This world. It got to me tonight. In a dream that ended on a scene I tried to shake off but couldn't. It stayed with me, ignoring the fact that it's Saturday and the sun will be rising soon.
Sticked to me until I sat down and tried to turn the dream into words, to erase the spook by putting it on paper.
The spook. It is not a spook, I realized after I wrote the first sentence. There is a truth beyond this dream. And that is why it stayed. In all its cruelty. In all its reality.
Here it is.
A shopping mall. Underground. Exclusive. Endless. Boutiques, selling things from all around the world. Ebony elephants and exotic orchids. Gathered there, in the far away, and brought here, to find a new owner. Between shops, water fountains, bonsai trees, designer benches. All this, connected by a mosaic floor. The people passing through, dressed up like Sunday. But then, that's the way it is common here, to be dressed like Sunday everyday, for here, everyday feels like Sunday. Well tempered. Lavish...
I walk on, passing the shops until I reach the elephants again. There, an alcove in the ceiling, a connection to the outside. A stone stairway, leading to an archaic site that was left like it was found, there, under the open sky. Wilderness, framed by gates. I step in, and walk to the left. A family of animals there. Suddenly one of them, a small wild pig, runs up behind me. Never get between kid and mum, I remember, and withdraw to the other side. There, people, walking up ancient steps that belong to some kind of pyramid, some kind of giant building.
I follow them. The sun is still out, but the atmosphere changes. Shadows fall on the steps. The guardians of the place appear. They are tall and old. Their skin, all white, almost like paper. In their hands, silver sticks. They don't talk, they only gesture. They are scary. Some of the people in front of me run up to them, screaming. The white ones withdraw. But they remain. Somewhere.
Then the platform. A museum there. A place of memory of what happened here, once. Genocide. Children of another race, slaughtered. The machines that were used for this, they are still here. They are not made of metal. They are made of plastic and cotton wool. They carry the face of Donald Duck. Of Mickey Mouse.
There is a monitor, showing facts and figures. Buttons, to be pressed, to move through pages of explanation. The ones in front of me, they keep pressing the button. Facts flash across the screen. The explanation, it gets lost between all the figures.
Then a sound. A thumping. I look up and see that the machines are still working. That the children are still here. I can see them, standing in line, waiting in line, for the machine to draw their blood.
That was the dream. And it was while I was typing it out, that the symbolism hit me. The mall. The two worlds. The stakes of globalization. The sweat shops, the children that work for a penny a day. All those products made in another world, shipped here. The unbalance of it all. The cruelty of capitalism in its global shape. The machine. With the Mickey Mouse face.
This world we created. The obscenity of it.
The immenseness of it all. Also reflected in a mail, sent by a friend, that adds yet another dimension to this scene:
"The world is being destroyed at an alarming rate and what are we focusing on? A brain dead woman's death. One person, living, barely, for fifteen years, contributing nothing, her life a center of huge debate when what is most disturbing in the news is buried.
Dear God..."
The poverty in the third world. The working conditions. The living conditions. The spread of Aids. The civil wars. The dictatorships. The spread of weapons. Of landmines. The natural disasters. The human made disasters. That all this is known. That the pictures of all this went around the world again and again. That there are so many pictures of so many tragedies that no one could say, we weren't aware.
And on the other hand, the enormity of the stream of news that floods through our living rooms every day that leaves us clueless. The tv stations, the newspapers. Who proclaim that they are there to inform the world. Yet, who, when it comes it, chose the story that will sell over the story that would matter. For they, in a way, are part of that machine, too, are global companies, news networks, companies of a different kind, nevertheless following the rules of capitalism. Their aim not to heal the world, but to earn money with the news of the world. And thus, making the news in a way, defining the leading issues by choosing the topics that make the front page.
And ever so often, giving the voice to those who have said their piece already, than to those who never had a chance to speak up, to tell their side of the story.