Betrayal is a wonderful issue which might be enough to produce a work which would break all box office records. So much literature has been written on the issue that it’d be difficult to make any quantitative guess. But then don’t have much more betrayal stories in real life? I mean in all truthfulness wouldn’t you think the real story of betrayal are more weird, more brutal and more inhuman than much of the creative work? Of course betrayal isn’t always about your sweetheart throwing you under the bus and to add salt to the wound to your best friend! Of course as soon as your sweetheart jumps fence the ‘best friend’ story breathes its last.
The difference between a kiss and a bite; hasn’t become that hard to decode!
Wouldn’t you give the thumbs up to innocent souls who try to mend some betrayal incident and mend fences between the betrayed and the betrayer? Of course they can’t be held responsible if old habits die hard and just a couple of weeks later the betrayer goes into action again.
The most difficult thing, so it appears, is finding out that one has actually been betrayed. Not that the person fails to see the signs. Yes, he does see them. But then it’s all about not being misled by the thin line dividing ‘the good from the bad’ these days. Hasn’t taking clear stand on the question of differentiating ‘the good from the bad’ evolved into something subjective? What many used to call ‘bad’ all through their lives has all of a sudden been turned into not only ‘good’ but the best!’ The age-old proverbial line between the good and the bad, between the blessed and the cursed, between the angelic and the devilish is worn out so thin one needs the keenest eyes on the planet to recognize it.
In fact, things we have been seeing as not only bad but something that should have been buried in the older Biblical times are all of a sudden so glamorized and eulogized you struggle to find the words to express what you actually feel. No sooner have you responded to some action with the horror, “What! You mean he actually did such a thing?” that you seem the brass bands of admirers marching from many sides. “He’s a hero of our times! If only the world had a hundred or two people like him ours would have been a world which never want to live. Why? Because it holds most of the things you thought were meant only for Heaven! “Hip, hip hooray! Life is beautiful!”
One can imagine the mental tsunami one has to suffer trying to fit into the changing world, ‘wrongly changing’ world! Many of those you knew held the same ideas as yours have shifted sides for reasons you could never have thought and would never understand. The accolade, tribute, praise, admiration … etc, showered on aspects of life you thought have made the world weirder are so much you might ask interrogating yourself. “Is there some very evil thing I committed for me to be thrown out so out and far into the no man’s territory with no chance of some hero or heroine coming to my help?”
The difference between a kiss and a bite; hasn’t that become hard to decode!
Even the perpetrator and the victim change places with the narratives blaming the punched and patting the back of the puncher! Now, wasn’t this world some time back the place where the loudest and emotional voices were about the inhumane treatment of the punched and calling for the puncher to face the law and answer for their unsocial and most of the time inhumane acts! At which spot much of mankind jumped the rails is for the researchers to find out if any of them decide to really look deeper into the shift that wasn’t supposed to happen and shouldn’t have happened. Of course the other problem is finding legitimate researchers who haven’t already changed sides and closed the books never to open them again.
The difference between a kiss and a bite; hasn’t that become hard to decode!
“I heard someone saying she betrayed him. What’s wrong with that lady?”
“Nothing. Who said there is anything wrong with her?”
“I just told you I heard someone saying she betrayed her hubby.”
“No she didn’t betray him. She did it for his own good.”
“What do you mean for his own good? She practically kicked buckets of dust in his face so much so I’m hearing he isn’t his former self! And you’re telling me she did it for his sake!”
“Yes, she did for his sake. You people should throw out all that old garbage stuffed into your brains. The world is changing and you better wake up before the final train lives the station.”
So maybe whenever you see someone you think has been badly treated or been victim of injustice small or big take a few more minutes before you start digging for your handkerchief or pieces of tissue paper. Under normal circumstances you need those things to dry the wetness around your tees. But normal circumstances of yesteryears are no more normal circumstances. Or to put it in better way the decoding processes of those ‘normal circumstances’ have been altered so have the conclusions too. It is a world where the one with the broken jaw is blamed while the jaw breaker goes home whistling all the way.
The world is reeling with so much that baffles you the question is should you be worried for the world indeed being on life support as the End Times rush ever nearer!
We’re in such weird times that tolerance and mutual understanding among people have been battered so thin no wonder things we used to take for granted are becoming almost invisible and ‘alien’ for many of us. Even trying to stand firm for what you think and actually KNOW is the right thing to do seldom gets you the applause, No, the world doesn’t expect you to be as innocent and as ‘humane’ as that. Fall in line or get lost! The message couldn’t be any clearer than that.
The difference between a kiss and a bite; hasn’t that become hard to decode!
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald November 26/2023