Bensimon got arrested one day, but he did not tell me the details, for what, when, or how. He was involved in illegal activities, obviously, otherwise he would not be arrested. I felt sorry for him deep down but I knew I shouldn’t. He did break the law and had gone too far. He burned himself on the iciness of the law.
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I did it, and I would accept the consequences.” Bensimon texted me. “I am not sure how long the process would take for me to go through the courts, the punishments, and starting a new life. Time is precious for ladies. Please live your own life to the full.”
I didn’t know if I would wait for him, if I could. I was at an age when I was growing and I was dying to reach more people and learn a lot of new things. I felt responsible for him nevertheless, although it was not my fault. It hurt to see another’s pain, and I felt the pain of their punishment.
“I want to know how I can help you out. I couldn’t leave you all alone in a time like this. How are you doing now?”
Bensimon was texting a really long text, and his chat box was shown as typing for a long time. And later finally closer to the night, his reply came.
“I feel touched you are worried about me. Good girls like you should not be occupying your time with people like me. Like I said, I would never want to burden you with my responsibilities. And waiting indefinitely for a judgement or outcome is too much to bear. It would not be a happy situation. What I hoped for, is that you would not be hurt by being with me, and that one day you would forget about me completely.
People all come and go like leaves. I was thinking once. When I was helping out at my friend’s uncle Royce’s Store. I spend most of my time sweeping leaves and it felt therapeutic, as I feel I could be closer to nature, and the lights now spoke to me more deeply. Mondays and Sundays are the same to me now. I feel happier when the weather is good or temperature is nice. I wonder if I felt deeply about these things because of some innate capacity to feel, or because of my mental sickness of depression.
Uncle Royce’s tiny store is called Thank You Store and it existed inconspicuously under the stairs of an old building. This is the first time I have been employed. But maybe employment isn’t the right word for it. Thank You store only had one employee which is Uncle Royce the shopkeeper, and everyone else works there as a volunteer. Uncle Royce works to manage the accounts and stock take, and other people come in to help him clean the place, to deliver brochures. I think because Thank You Store is not like other stores. Everything in it is free, and you could take whatever you want, and people returned from other countries with souvenirs like snacks or whatever foods that is latest in trend, and would leave it in the Store, hoping a stranger would pick it up and be cheered up for the rest of the day. People also came in to send letters asking strange questions to Uncle Royce, something regarding life, like why do we go to work? Or why am I single? Or kids asking what path they should take in life…
I helped uncle drafted some of those letters. I found surprising degree of satisfaction in that job, between bouts of depression. I felt at home, and I forgot I was already a foreigner in the place of the law. I had no place anywhere.
But the thing was, at Uncle Royce’s shop, I felt everyone was somewhat deformed, foreign, and abnormal. Lacking common sense or somewhat being unmentioned. And that made me feel so at home. Uncle Royce said, everyone is somewhat abnormal and did things not understood.
Uncle Royce said, everyone is somewhat abnormal and did things not understood. And that thought made me slightly reassured, that there was no marking scheme, and nowhere else I needed to be, or someone I needed to become.
I know, in a girls’ eyes, it seems like a guy without a concrete career path is not generally viewed as successful. And I feel that the paradox of being born into this world is you cannot just exist. It would be painful for a girl to invest or to even see a guy who does not have a plan all set out to ensure that her following him is worth her time. I understand that all very well. Uncle Royce made me feel otherwise, to simply exist. To love, to live, and to feel vulnerable. If you can be brave enough to live on your toes, without worrying about tomorrow, death or nothing having money, you would be truly and unbearably yourself.” Bensimon ended his letter there. I pondered for a moment, and then I checked out google map to see if I could visit Bensimon in person in his shop.
ns216.73.217.20da2
and then Add to home screen.