“You never know what someone else is going through is a realization most people never have.”
“Is that even a real sentence?” He laughed to himself. “I mean, really?”
“A real sentence? What do you mean by that? As opposed to a… fake sentence? A lie?” They increased their pace. This block was empty and well lit – a little too well lit. It’s the type of block you walked faster, not slower. Maybe even the type of block you made sure to carry a glass bottle of some sorts – beer, wine, soda water, apple juice – in hand, just in case. “Why bring a knife to a gun fight when you can just bring an apple juice to the war” – he thought to himself. Yes, it was that kind of block – better lit than every other block. He saw their shadows projected on the pavers beneath them – intricately arranged and easily removable as was typical for Vietnam – much preferable to broken ass American asphalt. America hated feet, ankles, toes, meniscuses, blood pressure. Crazy considering that Big Rubber burned the candle at both ends: tennis shoes and car tires.
“No, a lie can be a real sentence, too,” he finally replied, “like… ‘I Love You. I Hate You. Good bye. Bad bye…’ you know the sorts.” He did know the sorts. “I mean a real sentence as in… grammar, completeness, et cetera, etera, etera…”
“You never know what someone else is going through.” Yes, they both knew people who had never had the realization. In those people’s defense, they weren’t even certain if they’d had the thought before either. Or at least, perhaps they had heard it in a saying – in a movie – “walk a mile in their shoes” type shit. But how many people really transcend the ego, the id, the sub and Supra consciousness and actually realized – no matter how close – how intimate – you can never really know what someone else is thinking. Not until they make some kind of brain reading machine – streamline the human genome.
Of course, politicians had their own approach to the subject. If we make these thoughts illegal, these beliefs prison-able, these emotions ostracized – if we reduce it all to let’s say – five allowed thoughts, feelings, emotions – three good and two bad for simplicity’s sake – perhaps we can know what our neighbors are thinking.
Fashion designers have their own approach to – if you wear this Tommy – this Ralph – this Calvin – you are no longer a person of infinite range and complexity, but rather, you are now this person in a box – for some a box of their own choosing – for some a box that others will never be able to get in.
They were about halfway through the block when he felt a pair of eyes on him. For as bright as the block was on the side they were walking, it was equally dark on the opposite. Dark shapes – most likely cardboard stacked up on each other – chairs stacked and chained to lamp posts – bike wheels missing bikes locked around astoundingly tall trees that had been whittled down to single trunks.
The moon was somehow perfectly positioned overhead – as if it were driving a scooter down the very same road and in the distance he saw the INSERT NAME OF TOWER the Vietnamese star – yellow and red – the brightest star in the sky. Oh, this would be the perfect picture. He should stop and take it – if he took it while walking it would never turn out right- and if he didn’t dial in the aperture and shutter speed – it would also never turn out right. There was no way he could ever fix it in an editing software – or patch it up to make the photo look exactly what he remembered. So he slowly fingered the aperture and shutter speed in his pocket – counting the F stops and T stops (?) – until he knew it would be a quick edit – he would need no more than 5 seconds to lock it in. He needed to get it just right, even if the photograph would never get published, printed or shared with anyone else. No, these photos were for him, personally. He used them – the perfect photos – for stories he would later write. And he would use the stories, sell the words, and then use the money to buy more film, more plane tickets, more photos. This was how he had gotten here in the first place.
“It’s funny you should say that – about never really knowing what someone else is going through. You know I’ve been so in my head this trip – literally and figuratively – with my Eustachian tube disorder in my right ear, I haven’t been able to hear the outside world half as well as I’ve been able to hear my own spit. I’ve been so in my head – in fear- pain – despair I really haven’t noticed what’s going on in those around me. What made you bring it up?”
“Well a few blocks ago I saw a Vietnamese girl – she must’ve been 25 or so. The pizzeria she worked out had just closed and unlike so many people we had seen on the walk, she wasn’t with anyone else or looking at her phone. She was just spinning around a pizza tray on the aluminum table in perfect circles, neither happy nor sad – but clearly occupied – thinking deeply about something – whether serious or silky I’ll never know but in that moment I realized – you know – you will really know what anyone else in this ward is thinking.”
A homeless man across the street looked over to the bright side of the street. He loved his home _ the dark side because it gave him privacy and made him feel safe being so close to the bright lights. He saw the man – clearly an American tourist – and had a wide smile on his face revealing a few missing teeth – the right amount of missing teeth for a man his age who had seen all the things he had seen in life. He spoke Vietnamese, French and English and chuckled listening to the tourist’s conversation with himself. It had been years since he had heard someone who also liked to talk to himself – what a beautiful symmetry the man thought. He watched the tourists get his camera out and frame the shot – what a beautiful photo it would be if he set his aperture right, the man thought – the moon scootering down the middle of his street.