I walk amongst you, here in your city, a man from the wilderness, a man who has spent countless years in the solitude of the mountains, listening to the silence, to the wind, hearing the rivers and the birds. A man who has spent his nights watching the stars through unveiled skies, listening to the distant and mournful cry of the wolf, listening to the quite of the night.
I walk amongst you, in the midst of your mountains of concrete and steel, your trails of ash fault and cement, listening to the roar of your engines, the wail of the sirens, listening to the deafening pulse you seem not to hear.
I smell the exhaust, taste it in the back of my throat, feel it burn my nostrils as the poison enters my lungs, chocking me, starving me of the once fresh and clean air I breathed so deep and freely, air that was pure, free of the toxins that hang over your great city like a dark and ominous cloud.
I walk amongst you, in your great shopping centers and malls, walk amongst you and watch as I have watched the creatures of the wilds. Watching, learning,hidden from your view while still in plain sight. I have witnessed many wonders in the wilderness, many sights to be remembered in awe, sights however, that are rivaled by what I see whilst I am among you.
Tall, short, heavy and thin, people of most every nationality and culture from around the globe, caught in the hustle, the race of their fast paced lives. I watch, silently observe, as those around me push past each other with blank, expressionless faces. Brushing past each other without a fleeting thought or brief acknowledgement of those they encounter.
A life without faces.
Your world of haste begins with the buzzing of an electric alarm, rousting you from your tired, coma like state; a hand hit’s the snooze button while your groggy mind begs the clock for another 7 minutes of sleep. The coffee pot comes alive on the kitchen counter as its timer strikes home and it begins to puff and wheeze, filling the room with the familiar aroma of a new day’s beginning. With one eye open you watch the clock, hit the switch a moment before it again comes alive with the sound you’ve learned to despise. Feet into slippers, arms into bathrobe, staggering fuzzily into the bathroom to begin your morning rituals.
Tooth brush hanging from the corner of your mouth you turn the hot water on full in the shower, filling the room with steam as you return to the sink to cleanse your mouth of the mint flavored foam. A few quick adjustments to the water temperature before you climb into its steady flow, the sleep driven from you as fill your hand with shampoo. You scrub and rinse as an urgency builds within, climbing from the warmth of the water and into the softness of an inch thick towel.
Hand cream, face cream, tweezers and brush. Blow dryer, styling cream and rat tailed comb, with a whirl of frustration you leave the image of your face in the mirror, muttering to yourself about another bad hair day, silently concerned about the growing bags under your eyes, wondering why.
Back to your bedroom, casting aside your bathrobe as you reach into the closet, tugging free from it’s now swinging hanger an outfit to suit the day, a costume with which to hide your inner self from the world around you.
Down the hall to the kitchen with a hurried step, needing the injection of fresh roasted caffeine, the morning boost your body has been craving since the mist of the shower hit your skin. Before you reach for your favorite coffee mug, hidden on the top rack of the dishwasher, you touch the familiar power button on your laptop, your umbilical cord to the outside world. Filling your mug with strong black coffee, which is diluted with an inch of flavored cream, you hit the menu button on your Black Berry, checking your voicemails, searching the inbox of your text messages, trying desperately to catch up with another new day and all it brings into your already too busy world.
Gulping down your second cup of near white coffee like substance as you read your emails, chewing slowly on the cardboard tasting protein bar between swallows from your mug you quickly scan the world headlines on your laptop screen. Disheartened at the current status of world affairs you shut down the laptop, slipping it into the readymade slot in your carry bag, a bag stuffed with paper files, pens, USB cords and CD’s, the essence of your professional world.
Shrugging into your leather coat and matching gloves, into your favorite shoes as you slide your IPOD touch into your breast pocket, slipping the tiny earphones into place you shoulder your carry bag, thumbing through your bus passes as you close the locked door behind you.
Welcoming the cold winter air with a frown you hurry down the street to catch the approaching city bus, the first leg of your journey towards the office where you will spend your day far above the busy streets below. Another frowning bus driver, another packed and cramped bus ride to the city train station, a station filled with faceless bodies. Heads turn simultaneously as the next train approaches, people force themselves into line, knowing exactly where their chosen door will open when the button is pushed.
Standing, sitting, cramming into the cramped confines of the train you find yourself turning up the volume on your IPOD touch, drowning the sounds of the train and those within, secretly wishing you could somehow stop the smell of the train from entering your nostrils. Again you watch as the Transit Police exit the train with an unwilling patron with no valid pass to produce, looking back to the word game you’re idly playing on your Black Berry, trying hard to pass the half hour you must be on the train.
Finally your stop has come, slipping your Black Berry into your pocket you ready yourself to be pushed out of the train door, caught in yet another human landslide of bodies without faces, bumped and grinded out the door you go, back into the crisp winter air with a frown.
The sidewalk is slippery under your flat soled leather shoes and you begrudgingly clamber your way down the snowy street to your towering office building, considering with every step the growing pile of files on your already full desk. With a nod of recognition the security guard acknowledges your familiar face with a glance over his half read newspaper, the only one to notice your existence since you left the comfort of your home.
Into the elevator, staring blankly at the climbing red numbers displayed overhead, 37, your destination, the place you find yourself spending nearly half your life, the floor where the knot in your stomach originated, the tiny 12 x 16 office where you find yourself wishing you were not.
The same group looks away from the morning circle of conversation, their morning excuse for the procrastination they habitually show towards the start of each day, looking over their coffee cups at you with the same bleak, unsmiling faces you see every morning. Nothing seems to change. Caught in the rut of an adventure less life, caught in the rut of a life you once longed for, a life you trained and schooled for. Living in a land without faces.
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Written By;
Ron Arnett
"A man from the wilderness"
