My Sickness
by Jorge Vargas
Let's not speak of figures and statistics. Let us even leave history aside for a moment. We have no time for that. My disease does not give me the luxury of time.
What is my disease? What is it that keeps me lying in bed for so long at night? What is it that haunts my dreams? What disease bothers me when I sit down to eat? When I'm with friends? It may be biological, but it may not be.
I will now write what I need to write, setting aside that diplomacy that I have made habit, casting off propriety, and forgetting all about respect. My disease does not give me the luxury of diplomacy, propriety, and respect.
What is my disease?
I was in a car driving down a major roadway in one of the world's major capitals - never mind when, never mind what kind of car, never mind what roadway, never mind what major capital - when I saw her. No one else was watching her. She was just part of the scenery.
Behind her was a desert that held inside of it a jungle of unfinished buildings and roofless homes, a chaos of laborers, thieves, police officers, and stray dogs. Construction commenced nearly a decade and a half ago. The buildings now remain unfinished. They are hollowed-out shells, holding nothing of substance within them, consisting of dark crevices, uninviting vermin, and the uninhibited cold of night - a similar description could be given of every city in the world.
She was sitting down on a bright-red, plastic bucket utilizing it as if it were a toilet - propriety has been cast aside. No one even noticed her.
I was having lunch at a restaurant - and once more, let us leave out the inconsequential details that we obsess over so much in our daily lives. He walked in with his guitar and sang a song at my table. His song was of his life - the only thing any of us can ever truly sing about. It was a song of an alcoholic father, of a broken mother, of a dead sister, of hard work, of suffering. It was a human melody.
I was speaking to a secondary school student who solemnly told me that he was not interested in college because college would not help him. "I can't get into a good school anyhow, and even if I did, I can't pay for it, so I'm just going to work," he said. I told him that he should still apply, and I encouraged him, but I was lying, and he knew it.
The sun was setting and the night had extended her beautiful grasp over my corner of the world. The Moon was shining her beautiful light on the cold mountains, and the nocturnal world was waking up, and the animals were singing their beautiful songs, all the while ignoring us - the poor, confused, blind humans who clumsily made our way helplessly down streets without electricity. Our confidence suddenly dashed without our machines.
But the market and the adjacent restaurant shared a generator, and it was there that I saw a child staring in at the restaurant from outside. I called her over and offered her a meal – after all, what is $5 to me? – but she looked at me as if I were Satan himself and said to me, "I can't afford food, so I'm not hungry." With that, she left.
You are beginning to guess at my disease. That disease that is now giving me time to slow down and speak for a moment of those statistics that our good friends at the banks love – yes, those banks where the men in suits have figured out how to compare Dollar figures to human dreams. Over a billion individuals on our planet live on less than $2 a day. That's enough statistical data.
The natural disaster struck and the city was paralyzed. The next day, reports of the damage came in. Along with most of the people who could afford it in the city, I went to the nearest municipal donation house and left sweaters, pants, and new socks. Large quantities of the aid has still not reached the affected, and the earthquake was three months ago. And that's without mentioning the donations that were stolen - and I donated my favorite sweater...
I was seven. I was sleeping. It was early winter, and I was cold. The cold woke me up many times that night. But something else also woke me up. An explosion. Shattered glass. The house rumbled. Screams from my family members. A military convoy outside. A soldier shouting into his loudspeaker. Stay indoors. Shooting. Machine gun fire. Terrorism. A war that would kill 70,000.
Now do you know the name of my disease? Or rather, of my condition?
I was in one of the major capitals of Europe, feeling at home in a nation that spoke my language and that had a culture so similar to my own. Of course, to them, I was an invader. They saw me as just another immigrant. They saw me as inferior. They thought I was a criminal, and they treated me accordingly.
Every day he stands waiting for me in the heart of one of North America's most important and richest cities. Every day, as I walk toward my office, I see him, I greet him, and I give him $1. He always looks me right in the eye and says, "God bless you." They haven't stolen away his humanity. Not yet.
We were in a corrupt South American capital, and she looked at me, with the ocean behind her. The power of it loomed large over her, and over me, and over our city, and over our words. After all, what is a human next to nature but a part of it? "I want to leave, there's nothing here," she said.
Traffic had, as always, gripped the city and so the cab driver and I started talking. Sports. Politics. Women. Cars. All of the nonsense that we men talk about amongst ourselves. I told him that I wanted to come back, to return home. "Why? There's nothing here," he answered.
Is it becoming clearer, my dear reader?
The evening was beautiful. The city was vibrant, bright, and alive. The skyscrapers - those beautiful skyscrapers that demonstrate that we can build great things together - looked down on us, the mere mortals, from the heavens. I was having dinner with a wonderful friend that night; I was done with everything that I had to do at work, and the evening, I knew, would be spectacular. The restaurant was exquisite, and the tab came out to something near $120 - looking back on it, I realize that in some countries, you can buy a healthy cow for that much money. That is what I returned to. Bright lights, skyscrapers, exquisite restaurants, and $120 tabs.
My condition has a name and it is, as far as science can tell me, incurable. My condition is driven by self-interest, by greed, by lust, by power, by glory, by love, by honor, by kindness, by racism, by phobias, by arrogance, and by hypocrisy. You have my sickness too, though you may not admit it.
It is the human condition, and it is extremely prevalent in a now endangered region of our universe: Earth. It affects all bipedal animals capable of abstract verbal communication. The condition is inherited at birth, and someone born with this condition has, according to the scientists, never been able to get rid of the condition.
Its effects: Irrationality. Brutal treatment of all others also affected by the condition.
Of course, my condition can be controlled. It is not a curable disease, but it is controllable. Intelligence can control it. Education can control it. But there are forces superior to intelligence, and there are those who hinder education, so those controls are imperfect.
Can a cure be found? I dare you to try.
