the Outer Side of My House

Since everybody closed their houses from the real world, empathy hasn't come back to their hearts. Yet, there is still a girl who tries to save them with knowing all the risks she has to bear alone.

--

 

My world has always been gray. No sun or even the light blue sky I have ever seen in my life. The heaven is always covered by a pale colored sheet of clouds just like the color of every building around me. And most of the time, the sky gets gloomy, or darker, or it drizzles, especially when I am walking on the street. I don't mind a little rain, it's fun to feel the breeze and the refreshing shower while I was alone without being watched by anybody. I can close my eyes, tilt my head up, then walk blindly on an empty street. So if you look out of your window and see a silly girl doing a silly thing, well, that is me. It has become my weird habit ever since I got this job, a job that made me live alone in a simple house yet comfortable for me. It's not a normal house, it is a room filled by everything I need and I like, except my family, of course. To get this job, I have to say goodbye to my loved ones and say hello to a lonely city where the only people that I know are myself and that old man who comes to the front of my house every morning and night. Maybe it's a bit of depressing for some people to be alone and to work alone in a deserted place. However, this is my life, and it's beautiful somehow.

 

Because of this job, my life goes to a path where only some willing to go. Perhaps you are still wondering what my job is or who that old man is. He is basically a deliverer, he brings a raw material for me before sunrise, and caries away my garbage after sunset. I like to talk to him every time he is around or call him when I need a help. He is my boss, my genuine-charming boss. His kindness is overwhelming at the moment I see his cheerful face. He is not that handsome, he has a funny beard too, but he is cool. The coolest thing about him is his personality though. The first time I met him, he asked me a couple times to be his employee, to be a mirror-maker without being paid. That's weird, right? Who wants to make mirrors for living? Also who wants to do it for free? Nonetheless, he kept calling me every day. I ignored him until I started listening to him and finally understood why he needed me so much. There is something in this city that only some people care about. A massive waste of cans has broken the ecosystem of a lake near the city. It only takes a few years for the lake to be flooded with filthy water and a few more seconds after that to save the city. So, my heart was moved (a bit), then I said to myself, "Let's go to save some people."

 

The only problem here is the usage of cans, the spray cans. People use them a lot and after a couple of minutes, they throw them away to streets or to sewers nearby. The Old Man has warned them to stop spraying their faces for fun. However, they keep shipping spray cans from many places, this makes the production as well as the distribution unstoppable. Here's where my part comes in, because this mess is unpreventable, I need to be one of those people who 'campaign' on the street. What is the campaign? Well, pretty simple, I go to the most crowded location, stand there alone with a lot of confidence, smile, and the most important thing, hold a mirror. That's it. I know, it's silly, but this is the only way. If I want to save them, my pride has to go away, so their ignorance can fade as well.

 

It has never come to my mind that this is going to be difficult, I though holding a mirror was not very hard, until slowly, it does. Laughed, shamed, hated, or disgusted by other human being are things I cannot avoid anymore. I tried to find another way to stop this epidemic, perhaps that is what you are thinking too. Sadly, holding a mirror is the only way. The cans and the wastes are not the root of the problem, it's the people, at least that's what the Old Man had said. "Let yourself be the reflection of their faces," he told me. In the other words, he wants me to hold a mirror so people can see how bad their make-ups are. I must admit, I hate a face that is painted with sprays too. For me, they look uglier, but for them? The opposite.

 

One day, I entered a big-luxurious house. Inside a big discotheque hall, hundreds of people were having a party with the spray cans, they sprayed it to each other for fun from the moment they were born, I thought. It was very crowded, noisy, and laughs were a constant music. In short, it was dark. I didn't have any courage to stop them, I didn't have any rights to forbid their fun actions. So, with a mirror plastered on my body, I walk between bundles of dancing teenagers around that house, trying to find a person to talk to while hoping people to see their reflections. It took me a while until finally, I met someone I knew.

 

He was spraying a wall, painting his little masterpiece. Once he emptied the can, he just dropped it on the floor, the same way he dropped the other dozens of spraying cans. As I took one of them from the ground, I was thinking this might be my perfect chance to make a conversation.

"You should throw this in a trash bin," said me with a soft voice while handing the can.

 

He didn't hear me right away. My voice must travel slowly for a few seconds through the cacophony until reached his ears. He stopped, turned 45 degrees, looked at me disturbingly, lost his interest, and then continued his routine.

"I can do it later," he said cynically, "beside, nobody has ever thrown anything to a trash bin anymore. I am just following these people, you know."

"Yea, but if you don't throw it to a trash bin, your friends are going to scoop these cans from the floor and toss them out from a window which later will jam the sewer, resulting a flood."

