Casual violence
It’s still early in the day. I watch a brawny man in uniform bend over a vagrant and let loose with an open palm. He puts all the strength of his upper body into it. The vagrant, fast asleep one moment, mouth agape, is on his feet the next, shocked tears pouring down his cheeks, rubbing the side of his head. And yet as I drive away, it is the brawny man who is clutching his palm from the impact, shaking it, doubled over with the pain. Good, I think viciously, I hope he broke a bone or two.
Walking in the noon heat, March heading into April, the tar is already melting underfoot, the gooey stuff sending up acrid fumes. It’s no use thinking of the summer yet to come, this sun has no intention of tiptoeing into our lives. Like the bully cop this morning, it straddles the sky, no real thought, no emotion behind the anger.
The rusty shield bearers are throwing a tantrum – the flowers rain down with soft plops that first startle; stepping on an endless pollen ridden carpet, a fragrance rises that stifles and sniffles. The tabebuia, usually so elegant and gracious in their cooler flowering season, are flushed and resentful of the heat, the blush pink already hazy and uncertain. The flowers won’t cling long to the branches – they drift down in silent reproach: beauty dissolving into smeared footprints.
There is an unbridled aggression to the flowering this year – as if the muted and distanced emotions of last year have given way to this brash outburst of violent beauty. Everywhere, the buds are rampaging into full bloom, leaving the hard memories of another spring behind. My balcony plants have caught the mood – plants that have never bloomed before are putting up a bravura performance, and my mood is strangely euphoric and subdued all at once. To be amidst such largesse does not bode well for the months of drought that must surely follow.
A couple stands under a tabebuia tree in full bloom. The girl leans back against the trunk, the boy holds her twisting wrist, his arm appearing too fragile for the pain widening her eyes. I step past, remembering that I too owe one more heartbreak before my dues are paid in full. Will that touch, somewhere in the future, be casual or carefully thought out, volatile or forgiving? I blink to clear a suddenly blurred vision. I think of the careless words, the long years of practice making the negligence polished and painful, and I have to force my mind away from my imaginings.
Later, deep in my afternoon nightmare, I acknowledge just how capable I am of doling out small measures of pain. To goad, to tease and taunt – here’s what you missed, if only, if only. I scratch the old wounds carefully, casually, but I know full well how deep the cuts run. And still I cannot bring it to an end. In the ways that matter, this slow bleeding is far worse than the rough-edged rejection when my goading has finally overstepped the mark.
We are both aggressors and victims, becoming innured to the violence we inflict casually as much as we normalise the pain we lay ourselves bare to. If we stopped to think about it, our laid-back consciences might develop sharp edges. It’s easier to carry on mindlessly, excuses of time and distance keeping us from questioning the careless words, the messages unanswered, the phone call that rings endlessly in an occupied house, the long silences, each a moment filled with thought and unthought.
This is the season of birth and beauty. For birth to matter, there must be death or at least dying. And to balance this raging beauty all around us, there is the casual violence of our lives.
The day is winding down. The roses are blooming outside my kitchen window. I look out as voices rise on the air. The roadside neighbours are in the midst of their daily argument. One moment, it is just talk; the next, the sunlight flicks off a steely edge. I turn away as a crowd gathers and bury my face in the white roses.
So beautifully articulated! Such a tough picture to see!