Look at these people

Laughing at meeting

Crying for loss

Shouting for money

Smiling for children

Giving to the poor and the blind

Stay just one more minute

And you’ll see 10 billion souls

Coming in and out of the station

With their own histories

Their fights, their occupations

Their colonizations, their monarchies

Their flags blowing lonely

Signifying something that does not give or take

And their ancestors

Heavily placed on their shoulders

Their tanned skins under the R’zza or

The New York Yankees

Imagine for their families and their friends

Their good natures and bad natures

The food they need to eat

The drink they need to drink

The shoe cleaner will look only at your shoes

An – 8 – year – old will ask for a dirham

Tell him to come back later

And he will definitely come back

For a dirham or for a quarter

And for that small green coin

Or perhaps for the gesture

He will finally smile like an-8-year-old should

But he will look into your eyes with his hands placed on his heart

You will see how he is already too much of a grown up

His ancestors and his country

Already glued to his feet

That march 50 km a day in a less than 1000 mete square

Perhaps he will dream of travelling himself when he gets older

Perhaps such dream is vain and a luxury

That does not exist in the minds

So filled with petrol and horns

Perhaps the passing happenings of everyday life are enough

But then someone might come up to him oneday and say

“You are a smart boy. You look good. You know things. You should get out of here. You should see the world and see life. Live life while you live.”

And if the voice comes from both outside and inside

Perhaps he will go – just pack up and go

Into the world of terror and confusion

World of love and sadness

World of war and silence

World of tears and violence

World that he knew too well

World that he already learnt

When he was 8 years old

Cleaning shoes at the Gare Routier

 

Written at the Mahatta, Inzegane