Beirut Contrast



The child leans his hands on the window of the car. Heís dirty. He doesn't speak. With his blue eyes he looks inside the car and heís completely indifferent to the person. Then suddenly, as if he had ended his search in the emptiness, he stares at me straight into my eyes in a fixed manner. Heís like a small spook, appeared from just any street of Beirut, dirty of mud and tar, bloodstained due of his thousand cuts, barefooted, his hands blackened of dust, leave a stain on the window. As if to say: Iíve been here, Iíve touched your life for an instant I have also been in your world. The traffic light turns green and the cars in their slowness start moving again. He is still there. He says nothing. His stare is fixed upon my eyes. I canít help not looking. Two small blue pearls in the dirt. The sound of the truck behind brings me back to reality and I disconnect the plug that tied me to that ghost. A spook. Once 10 meters ahead, I look in the mirror to see if I can still see him. Iíve lost him. Lost in the metal, in the noise, amongst the sounds of just a common street in just a common district. I know that they are there. His friends and him. I know that they are there behind, amongst the road isles made of cement marked by hours of smog and by the small accidents of unlikely drivers..... The woman walks amongst the shops, the ones that cost a hundred dollars for every breath one takes, checking the windscreen with the discretion of somebody who wants to be noticed by all costs and lets herself be cuddled by the uselessness, the erect posture declaring her background.. She seems haughty and fair, wearing the arrogance of money. Her nose and breasts are redone. She wears a red Chanel dress with sand coloured buttons. I am always sitting in my preferred observation place. My car in my current city, in my usual traffic. She walks faster than my actual movements, I follow her route as she unconsciously follows mine.. She turns towards the road to cross to the other sidewalk and she checks on everybody as if to show off the importance of a usual and common action. Our eyes meet. Now Iím her spook. Now itís me leaving my hands on her window.. She doesn't fix her glance. She is nearly threatening me. Without knowing that the same glance, losing its fire, is not looking anymore at her but at the signs left by the childís hands on my window...