I live for her

Chapter 3: The Search

This Chapter is dedicated to @Tisfor for managing to convince me to write this part. You should go check out her book, "STRAY"  it's pretty unique and very easy to read and dive into.

As I walk on the sidewalk, headphones on... I'm in another world of booming basses and tranquility as the tempo paces: I see the cars passing by, I see the faces passing by, I see the eyes passing by and I wonder if they see what I see in the mirror as they are passing by. I wonder if their eyes are sending messages to their brains that I'm a pitiful disgusting sight - I wonder why I care what they think. (Depression makes you wonder a lot and wander through imaginations laden with self-pity.).

I feel my brain's neurons spark as a paradigm shift takes place: a eureka moment, I wonder if they care about what I think - about them. (Probably not... but as in, if they care about what other people think of them.).

I try to think up the insecurities hiding behind the facade of the guy in the shimmering red Lamborghini waiting impatiently at the red light.  I wonder if rich people have insecurities. I wonder if they find brushing their teeth in the morning a mournful task, because staring at the mirror pulls the trigger on any self-worth they had developed throughout the previous day and during their sleep. I wonder if rich people are insecure. Money can't buy happiness is what all my adult relatives preach, but then can it at least buy a self-worth tangible enough for me to not reflexively look down each time a stranger passes by me with eyes that say nothing; speechless eyes that remind me I am as worthless as the mirror says I am. And I say tangible because I want the man who is just about to pass me by with eyes that will strike me into submission to feel - that I have self-worth. (Now I'm sure that you're sure I'm crazy.).

I finally solved the jigsaw puzzle making my brain sore as the rich man in the glistening blood-red lambo honked at the slow grey Peugeot 301 turning off to the next road on the right: he does have many reasons to be insecure. How can he tell whether a lady likes him for his impatient self... or his money and attention-hauling lambo? How can he tell that a guy who's been proving to be a good friend, who vibes on the same wavelength as he does is not only there for the free five-course meals and picking up girls that flock the lambo like blind bats who are only sensitive to the vibrations emitted from the sound of flapping 100-dollar bills and the jingle of colliding gold chains? Or perhaps by chance and sweet four-leaf-clover luck he's going to be there through thick and thin. Like now, will his friend be visiting the impatient man in the red lambo - with broken ribs - day in and day out because the guy in the Peugeot gave him the middle finger and he thought it wise to ram the red beauty into the cheap af and depressing-looking car? Will the friend even show him an ounce of care and sympathy and scold him for his irrational stupidity? Or will he just sit there and reward him with adulation or even better: not give a damn about his hurting "friend" and only visit him when he's back and well again - in his white-house-like mansion?

I've been searching for my self-confidence for a while (more like eternity) in the poetry I write that makes me love my ability to express what my friends struggle to express, or makes a good humorous narration out of my strange thinkings. I sometimes find it in the 100%'s on my maths tests and asking questions in Biology class that leaves the teacher dumbfounded by my eccentric trains of thought. But you know, it's all quickly evaporated by rays of disappointment and failure when my social anxiety (also self-diagnosed - don't tell anyone, okay?)... or shyness... or low self-esteem (I'm yet to give the undying fiend a name - but it is most likely one of the three) makes me struggle to tell the boy sitting next to me how I approached the most difficult question. And my self-confidence is also shot down by loud bullets of hate from classmates who are tired of me asking great loads of information that are not covered in the syllabus - even though I seldom remind the teacher when she forgets to state something crucial. (It's hard to please these kids suffering from a lack of gratitude - blame the teenage hormones... I don't think they intentionally mean to be douchey). But, that's fine, I solved that problem, I write down all my questions during class and ask the teacher after the lesson, she doesn't mind. She's the friendly kind, you know, the one that encourages you to interact with her. (We get along... probably because she's psycho too. Oh, I wish you could see my wink, I've been perfecting that creepy-psycho-dude wink with my right eye.).

As I cross the road, I watch the tall paramedic give the unconscious instigator in the Peugeot cpr... He's probably reeking of self-worth I can feel it, it's palpable, because you have to have a lot of self-worth to follow a career path that involves saving lives and talking to completely random strangers - face-to-face - while blood spews out of them and fear along with anxiety is scribed onto their faces.  I feel the green-eyed monster from Shakespeare's "Othello" creep over my shoulder as the Peugeot guy coughs after being successfully resurrected. (No, don't think like that... I didn't say I wanted him to die.).

I wonder what shapes a man into such a bold and blinding vessel of self-worth...

I wonder what makes someone like him confident in a task as daunting as saving lives, because one wrong move or a split second delay and a heart is irreparably damaged - a life is lost to the Grim Reaper. (Homicide perpetrator daddy of mine knows a lot about that. Insert creepy-psycho-dude wink.).

I walk up the unsteady metallic stairs of the bus and spot Emily's red eyes from the door - she's been crying.

My heart drops.

A/N: So how did you guys find Leroy's head? What do you think about the thoughts lurking in there?
And yeah, Emily's been crying 😢 comment below why you think Leroy's Lois Lane is red-eyed.

And drop a star if you enjoyed the walk to the bus as much as I did - writing about it (as I also took a walk... To nowhere 😂)

And thanks a lot for staying on the train, let's keep choo-chooing 'til the end ❤️