LA VIE N’EST QU’UNE MORT LENTE

He mumbled more clearly than the other words that softly floated out of his mouth.
I can’t remember what led up to that moment. My memory started spinning its web as he sat down next to me; triggered by his breaching of the unspoken wall that separated us. He walked right through it in a comfortable and easy motion. He then tilted his head so as to have his eye meet mine in a levelled ray. He looked straight at me and started to pray.
Or so I thought. What seemed like words of God, were in deed words to God in form of freestyle rap.
I remember now what might have sparked the bold breach. He said God had sent him to Paris. Sitting alongside me, he introduced himself, saying his name was Camel. Sweet name. And he asked me what my name was. Without fully listening he started again: God guided his path and today the path lead to me. I represented something like… he struggled to find the word. “A fairy”.
Happy to be cast in the role of God-sent Fairy we chatted further. He spoke of his punitive God and I spoke of the God in his heart.
After some rounds of duo-monologues he said it again: “life is a slow death”.
My mind stood still for a second. I glided on the eco of these words. I was transported back to the first time I ever saw zombies. I was in the metro and I suddenly felt like I was living a déjà-vu. I knew it was a new day but I saw the same people, who all had the same faces on as yesterday. They all looked the same, shuffled the same, moved in a slow dance of dimly lit apathy. The doors opened. In a single, seemingly choreographed movement, they lugged themselves onto the platform to begin their one-beat march towards their enclosures.
It felt like a bad dream and I quickly snapped back to the conversation with Camel.
Chronicled in faded lines on a grainy backdrop, I could still recognize the face he must have had when life was still funny. What he likely looked like when mistakes still got you some attention instead of any noticeable consequences. The kind of age my future pupils will have.
I spoke to God on a blue metal cafe chair in a Parisian low-key terrace. His name was Camel and he was a homeless man. He called me a fairy. These are the thoughts I have as I look back on my day, escaping somnolences’ gnarly clench. I see God now, the zombies have withered. I see the God in Camel, I see the God in Mark, I see the God in the sweet baby bird dying, sick and fearful on the beastly streets of Paris. I see the God in Paloma and the Beach Boys who play me tunes. I see God. I speak to God. I live by my truth. I breathe in and exhale my verity. But this isn’t about me.
It’s about everything that is beyond me. Everything we belong to that is bigger than us. We are humans. We are all humans.
Where do we go wrong? When do you slaughter the child in you who sees the butterflies? “You know Maria, life isn’t just butterflies”, that’s what I’ve been told. Story for another time. Life is full of butterflies, but all you see are bats. Life is purely butterflies yet you point out all the rats.
My life was built in quicksand, the more I moved the more I sank. But now I see the butterflies. Now I see how time flies. Now I see my past lives. And now I look to the light and it all seems right.
I chatted with God on a blue metal cafe chair in a Parisian low-key terrace. He listened to me when I spoke. He called me fairy. He gave a 5-star rating to my chosen path. His head told him that life is a slow death. But his heart showed me it’s not.
