Jasmine: Heads you live tails you die

Life is really like this. A game of chance. Every day we open our eyes and decide to keep breathing were taking a chance. Some people like to believe that it’s only those who put themselves at risk, those who go off and fight for their country or vacation in Africa, they are the ones taking chances, but at any moment our lives could be snatched away. The very act of living is throwing the die in a game no one knows the rules to and eventually everyone loses.

Tonight I went to dinner with my aunt and uncle and among the things we discussed, climbing 5.10’s, me needing a job, Abe/Molly and such, we got on the subject of the news. I have no tv, and I don’t normally remember to look at the world, much less at my own backyard. But she does. She likes to find out just what’s happening out there, not because she has any great urge to do something about it, but because she’s curious. My aunt is eternally curious.

There’s always tragic happenings, and sometimes some really random happenings. A man at century rio, was carrying a gun. He stood up and this gun fell out of his waistband, holster, not sure, and upon hitting the floor it discharged. The bullet went through a woman’s ankle. This man did not have a concealed carry license and is now facing some fairly serious charges. For my aunt this was a discussion of how peoples lives can get destroyed by the stupidest things. In this case chance was like fuck you man with a gun, and fuck you woman with the ankle. Of course if he’d had the permit the charges wouldn’t be so steep, but the woman would still be injured.

My aunts points continued onto people who destroy their lives for idiotic things. Or who are just plain stupid. She can not understand the reasoning behind some of their motives. A woman in Arizona flew to Florida and essentially treated herself. She got her nails done. Her hair done too. She went shopping and had a grand old time. But before she did that she either killed her eight month old baby and threw it away, or gave it to some people in the park. She has claimed doing both of these things. No one knows which is true or where the baby might be. The father of the child is bereft. He didn’t join the army and go to Bagdad, he’s not a bad person, and yet his life seems to have toppled over in the sand and no one knows how to right it again. The woman has destroyed herself for no seeming reason. She is currently in an Arizona prison. My aunt is confused.

A man shoots his toddler in the head to get back at the mother. The mother is still alive, and somewhere deep down, maybe so deep she doesn’t realize it, she is happy that she was the one to survive. And the man is in jail with prisoners trying to kill the child murderer.

A mother and father beat their baby to the point where it is blind and will never walk. They take it to the hospital saying that it has a fever. Was this stupidity on their part? Did they not realize that the staff would not recognize such abuse? Either way the child is maimed and they’re in jail.

These are some of the things we discussed at dinner. I realize now that they sound really depressing, and horrifying, and yes my aunt and I were outraged. But that wasn’t what the conversation was about. It was about people destroying their lives for confusing reasons, and how fate doesn’t care where you are, who you are, what you’ve done or haven’t lived long enough to do, when it’s your time they cut your strings and let you fall.