Intermission IX: Says the Reed to the (Conch) Shell Through the Duck.

you there, born like a reed. 

have you ever imagined how it would be like to be someone other than yourself? (or maybe you do, but not the way i'm thinking).  

tell me, do you know what it's like to have a shell like mine?  

you don't.   i hoped that it'd be like what i've witnessed so often, and secretly dreamed to have. (but i forget, those people were reeds too. not conch shells).  

you found it so easy to judge my shell as unworthy, when you haven't even sampled the contents.  

so easily did you take to it a sledgehammer, not even thinking of what damage you may cause not to just the shell, but what the shell is part of (but you'd like that to happen, wouldn't you).  

How do you think it'd feel like, if i were you, and you me? would you feel as you've made me feel?  

but then, you know don't know the meaning of empathy, i don't doubt. (i simply wonder why it took you so long to blow your whistle. after all, you've seen me at least a dozen times, knowing what i am. but you let me believe it would be alright?) 
 

i suppose i must say a bitter thank you for helping me to finalize a self-fulfilling prophesy, although i doubt i did anything to contribute to it's culmination, apart from growing my shell. 
 

it pays to be a cynic, you know. because if you'd turned out another way, i would be an optimist for a while, and tell myself 'see, what were you worried for? things turned out all right' and maybe get shot at sometime in the future. 

it hurts more when one isn't prepared to be pot-shot at.

so think about cynicism as a shield of sorts.  

and  now, when things turn out like this, being a pessimist, i can congratulate myself on being right all along, and tell myself, i told me so.  

a cynic at 22, i feel faith in good things slipping out of my fingers, like flour through a sieve (everytime you shake it, a little more falls out). 
 

because deep down inside, even as i prayed for it to be alright, somewhere inside, a little doubting Thomas whispered not to get hopes up, 'just in case'.  

(and now i'm paying the price for that folly).

eli, eli, lama sabathani?  

Father almighty, the ever-living God... is this a warning to the little thomas living inside me? (but Lord, you appeared to the other Thomas to dispel his doubts...) 
 

Happy those do not see and yet believe. i guess this means i'm one of the 'unhappy'.    

P.S to the other famous and wealthy reeds out there, if you complain another word about you having an extra millimetre somewhere on those cheese-pared stalks of yours, i'm going to pot-shoot your photos (that have been sandpapered anyway).  
 

because you don't have the right to talk about your oh-so-imperfect reed stalks, or talk about how its all about inner-beauty (when people go crazy over your reed stalk and cares a whit about your inner-beauty... wait, i hear an echo somewhere... oops, reeds are hollow, right?), not when you don't know what it's like to be a conch shell. 

P.S.S Once upon a time, a reed looked into a mirror and saw carrots for legs, a turnip for a belly, and wailed and moaned to the shell. Methinks that one ought to see Dr H, for such is a symptom of horrid self-image distortion.