THE THIEF, HIS NANNY, AND HIS BLIND BLUE MEN

It was one fine morning, I woke up as the sun's ray glimmered onto the closed lid of my eyes. I was wide awake but my consciousness only grew when my mother knocked on my door to summon me for breakfast. I turned my phone on first to post “Good morning!” on Facebook, then stood up, wore my glasses, fixed my bed, and went straight ahead to the dining table where I found my family properly seated and ready to eat. It was a hearty breakfast. As Filipinos, we are accustomed to eating a significant amount of viand composed of the reheated food left from dinner, freshly cooked scrambled eggs, slices of bacon, cheap bread, a large bowlful of fried rice, and mugs of either hot chocolate or coffee. After working up my appetite, I went to the living room to turn the television on and watch the news as I remember we're still being haunted by the COVID-19 pandemic. My attention got instantaneously caught by the TV show played when I changed the channel -- an emotional thief, his nanny, and his blind blue men, and how they are fixing the problems they created while fighting an invisible enemy. He's no ordinary burglar though, he's not the typical wearing-an-aged-stripes-shirt type of thief. He's wearing a fine cloth and hands-free. He repeatedly assured everyone that he will no longer make the same mistakes that he still commits over and over since 2016, despite the overflowing number of people being cheated on and robbed of, apart from the overwhelming number of people acquiring the virus. The thief has a nanny whom he commands to face the people when he's been face slapped by the problems that he had inflicted on him. I cannot fully fathom how head-high the nanny is while talking about how the thief is robust in fixing his problems. The nanny then applauded the thief's blind blue men for doing great in advancing and imposing discipline to those who are aggressively retaking what they lost. They call them “terrorists” Probably because they are aggressive when they demand justice and equality from the thief? “Can we blame them?” I asked myself. “They only want to retake what was theirs. They are mere citizens peacefully living their lives but were robbed of by the thief. It is their basic right to demand.” I cannot fully grasp how great the thief and his cronies are at misdirecting the people's attention. Instead of fighting the invisible enemy, they chose to focus on reprimanding their so-called “terrorists” for loitering on the street. They even cut a rich man and his company workers' tongues to keep them from spreading credible information to the people whom the thief has been cheating on to. Can they reconsider their priorities?” I mumbled furiously. The show ended with a glimpse of the next episode. It began with how the thief is seeking for the masses' cooperation for him to finally eliminate the enemy, and ended with him, his nanny, and his blind blue men standing in front of a crowd with their right fist clenched towards the people. I sat quietly as the show faded to a close, gazing steadily at the transparent vase in front of me, wondering how such an idiotic TV show, whose main purpose is to entertain, awakened my senses of the reality that is happening around me. I am uncertain, but I know one thing is for sure: This is real. It is happening. Now, I understand that the people's rage is sparked by the unfair treatment and abuse of those who are in power. Because instead of putting an end to the invisible enemy which has claimed too many people's lives, the thief prioritized presenting us with laws that do nothing but trample our rights and take away our freedom of speech by arresting us for airing our grievances on our social media accounts. And instead of putting first our welfare, he chose to shut down a media company for speaking the truth and providing us with credible information. While his nanny and his blind blue men, on the other hand, continue to do what they're best at -- tell the people that everything is fine while things are falling to pieces, and if we choose to dissent, arrest us without a warrant and present us with trumped-up charges. I was beginning to think that all this is just part of my dream and I only need to slap myself to wake up, but no, this is the reality and I am living it. I posted something on Facebook that says “What we can do for now is to wait for the vast spread of the virus to finally stop, because after that is the day of reckoning” and put my phone on the side to rest. --- It was one fine morning, I woke up as the sun's ray glimmered onto the closed lid of my eyes. I was wide awake but my consciousness only grew when my mother knocked on my door to summon me for breakfast. I immediately stood up, wore my glasses, fixed my bed, and went straight ahead to the dining table only to find two men in blue uniform waiting for me to go with them to the police station for posting something that angered the thief.

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Tiana Mar

Poet & Aspiring Author

Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina