometimes. In winter, the angriest ones have smoke coming out of their heads... In my delusion, the bus is a kind of paradise: it's funny how as soon as they settle in the bus, they start to calm down and smile. I don't know why I'm talking about heaven and hell... it must be a leftover from my catechism years when my parents took me to church to make me a good girl. Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of the church isn't to control everyone by scaring them with their usual blackmail, like "do this or you won't go to Heaven." It's all about power... And since people prefer to believe in imaginary things rather than in themselves, it's easy. And don't think that scientists are any better. It's really impressive all the theories they've developed, oh and the rules too! As usual, there are always rules to follow, that annoys me... And then their ridiculous theory of evolution, well, okay, it's better than the apple story, but monkeys turning into humans, come on, what were they smoking when they came up with that? I don't believe it at all! Well, their goal is always the same: to explain where we come from. In reality, humans are the weakest animals in the world because they waste their time trying to understand why they live instead of living without questioning. Well, just because we don't know where we come from doesn't mean we don't know where to go.