The Blue Buddha

It came from nowhere. A chuckle.

A simple sound the chuckle is not typically frowned upon, except I was on a subway.
Standing by myself, not listening to anything, reading nothing, completely still. Chuckling. For what I can only imagine people saw as no reason. But the absurdity of the entire situation was too much.

Across from me, sitting, was this elderly lady, maybe 70, possibly 80, sitting there with a tiny bag of groceries or something, wrapped in her arms on her lap as she may have held a child at some point. Her entire body moved with the train, the slightest movement on the tracks reverberated through her body and was amplified to full display. She did not appear afraid or intimidated by any of the other characters on this ride, and obviously had lived in the area for an incredibly long time.

Generally to my left was one of the gangstah types. I don’t know how else to really describe him. Low, sagging jeans, despite the belt running through the loops. A loose(ish) jersey of some sports team, I think. Floppy sneakers, et cetera et cetera, you know the type.

On my other side was one of these business types. A wannabe wall street guy with the serious face reading the serious phone with the obvious serious business displayed by it’s tiny pixels. Completely oblivious to everything around him.

And we’re all on this train together. Completely by chance we ended up in this place at this time with these people. There were millions of different ways this could have turned out, and it turned out this way.

And we are all going to sit here and act like these people don’t matter, and we don’t care about them. But we’re all here, we have something inherently in common by
completely random chance.

And no one will ever think about it again. It’ll just be another shitty subway ride at the end of a shitty day getting ready to go to our shitty homes.

It’s hilarious.

These constructs. These walls, these barriers, these ideas.
That people have.

A chuckle, blossomed into a full hearty laugh at nothing, everything. People stare looking concerned, looking bothered. At the next stop I’m still just laughing people on edge quickly leave the train.
Made uncomfortable by the “crazy homeless man” on the subway.

Context: I got stopped by a cop earlier, long and short of it is I could have gotten in a lot of trouble, I didn’t.

Here’s the issue though, I was really uncomfortable. Bugging out harder than I have in a while. For no reason. I know my rights, I know I was within them, I got off the hook because there was no way they could keep me on it. But I was still freaking out.

I have a fear of cops. I came to this realization in full force today. And it seemed to be a mostly irrational fear until I started thinking about it.

I believe humans to be inherently good; my rationale behind this is for another day, but essentially humans start off good and slowly but surely human society corrupts them.

I attribute this corrupting power to the force of the ego. Especially in a society where we worship the idea of helping me helps the we, the ego is fed from a particularly early age. Now in order to want to become a cop there has to be a certain level of desire for power. Now don’t get me wrong, some people become cops for better reasons as well, however there are other way to help people than becoming a cop, and the fact that they chose to become a cop means there is at least a minimal level of desire for power. Desire from power is an expression of the size of the ego. If I desire power, it is because I believe that me being in that position of power will be helpful to people. One must think highly of self in order to be able to judge others for a living.

Now when a person becomes a cop they are given a badge and a uniform. These are physical manifestations of power and pure validation for the striving of the ego. This is an increase in power. An increase in power can be interpreted by the ego as reward for the work that it has done. This person being in a place of higher power means that other people want them in control as well. This inflates the ego, this leads to a desire for more power. This becomes cyclical compounding itself exponentially.

This is why I don’t like cops: they are in a unique position to be completely self-worshipping and act as if it is an act of selflessness.

They stomped ceremoniously in almost perfect tempo with the repetitive rhythmic thumping. Their barely clothed bodies flailing, frantic, in quasi-religious ceremony. It was almost completely dark, pardoning the sparing light that either emitted from the center, or from every individual. Primal howls emitted from harsh throats and crazed minds in semi-sexual ecstasy. The sacraments were passed with fervor, attempting to reach what could be described as nirvana. The tempo slowed the pace with it. 

The DJ started the next track. 

I have scars in my eyes.
I wish you could see them.

She turned quickly away, the thought ringing through her head, a shitty chorus to a song she never wanted to hear. The darkened shades protected her from the light that she was afraid would enter through the windows. She slowed her pace, winding herself down, or maybe up. Collapsed against the side of her bedframe, drained completely. The needle rolled from her no longer clamped fingers, it hit.

I have stars in my eyes.
I wish you could see them.

He liked the cold. Well actually he hated wearing a coat. Hated having to crank up the heat. Hated having to layer four blankets on top himself in order to fall asleep. Hated the wet snow that did nothing but make the morning commute worse. Hated the way everything turned up gray. Hated the lifeless trees, and the grass buried under the faceless white blankets of snow.

But he liked when he stood outside,

he could see the fact that he was still breathing.  

I’d like to believe I strolled down the street, nonchalantly like I knew I was king of the fucking castle. The yellow lights whirred above me, lighting the minimal area of the path that I needed to see in order to know where I was. My feet briskly avoided the cracks in the path, still paranoid about the whole notion of them being bad luck, I guess I never really wanted to grow up. My feet fell to the ground on rhythm with the beat blasting that only I could hear, blasting through my headphones. The music didn’t need to be so loud, I knew that, the street was dead, not a soul around, no noise to block out, but I wanted to make sure if someone wanted to get my attention they couldn’t. I wanted to make sure if someone wanted to get my attention, they’d have to work for it. Because the harsh truth was, I hated most people. I didn’t like it, I hated that about myself, but given the choice between people and solitude I’d probably take solitude nine times out of ten. One of the reasons I really hated my job, I hated every fucking customer to cause the doors to *bing* as if they had just caused the universe to exist again. I’m going to quit soon, I have to, I can’t do it anymore, play the same damn record for the past 3 months in my head, and yet, I still work there.

I was close to home, sweet guaranteed quiet. Music pumping reaching the crescendo of the song, head bobbing. Lights veered around an unseen corner.

Solitude.