Yesterday was a too beautiful day to be wasted at home. But the reality was, I scrolled down both layers of my window blind curtain down at the bottom, almost touched the floor level the night before because I thought i could retain the heat from the heater (the expensive one!) that way, and lost like a quarter of that beautiful day because I slept until 9.30 or nearly until 10 in the morning. When I woke up, it was a bit cloudy, I opened my phone and my friend texted me asking what would I do today because the day is beautiful. I was like, err, I just woke up, honestly. And it's a bit cloudy outside (a sort of justification of me not being outside at the moment. I instead, prepared my brekkie, ate and back to my electric blanket, to try get some inspirations for my draft. I have been like playing with a rubric trivia since last month, because I kept organising and re-organising the structure of my draft until I confused myself of what I have been looking for all this time. I stucked, and then I stood and stared from my window. Hindered by the newly unfinished constructed apartment tower across my room, I still could see the sky a little beet, peeking from the northwestern side of my window. Blue. Like clear blue, crystal clear. Then I hated myself of not doing anything. So I woke up, dyed my hair in cold water, dried with hairdryer (sorry for my housemate who pays the bills, this Oz hairdryer is a bit fantastically unbelievable in terms of electricity consumption: 2K wattage! but I had no choice when buying it, nothing at any shops that I visited, that is under 2K wattage, what can I do?). Then, I felt bit warm, indeed the sunshine felt from my room a bit. So I decided, "I am going out". Highly determined, I reached unto the top drawer of my built-in-robe where my Rio de Janeiro summer thong is stored, well, using chair to assist me reaching it, I am just 5ft tall. So that was quite an effort. I wore a short sleeves black t-shirt I purchased from Cold Play concert in Melb eight years ago, and a thin cotton short pants that I haven't been worn for ages (well, at least since last February when the weather were 'normal' in my tropical perspective of normality). And I bravely waked outside the apartment, to chase the sunshine outdoor, so brave I could almost hear the anthem We are the champion or the sort of victorious songs :-). I must have a reason though, so I thought, buying some basic groceries will be great. I thought of milk and bread, but then I recalled that I have bread remain on the fridge, so only milk, and since I have no more fruits, maybe an apple or two. Two granny smith apples and a carton of calci-plus soy milk from a brand I like. After paying, I saw that there are two or three benches outside the supermarket that I could use to sit. So there I am, sitting down alone with a pair of thong, short sleeves t-shirt and a thin jacket, with short pants, eating a green apple as my lunch. I looked at the public housing across my bench. Some people came in and out with cars or walking. Next to my bench, a guy with glaring orange vest was sitting down too. I wasn't sure whether he was eating or just being sleepy and looking for sunshine just like me. Then I looked again and I read his back vest, is written: Big Issue. Oh. So he was finishing his job, delivering and selling Big Issue, must be in the city center somehow. At 3 pm or 4 pm, he finished. After that, I looked him walking across the street, and getting into the public housing. So he lives there. And in the street and in the parking lot, many good, luxurious cars are parked and run. Also, many people lives in my apartment complex, who afford to pay nearly 2K per month for rent. I wonder how much they pay for public housing, perhaps half or less than that, subsidising by the government. But I still feel like the inequality is bit worse, because poverty at destitution level, as literature says, had long been erased in the developed world like this, unlike in the developing countries where it is rampant and pervasive. You can see and feel it everywhere, often, you're part of it always, so you think it is normal. And I, suddenly, feel so sad. Because I live in a nice apartment and he lives there in that dodgy-look public housing, even though we may have same level of income, just perhaps. This feeling, this same guilty feeling I felt when I was small, and looked at my friends who lived in the orphanage nearby my kindergarten, and looked at myself with pretty warm and nice house. Or when I looked at my neighbor who didn't have enough food to eat they had to share bits of fruits and nice food to eight or ten people, while we sometime had to throw bananas because we fed up with bananas everyday (I seldom saw bananas at their dining table, so I one day smuggled a box of banana - to avoid being rejected as I knew they had that pride - to their back kitchen door, and they suspected those stuff too mysterious to take or eat -they thought it's black magic voodoo or poisonous so they threw it). That same guilty feeling because I am richer than they are. I don't know why I was born this way, maybe I am somehow born to be leftist who are guilty of material possessions (later in life I have savings though), but perhaps it is simply the Bible verses that I read earlier in my childhood and that I memorising it in my brain, they are stick there. The verses about Lasarus the beggar and the rich person. And the verses about those who help the poor in the world that God admitted to heaven after they died. Maybe.
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