He chuckled.

"Hey! Don't blame me. They are the ones who toss the cans to the sewers. I mean, look around you! You shouldn't lecturing me, talk to those people who are wasting cans for fun and not for something important, like art!"

 

He looked at me carelessly with a little bit of confusion before started spraying again.

 

I went outside with two cans held by my hands. I trashed them into the right place, staring back at the house, hoping my old friend could change.

 

My first attempt made me realize something crucial in this 'war'. You don't tell them what to do, or show them the right thing to do to make them change their mindset. I can try to use every single creative solution I know, every single innovation and creation so people can change their mind instantly, but none of them can work as long as they have the ignorance. No matter many times they see me cleaning the sewers or standing below a heavy rain for my campaign, if they don't fully care, then everything is useless. For me, "Change must emerge from within", yet still I don't know how to make that happen. Now, I just have to keep trying. Do what the Old Man said, he knows many things, plus, he is old enough to be followed. Reflecting people's faces is the only and the best plan I have right now, like it or not.

 

Days have passed, my work finally becomes my routine, my job replaces my old life, and also my personality is kind of changing. At 6:00 AM, I wake up, fix my eyes, adjust them before receive my materials for making mirrors. At 7:00-11:00 AM, cutting the mirrors and frame them. At 11:00-12:00 PM, lunch with a small tree in front of my 'house'. At 12:00-5:00 PM, walking around the city, hanging my good-looking mirrors, and standing in every corner of the city. I do it all of that alone with a lot of help from my Old Man.

 

Some days are great; some days are raining or retiring; some days are boring because I am alone even though it's extremely peaceful; some days are fun because I have more time in making cute mirrors; some days I can relax, but there are more days I can be busy. And, there are days when I feel braver after drive out a truck of spraying cans. Those drivers always ask me directions to find their consumers' houses. So I answer them, "Sorry, this is an anti-spraying cans region, so please go away." Without any doubt, they go away and I feel quite proud of myself. The Old Man must be proud too, that's why I asked for a raise.

 

Well, he was totally rejected.

I am just kidding, Old Man.

Don't be mad.

Please.

 

There are also days of conflicts, days that made me have a long discussion and debate of things that are correct or wrong with someone, times when I think deep about whether what I am doing here is right or not or useless, moments when I am wondering why nobody listens to me despite knowing the facts and the consequences. They encourage me to live with the reality, not to live the other way. I listen to them and often think what would it feels like to be like them: ignorance, joyful, can do whatever you want, buy whatever you like because neither rules nor boundaries can bound you. And I actually did that. I sprayed my face a couple times in the past, felt the fun of the colorful world. It was a great pleasure, I even talked to myself, "Nobody gets hurt if I keep doing this, why stop here?" For months I got addicted without being noticed by anyone. I washed my face when I was about to go outside only to do the unwise action at the night. If you think again, there is nothing wrong with that, right? I hurt nobody. I put the cans in the right place. Plus, I am not as addicted as they are, so basically, I am better than those people. Basically, I am normal.

 

Wrong.

 

It was all a mistake I chose to make. There's a hidden danger if I kept doing that, not the flood, but something more personal. I couldn't work properly. I was starting to lie and broke my relationship with my friends because I couldn't control myself. My mission for this city was not making any progress. I wasn't happy wasting my time in that utopia, it started to feel like a trap. Something I believe is that the worst part hasn't come yet, I don't know what it is and don't intend to experience it. In the end, I decided to stop after thinking about my regrets for hours. After all of that, I realized something, "Everything has its own consequences, consequences that you can see, and consequences that are hidden from you." It might be hidden or perhaps you are just too lazy to think about it. Perhaps that's what happen to these citizens, not all of them are very bad or dangerous people, maybe they are just lost, like me. I understand their problem, but this cannot stay the same. I can found my way out, so can they. A little push from a tiny friend is what they need.

 

Months have passed, mistakes are still made. I am still learning to be a good employee, still doing my best. Often, my mirror takes people attention, though most of the time it doesn’t. There was one time when my work was amazed by 30 people in duration of weeks. It was amazing because there weren't much people on the street. 30 reflections of humans was a pretty big number in those days. Until now, that mirror hasn't fallen down yet, still hanged so someone can see it, or at least I can, because nobody cares about it anymore. Another popular work I made is my posters. I post it monthly for the sake of my fun. It takes a lot of people’s attention and I hope they enjoy it and get the 'hidden message' ;-)

 

Or not.

