Sonder:
(neologism) The profound feeling of realising that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.
There's a whole other story scrawled along the edge of that boy's cheek. A written work in progress tucked into its curving silhouette, with its own orchestrated timeline of connections, chapters, triumphs and tragedies.
He sits down, looks down and disappears into a screen. He reappears for his eyes to flicker briefly and his masked voice to reply shortly. Across from him, an older lady sits up very straight in her thick black glasses and thick green coat. Her muted remarks pull him up from the glowing narcotic in his hands once, twice and no more.
Their words are ruffled and torn by the raucous underground soundscape that the public uses as a curtain for privacy. It feels like one of those cheap, flimsy curtains that rear up at the slightest draught, rummaging around in people's dialogue and rifling through syllables at will. An ancient rag covered in soot and holes and filth, but it serves its purpose. No one listens to them. Even I don't listen to them – only to the muffled shadow they cast on the other side.
Veiled words aren't just made private, they're made dull and uninteresting. They've been marked as foreign by this fabric fabricated by the individual. Foreign – why should I care about something foreign? Why should something foreign care about me?
I watch the fabric knit itself tighter every day. Even as we choke on the dust we cling to that curtain as a child to its blanket, soothing and hushing and rocking the phobia of being seen and known.
Still, the prettiest pictures are painted when you pull the curtain aside to let the light in a little more. The prettiest melodies happen when you stop listening to your own voice and attune yourself to another.
The prettiest stories are told by voices in harmony. But for now, I'll see if I can read the story written on that cheek.
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