Frederick Roussel:

The world was a terrible place that hurt you, now it smiles while you wake up in the morning, your fear is taken away. You feel light and happy and the earth is innocent, warm and friendly. You walk past shops and bakers in the morning air, and people smile, there is no danger. You don't worry about money, because your spiritual value is what counts, and people don't tax you on your hardship. Your previous poverty and hardship is a distant past, even though it happened only yesterday. It was the magic thing you discovered, it gave you back your dignity and your pride, and it made you realize who you were. You saw yourself as you were before and didn't know the person, the oppressed, weak, broken clown.

You knew you were not going to be unhappy, that you were able to do something which wouldn't be so heartless, as what you did all those years ago, in the name of Service to the system.

You saw those selfish businessmen in their ruling towers of selfishness and unkindness, and you wished you had their lack of empathy just for a day. That way you could escape your hardship. It was love and a care for all the problems in the world which sent the wolf to your door, and took the food out of your mouth.

You walked those dead streets in pain, and you saw how the poor were pitted against one another, educated to hate and loathe you, for fear you might help them, or let them see comfort and happiness for once.

That television screen in the cheap take-away nearby flickered a dead film with dead actors, and all those around you are dead, even though they look real.

Everybody was dead then, and so were you. You walked in pain, and had nobody to understand you, you buried yourself in those same old films, those same few possessions you had, and memories of your better past.

You felt what a ghost feels, and now that ghost is a real person.

The person who wickedness and deceit tried to kill. The person who strength and trust could never get through to. The person who swallowed poison and fear every morning, and who drowned their sorrows secretly, not wishing to interrupt the peace of luckier people.

You always wanted to be lucky, and now you are.

"Luck" © 2010 Frederick Roussel