Images from a pondering Pilot

Under a grass roof and cinder walls a young girl is crying. A dirt stained pink dress clings to her soaked skin. It is raining so hard it’s like thunder.

A river of water flows through the muddy floor from the rain. Outside the wall, wide trenches in the earth are being cut from these brown torrents.

Across the street guards sit by the gate of a large three story home. Razor wire lines the upper edge of the wall. A light is on in an upstairs bedroom. Two kids are throwing pillows at each other and their mother is laughing. In the garden, red and white flowers are bent over as if in prayer to the falling water.

Inside myself I know which is more comfortable but I always seem to struggle for its meaning.

In the city there’s a new mall. Inside are small shops of design, electronics, clothing, and neon. The air is cool the moment you enter through the large glass doors. Most of the stores have no patrons. They are empty except for the single person on a stool who waits all day for a customer.

Outside the mall on the sidewalk people try to sell anything they have. Empty coke bottles, rims and tires, and a window wash. The expensive cars pass through the confused maze of commerce, their windows rolled up tight and eyes locked forward to the protective gate of the mall parking area. Inside the gates you will not be approached.

Many days when I arrive at the Aeroporto I am met by a teenage boy as soon as I step out of the van. He is deaf and his left leg drags and swings from a physical handicap. His eyes never seem to focus on anything. When his hands are outstretched, hoping for an offer of meticals, I can see his contorted wrist and curled fingers. He seems to find me when I go to work and often when I return. I wonder where he sleeps. Do people give him enough money to eat?

I watch people push him away so he doesn’t interfere with Aeroporto business. Being pushed doesn’t seem to bother him. One afternoon he stared at me from outside the glass window of the airline office. I stared back at him and considered the difference between our lives. I concluded that by some weird chance I’m on this side of the wall and he’s on the other, like the unpredictability of lightning…it just goes where it goes.

It would seem that the these two worlds, the people who have and the one’s that don’t, are like warring neighbors that share a common wall or co-actors in a strange play, one never strays too far from the other. Seemingly these opposites need each other to exist. It makes me wonder if without poverty would there be prosperity, or without ignorance would there be people who dedicate their lives to help others learn, and without apathy would there be any need to care.

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