A story about two men
the blind man
There is an old blind man who walks the streets of my city with extreme dexterity. Every day he repeats the same route, walking with his cane. I always know when he is coming, because his whistling is loud and melodious like the birds’. I would even risk saying: louder and more melodious than the birds of my city. When he is not imitating the birds he is whistling beautiful songs that sound like music about distant loves.
There is a spot near a market where the blind man sits and spends the day singing and whistling for spare change. Loved by everyone, he apparently supports himself on the money he earns on the street. But I think that, at some point in his life, a man feels the inevitable desire to rest a little. I sincerely hope he can do so if he wishes, and that there is someone providential at the side of an old, tired, blind man.
I feel like giving him a hug and telling him about all the days I heard him passing by, and how his whistling and his songs about distant loves fill me. How his sonorous expression makes me think of divine things. How vibrant his energy and his good humor are. This blind man is something wonderful. I feel like telling people about this man. I wish everyone could meet this man.
the young man
There existed a young man who was shot dead in the middle of a Saturday morning, in the center of the city where I live. Tragic decisions were apparently made in a full state of madness, fury and anguish. The sound of gunshots tearing through the sunny morning. Are the details of any relevance?
Today I passed the place where yesterday the young man lay, shot dead, in front of many. For a few minutes I contemplated the sinister emptiness of that sidewalk; of that railing which yesterday I thought was green. That man stretched out on the ground, ending his human experience while I made small talk and drank coffee.
Anguish takes hold of me when I think of the young man. Obviously things could not have been different, as they never are (they are what they are), but I cannot stop imagining a less tragic story with the young man as its main character.
I would write that the young man would meet the blind man of the beautiful whistling. The blind man would teach the young man something about life, something simple, thereby modifying the structure of time and of people, thus eliminating the tragic meeting of two men on the sidewalk that stretches and breaks all the way to the center of the city.