There will come a day -- it is not far off now -- when you wake in the morning and know you were meant to be happy and that you want it more than you want things... all the things that fasten you... It is you who hold the power to change. And whatever it is that holds you, whatever it is you think you can’t live without, the time has come to open your hands and let it go... If you fear it will never be possible, think of Harriet who traveled alone the first time, who finally freed 300 hundred people, but first had to free herself.
-- Becky Birtha, “Poem for Flight”

The place smelled of staleness and mold. Everywhere the eye could see was covered in trash, clutter, and useless items, and although mid-morning, not a speck of light shone through the grim and sour room.

He hadn’t been out in days. It seemed he’d been unconscious, comatose. He couldn’t recall the day or when he’d eaten last, though he wasn’t hungry. Perhaps it was the smell in his place that didn’t stir his appetite. Today was the first time he’d smelled the stench of his two-room domicile.

He knew, though, he was jobless, having stormed out of his job because the boss, or “the man,” refused to pay him for a day’s work although he showed up at the job site late. He knew he had no one to turn to because he was estranged from his family and really didn’t know where they were. He knew he was angry.

His life hadn’t been a cup of tea. He grew up in severe poverty, suffered abuse, incest, and rape, was the butt of a community’s color complex, and cried daily over a mother whose persistent drunkenness led her to the grave, a death so early she had no time to show her one and only son how to love or be loved. He lived with shame, guilt, and anger for even having made it this far, which, in his mind, wasn’t very far at all. Oh how he hurt, and the more he hurt, the angrier he got.

But he could no longer hide behind his anger. It’d gotten him no where, no where but a stint in the state penitentiary, a bullet that still lingered near his spleen, and more kids than he had fingers and toes to count. Hiding behind his anger was costing him his life.

As he lifted himself from his worn, squeaky, twin-sized bed, wiping the crust from his eyes and massaging the sore, sluggish muscles throughout his body, he noticed a torn piece of paper on the floor underneath his work boots. Why he noticed this piece of paper was a mystery to him for there were many pieces of paper spread throughout his disheveled and odor-filled room. But it seemed that the small piece of paper was somehow illuminated and called out to him for retrieval. Slowly rising from his bed, he bent to pick up the paper. On it was one word, “peace,” and he remembered it had been given to him by the man that lives on the corner just below the stairwell behind the garbage cans. The man had placed the paper in his hand as he’d passed him three days earlier.

He turned that paper over and over again in his hand and thought about what it meant. Being a smarter than average man, he could think of many synonyms for the word “peace.” “Calm,” “freedom from strife,” “truce,” “serenity,” “harmony,” “untroubled,” “silence,” even “soft,” “humble,” and “dead.” “Humph,” he said as he thought dead is what he felt as he reflected on his life then crumpled up the little piece of paper and threw it back on the floor.

But he thought about the man who’d given him the piece of paper, a small and deprived man who had even less than he did. He’d often seen the guy rummaging through trash and begging passersby for change; he’d even thrown him a couple of dollars one time or another. The man walked with a limp and a stick. He talked to himself and carried on wild and vivid conversations with some unknown person only he could see. The man wore a brown tattered coat even in the heat of summer and his shoes, if you could call them that, had paper-thin soles and appeared to both be for the left foot. The man’s hollow face was ashen, pocked, and disfigured from the scars of a war fought and not won. He lived in a box, smelled of urine, and was considered an eyesore, a nuisance, and a nobody to each person who passed. What in the hell could this man possibly know about peace?

But, then, who was he to judge given his current state of mind and affairs?

He walked over to the sink, turned on the leaky faucet, and washed his face in the rusty water. He looked at his reflection in the hazy mirror, glowered at the deep lines on his forehead and around his mouth, and it dawned on him that perhaps peace is found when you give up the notions of entitlement and demanding that life treat you fairly simply because you live and breathe. Perhaps when you accept that though every person is flawed and operates under a mix of filters, perspectives, and other forms of preservation, he or she is ultimately trying to reach the same place of freedom and happiness that you are, and mistakes and misunderstandings are bound to happen, supposed to happen. Just maybe, he thought, if he gave up feeling that he should be exempt from the pains he suffered, he could move past their ghosts and the consequent anger and then happiness, or at least something similar, would surface. It was at that moment that he wanted nothing more than to know the feelings of peace and happiness. But how and where was he supposed to start?

He thinks of calling his former job and asking whether they’d forget his rage of a week ago and let him come back. Or maybe he’d just look for a new job. Perhaps he’d clean up his place, empty the weeks-old trash, and let a little light in. Maybe he’d call his father and kids just to say “hello.” While these seemed like good ideas, he thought they were a bit ambitious and would take more strength than he had right now. But he had an even better idea: he’d visit the man on the corner. Maybe he could tell him where to start.

When he got to the corner, he found a cardboard box, a few empty liquor bottles and cans, but no man. He looked around, thinking he couldn’t be that far away but instead saw a deserted street with only a few cars and plenty of boarded up buildings. He walked along the street until he came to a stoop where he sat and began thinking long and hard about himself. In order to find peace and happiness, he thought, he needed to first forgive himself for being angry, for being angry about being angry. He needed to forgive himself for allowing the anger to kill his spirit and squash his life. He needed to face the pain and fear beneath the anger, bit by bit, unraveling it to find the parts of himself that he lost at each stab. He needed to find some love for himself so that he could reconcile and reconnect with himself and the world around him before he found himself engulfed in eternal darkness.

As he continued his thoughts, wiping away years of tears, he noticed a shadow over him. Looking up he found the little man standing before him. He searched the man’s face, waiting for him to speak, waiting for something profound from this man who lives so simply it’s considered a societal ill, waiting for him to explain his lot and the circumstances that led him to the corner, waiting for him to give him the answer he so desperately needs. But the man simply says to him, “peace” and walks on.

Watching the man limp away, he repeats the mantra to himself. “Peace.” “Peace.” He continued to speak the word softly as he stood and walked back to his address.

Today will be his new beginning. Today he will start the tedious chore of sorting out the pain, fears, and frustrations so that he can have peace and ultimately happiness. Today, though it’s like any other day with its regular sunup and sundown, he has made the choice to be happy.

Sadiqqa © 2007