Walking along a beach at night, I saw what seemed to me a very large family gathering of around 30-40 people, all sitting on the sand, listening to a man lecture about the moon. Perhaps it was some special moon day or something, you know, the same way they have the eclipse, they also have some other ones, like the moon having some slightly different tint, or when it grows a tiny bit bigger, etc, etc... Anyways, it seemed like it was that sort of an event, as the instructor was quite passionately mentioning various date numbers while staring at the seemingly ordinary moon. While I don’t really see any day of the year as anything special, let alone a moon-subtle-alteration-day, there was something to appreciate in the guy’s passion for it, though it was just that, I didn’t feel any pleasure from appreciating it, which is weird, considering that “appreciation” is a positive feeling. I mean, I didn’t feel any pain from appreciating his passion, but since there wasn’t any pleasure, I wonder what difference it made that I was appreciative in the first place? It seems to me like that word is entirely useless if one derives no pain nor pleasure when expressing it, but then again, it might just be me who feels nothing while feeling it. It’s quite the same for me with many other emotions, though it might sound contradictory that I can’t name a single one, that I want, moreover, the random shifts in thinking at any point make it seem like I never know nothing except from what I happen to know in the moment. I’m not sure if I could find a better way to explain it, in other words, I’m not sure my brain would choose to go down another road to explain itself. Actually, it just signaled to me that it just wants to go back to the family on the beach.
As I stood looking at all their cheerful faces, I noticed that none seemed to really listen to the moon guy, they were really just chatting with one another, the adults more or less pretending to be attentive, while the kids ignored the moon guy entirely. I felt a bit bad for him, I wonder how often do people genuinely care for his words, though I suppose this couldn’t be his normal job, if he lectures only on these rare special moon events then there’s no way his salary is enough to maintain a living. But I suppose there’s no real reason to assume that he’s miserable just because some people don’t care for his moon talk, he probably has another job, some wife and kids, I don’t know why my mind painted him as a miserable person in disguise. I have the tendency to do that with people I don’t know, portray them as miserable as me, its probably a human instinct in order to relate to others, and maybe precisely why most people seem never seem to see me as I really am, most people aren’t this miserable, after all.
Looking at the kids, they seemed to be having more fun just talking with each other than I had doing anything my entire life. I wondered why I couldn’t just enter into this family and live the rest of my life with them. I mean, who says that I’m not a better candidate than at least some of those people? Why do they get to be in that happy family and not me?
None of it makes that much sense to me. I think that if for whatever reason I chose to raise a family, I’d let any cool guy I see on the street into it, why not? I’d let them live in my house, I’ll cook for them, they’ll cook for me, if they’re in school I’d help with their homework, I’ll motivate them with their tests. They could also be middle-aged or seniors for all I care about, as long as they’re cool, why the hell not? The genetic argument is perhaps the worst one in my opinion, setting aside the baseless reasoning that genetics have anything to do which how much a person loves another, how can one preach genetic importance when the essence of any family, the two partners in marriage, have no genetic relation whatsoever?! Hmm, it does seem like I go too often into rants about how people behave, it is never quite productive or enjoyable, but at the same time, nothing that I ever do seems to tick either of those either, so I guess none of it matters in the end. At that thought I felt a stinging sensation of loneliness, as I continued to aimlessly stare at all the happy family members. But to better describe my next feeling, I should maybe rephrase my last description to say that the sensation felt as if one was bit by a wolf, and as would likely to occur in such a case, the sudden smell of blood afterwards attracted the whole pack --fear, hatred, shame, regret-- to come tearing at me whole. The feeling was unbearable, and the only thing I could think of doing was to walk right into the family gathering, and so I did. As I casually strolled closer to the group I pretended to re-button my pants, so if any suspicion arose, it would seem as if I was just some family member returning from an evening pee. I walked until I was practically in the middle of everyone. It was just as I had hoped, there were precisely enough people as for no one to question my presence. Looking at me, each family member probably just assumed that I was some family member of some other distant relative.
I sat down on the sand and started listening to the guy’s presentation about the supposedly special moon event, though I still have no idea what he was talking about. At some point two young girls, along with an adult, though a relatively young one, approached me to ask who I was. I said I was the daughter of Patrice, the first name that came to my mind. “Oh, right.”, the brown-haired girl nodded her head and smiled as if she personally knew Patrice, the other two gave a less familiar, though a still somewhat familiar, nod. It seemed to me quite bizarre that none of them questioned why they never saw me once in their life, but then I remembered that I had the same experience with some of my own real relatives, more often than I’d care to admit, but of course, they could’ve just been some crazy people who pretended to be part of the family, I can’t rule that one out now.
Another crazy person like me who just pretended to be from the family. Surely having the same genetics doesn’t matter, if one of the kids were discovered to be from another parent, it’s not like he’d be thrown from the family, or (if the family’s decent enough) looked at any differently.
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