 

Maybe they will hate it just because it is bad, ugly, or because it reflects their faces. People hate to be criticized, that's why they smash my mirrors or tear my posters apart. In some rare cases, they come to me and tell me to stop holding a mirror and stop hanging all of my mirrors around the city. They shout directly to my face. They can also tell me to stop by making that stare of disapproval while gossiping. Those things break my heart, I even hide my mirror sometimes so people don't mock me. I walk with shame covered with fear. They are screaming with microphones on top of buildings, making sure their spraying cans arrive at their houses and demand justice to those campaigners who is trying to blockade their happiness. I hide, terrified. They call everybody to go outside, telling them to destroy things that reflect their faces, cursing them and their makers, wishing these mirror makers to go away. I hear their disappointments right behind them. And when they see me, I fake my smile, keep believing they don't mean it because they don't understand anything that I am doing.

 

I watch my work shattered onto the ground. Slowly, the fragments of my life are pushed by rains into the sewers, blocking city's drainage. Suddenly, some people come to me, telling me my work is useless and makes things worse. I cannot defend myself, I just shut my mouth, hold my emotions as strong as I could until they start walking again. I thought I was making a difference, but it turns out, my works are junk. I planned so big, expecting so high, and this is where I end up, watching everything falling apart.

 

Yes, this is the hardest time in my life. I feel hopeless, small, weak, and worthless. I hated myself so much until I smashed my own mirror over and over and over, cursing it with a shaking mouth, accepting how stupid they were. Things were getting worse, not better. Their happiness was ruined yet they still didn't believe me. Nothing changed.

I shouldn't try.

 

That night, crying was the only thing I did besides hoping to get a long-deep sleep. Nobody came, I was hoping a 'hi' from a stranger, instead, the Old Man is watching me from the window and telling me to be strong. He believed in me. Sadly, I didn’t. However, I was grateful he was there, that’s the most important thing over all of my burdens.

 

The next morning, I woke up late without having any spirit. It was silence, more quiet than any other morning. I wiped that dry tears over my face, tried not to remember last night. The mirror which I broke, I was staring at it, staring at the broken reflection of myself. I told my own body to move and fix it, yet the sadness held me, comforted me for a while, then let me go. It was heavy to put the pieces together, they reminded me of how broken my soul. When I was done, I hanged it back on the wall, saw my cracked sad face, and fixed it with a big smile.

 

And do you know the greatest part of that morning? I walked outside, realized I was late for work, that's why the Old Man still stood there until this late. I looked him while he was looking to the east. I said with a lot of sorry, "I am sorry, si"" He silenced me with his finger which later moved to where his eyes stared at, pointed to a faraway person who is walking toward us. We both paid attention. The unfamiliar soul was alone below a drizzling ashen sky. I watched closely, the Old Man watched me joyfully. For the first time in a few months, my faith was restored again. That figure found one of my cracked mirrors and saw a reflection. The rain was starting to become heavy yet that person still stood there. The Old Man opened an umbrella for me who was shocked uncontrollably, he then tilts his head, telling me to go. I hesitated, I was scared, full of doubt, not confident, the past hadn't gone away. "Go," he said softly.

 

.

.

.

 

He was right, he was right. I took my package off his hands, run towards my broken mirror when rain tried to stop me but instead made it more dramatic. When I got there and finally met you, I didn't say a thing, so did you. We just stood there staring at our reflections. You don't remember me, maybe, but I do. You didn't change drastically after that morning or even days after it. Perhaps, you haven't changed a bit until now. And that's fine. I am happy to find someone who wants to look at his own reflection that has flaws. Please don't deny it, don't be like my old friend who denies his flaws. Because this is the truth, we all have flaws, we put others into the lowest part of their life. People are trying to ignore it, trying to think it's a good thing, or consumed by it, or even accepting it as an absolute curse for us, to just live with it. Our heads make us think we are big, some of us, in the other hand, think they are small, yet in fact, we are all the same. I am not better than you are, you are not better than anybody. We are here to be better together. That's what I believe. We are more than creatures that spray for fun and be so ignorant about life. Look at that mirror again and please change. It will be difficult and hard, but it's for the best. A desire to save this city is that's drives to do silly things, I hope you want to do it too. It’s a weird request, right? Just like what happened to me a year ago. So, please just listen and think deeply about it.

 

I will be waiting outside your house, out of your comfort zone. Don't think too much, there's no more time for us. However, if you decide to stay there, the only thing I can say is thank you and see you soon because I believe, you will come out eventually, so please be quick.

 

Thank you,

See ya,

 

:D

 

 

Author's Note

THANK YOU for reading or stopping by.
I made that for everybody who wants a change in their own life, I hope you like it. Sorry for the grammatical errors, if you have time, please help me correct them so that I can learn from those errors

Thank you very much :)