I’m not sure which is the worst: reading the lies in all the newspapers and watching the arrogance on parade, or observing the insidious crawl in people you thought of the same mind as you are. The bending, like that of heated wax. After all, says this one, they’re not all saints, are they? Even if their country is in shambles, why should we have to take them in? And where are the women? All these strong young men, fleeing, what about their women?

And the crawl continues. In the left corner, with the golden trunks, the bullhorn and the cheerleaders: The Liar King! Applause! Boos! Oops, don’t hit me,  APPLAUSE! In the right corner, disheveled and none-too trustworthy: a ragtag of misfits, none of them saintly enough to qualify as New Hero galvanizing the masses. Plain old humans, in other words. Fighting the odds? Who cares unless they win. Then we can cheer before dissing (or diss and find fault, period because they have/don’t have  golden trunks, a golden bullhorn and cheerleaders).

***

He’ll turn eighteen in less than a month. Contradictory messages pile up: yes, he’ll get aid to pursue his studies and get a work permit. No, he won’t because someone in the hierarchy is piling up the obstacles, for him and others. Meanwhile, you listen to the boy’s rants of impatience and frustration – frustration turning into something of a constant, these days. The best laid plans of mice and men seem to be off on a tangent again, drifting toward…toward something out of your control.

Yes, I know.Chin up. Forge on. Find the chink in the argument, walk away, ignore the bear traps, take another direction.

But this morning, I’m haunted by the white on grey shadows of men, women and children, tracked as they make their way through icy fields, in search of the chink in the razor wire. Hauntings don’t help anyone? I never claimed they did.

Color. Sound. Movement.

Movement.