compassion, awareness, blessed, fear, life

Greg Fisher’s five words: compassion, awareness, blessed, fear, life

Mr. Comoassion sat in a chair wandering what to do now. Almost his total life he had been Mr. Compassionm. Not because he wanted to or because it was natural to him. Quite the opposite. It was not natural to him and neither did he want it in certain.

He realized society was parted in niches, and to fit in a niche you had to have certain qualities, certain skills or had to have that sharp elbows that you could push yourself a space even though you didn’t have the wanted qualities or skills.

That was his problem, he soon realized. He didn’t have the qualities or the skills or sharp elbows. When checking the niches where he could fit in, he saw the charity niche was not overcrowded and those in there he could easily elbow to the corners of the niche. Therefore he entered it, elbowed and became Mr. Compassion, the Mr. Compassion himself who organized and had a finger in all kind of charity in the small town.

He had been Mr. Charity-Comapssion now for nearly a man’s age, and he had the situation up under his throat. In addition to being a thing you don’t want to be, he had to be on tip-toe all the time, alert and aware, an awareness to secure nobody could see through the shield that was Mr. Compassion and see what was under it. The older he became, the harder it was to keep the shield up and let there be no crack in it.

Therefore he was now sitting in the chair, wandering what to do now. He had by some incidents lost parts of his compassionate shield, and he had seen some people observe that with curiosity and something that he didn’t know what to call. But he had rapidly pulled on the shield of Mr. Compassion and had observed bewilderment from the same people. They wandered if they had seen what they had seen. But he knew that sooner or later – quite soon, actually - he would not be able to keep the shield up closely enough to fool people, and what would then happen? He feared it, not for his life, more the lost position and the despise and malicious pleasure he then would meet.

There was no other niches for him if he had to leave that of charity. He was not an able professional of acceptable subjects, neither was he a good politician. So what could become of him? Not that the life as Mr. Compassion was that blessed, but it was not a despised way of living. At least it gave him some position in the society. He was someone, not no one.

Therefore he sat in his chair wandering. His life had come to a vwatershed, and it was up to him now to decide whether his life’s river should end in mud and nothing or take another course. And if it should take another course, which way should it go, and how should his life’s river now flow? Silently, in waterfalls, in chutes, widely or in a small and tiny stream with waterstills here and there? And did he have the strength to change the course of the river? Or should he let it end in mud? Also he had used much of his life,s energy being Mr. Compassion. Did he have energy enough to change the river of his life? It had been claiming, this Mr. Comapssio-thing.

Mr. Compassion sat for a long time in his chair. He had been sitting there often the last months wandering around the same questions and getting no good answers to them.

One day he knew it was his last chance for change. His life’s river was heading into mud.

He rose, and as he passed the mirror in the hall, he saw the disillusioned and desperate Mr. Compassion look at him. He spat on Mr. Compassion. Never looking back he walked away from his nice house.

He never looked back, and he knew that the inhabitants of the small town should feel the spit of Mr. Compassion.

So they did, years later.