On the Wings of Hope: Prose (Recognized)

Charity

Charity... what a tempting word! Creation of good deeds in the name of the neighbor and the distant one in favor of him. A universal, socially approved way to atone for your spiritual sins, at the same time being known as the most generous, extremely decent, surprisingly compassionate... A fake mask of care for thieves and lawless. You will love this one.

There was a time when your business was just starting... A terrible time when everyone was ready to cheat and even kill anyone who has tried to cross his path. The country was just starting to commercialize, selling itself piece by piece. At first, morality was thrown out of the house as the windiest girl, then dignity was seduced, and love managed to commit suicide by herself. Exactly this ninth wave of chaos and destruction helped you to get out of the darkness into a new wonderful world of buying and selling. You have been selling lots of stuff, starting from bubble gum and "Playboy" magazines for teenagers and ending with firearms for local "authorities"! You liked the very idea of being able to buy everything, including people.

As is well known, the one who has the biggest gun is always right, right? And you truly wanted to thank your former mentors with just the same methods. Probably, precisely in those moments, when you were watching how two criminal groups, in one of which you were recently a member, were shooting each other brutally and methodically, sparing neither bullets nor cars, something stirred somewhere far away within you, something changed. At that very moment, the idea of charity was born inside you for the first time.

Then there was a lot of very different years to come. Your natural sense of smell and firm grip helped you to survive in this meat grinder, to become a local "authority" and a "roof" for others who were just starting their way to nowhere. Of course, from time to time you had to make contributions to own aching conscience – that's why you took up the weekly offerings for the temples. Most certainly, you didn't believe in any gods – but that's how all your business colleagues behaved, and, besides, you just wanted to feel somewhat safe – to keep hoping that such life's luck will accompany you further. Hope is a powerful force, indeed... And what wouldn't one do to make his soul silent, right?

And then the time of troubles was over, it was the time to take the oath to the new leader, and you gained the opportunity to climb even higher – straight into the power circles. For, after all, even there – especially there! – money does its dirty work very well. By the time it all happened, you had almost made a lifetime fortune – drug and firearms dealing has always been a profitable business, to say the least. Just a dozen small offerings to the right people – and you are already familiar with the higher echelons of power. Is it not the devil's luck?

Soon you legalized – the inevitable step for the criminally acquired capital in the conditions of indicative witch hunting. And then you again remembered of the charity and donated a small share of the stolen money for the construction of a couple of playgrounds in your old schoolyard. It's so sweet to remember own childhood at times! When you had been watching in person the result of your feats of generosity, you had almost shed a tear. They wrote about you in newspapers and presented a short interview on one of the local TV channels, and your new business skyrocketed. What wouldn't one do for the sake of the neighbor!

Now at times you publicly under the gaze of television cameras give to some unknown dunce from the crowd your new gold-plated watches – not really new, of course, but specifically purchased and worn in search of a suitable case, as if reminding these slavers that they all will not live for long. From time to time you transfer several million dollars to organized by you charities and various funds of helping the starving children of Africa so that the commoners can write about your generosity in their newspapers and money can later return to their rightful places. Sometimes you even help to organize the repair works of some dilapidated Opera house, so they could at least wash the floor and whitewash the ceilings – introduce the young generation to the culture, so to speak. And sometimes a couple of kids from a forgotten shelter of the humiliated and insulted ones gets their penny so that they don't starve to the death before your feat is imprinted in newspapers. And what wouldn't one do for the sake of his distant one, truly?

Since these times you have always remembered about charity – been sharing with the world, so to speak. Spitting out undigested excesses of your wealth. You became a very influential person – "oligarch", as every impassable cattle usually calls you, progressive and successful ones. But whether owners of factories, newspapers, ships, and yachts really care of what all kinds of plebs dare to think about them? This generally approved charity was created specifically for plebs – let them think that they are thought about and be content with it. After all, you are certainly not going to share with them all that was acquired by overwork during a long term of theft and injustice! All in all, the charity was invented for the purpose of giving people like you the opportunity to temporarily feel much better than you actually deserve.

You have been thinking about God a lot lately. Maybe he really exists – after all, who else would help you to arrange such a grand life? Or, maybe it was not him but someone else – someone who truly desires this kind of pseudo-philanthropy and false sacrifices of human ego and selfishness? You don't know the right answer to this day after day more and more tormenting question. Yet something deep inside you moves and shakes more and more with each passing day as if in anticipation of something terrible that is approaching, something truly dreadful for the ones like you, false-gifts-bringers...

14.09.2011