A thousand nights

XXIII

Luke kept visiting every couple of days with Ali all the times and Hamlin sparingly, we enjoyed dinners together and we talked about anything.

As the days passed my respect fot Luke grew, I started to notice his character which oddly enough was so contrastant from dad's, it pushed me to wonder how the two had become friends in the first place.

I studied Luke and all I could see was his pursuit of hope.

I didn't quite get his reasons for being so kind and hopeful. It annoyed me to such an extent that I once dared to ask him the tormenting questions that I feared to ask anyone.

'Why bother with all this?' I had asked him whilst he had been concentrating on some budget calculus for his small business team.

He'd put down his pen and calculator and looked at me. Something I had noticed about the man was that he always concentrated wholly on whoever was talking to him. He would literally stop whatever he was doing just to give you as much of his attention as he could master.

'You know what? I don't know' he had confessed sighing 'I guess it's because I grew up in a family that prioritized work and success over everything, my mom is a physician and professor at the Ohio college and my dad an aircraft engigneer you see, I just know that something is missing in this mindset of ''making it'' he'd sighed making air quotes with his fingers.

'I know that life isn't about success and money, there something at the core of taking care of one another that I see when I work with children, I don't know more but there is something in me telling me that I'm getting closer to the answer'

I then had closed the book that was on my lap and sat upright.

'That sounds to me like an existential crisis' I noted.

'Maybe' he chuckled 'but it made me realize that this world is going in the wrong direction, it doesn't take a genius to see that but it takes a dedicated, motivated and focused person to change that' he took his pen and kept on doing his calculations.

He was generous and his smiles were always genuine, but why bother with so much kindness? I thought, as I scribbled some words on my notebook in my physics class. Why bother when people were on the lookout for your every single mistake, to point it out in such a way that humiliation was nothing compared to what they'd do to you?

Because it was the right thing to do?

No.

There is more, I was sure, people like Luke aren't kind just because "it's the right thing to do". Who even knows if it's the right thing to do?

I got up at six every morning to go to school not because it's the right thing to do, but becuase I didn't want to become unemployed or end up working in the most hurrid place imaginable. I went to school because I was passionated by the subjects I was studing, not because it was the right thing to do.

So who, in their right mind would be generous because it's the right thing to do?

'Park!'

I sat upright and looked at either side of me confused. Mrs Michaels looked at me with raised eyebrows in an expression of utter annoyance.

'Yes miss?' I said cautiosly.

'Becase you were listening  so intently and even taking notes, could you tell me the uses of a potential divider?'

'Uhm-' I started

'That's not the answer, pay attention next time' Mrs Michaels gave me a nasty look and without wasting more of her precious time on me she carries on with her explanation of whatever she was talking about.