I opened my eyes to wake up in a cold sweat. My stomach is as empty as my desire to step out of my bed. “When did I lose my individuality?” I thought to myself as I rose from my safe haven into the chilly morning air. I walk to my bathroom mirror and stare at the reflection of something unrecognizable only when I first wake. “When did I become nothing more than a hand for the powerful to use as they wished?” Those like me are submissive to the authority of others. The decisions of those in power shook the entire earth, and I was just one of the many pebbles moved by the tremors. I continued to circle around my house, feet gliding against the alabaster tiles of my kitchen floor. I look out into my backyard from the window and notice the thick vegetation that had once covered the land had molded into a worn out and cracked landscape. “What a shame,” I thought. For days, there has been nothing visually pleasing about the things around me. My sight, like that of the other dazed walkers, was fixed blankly straight ahead so I wouldn’t have to face them. The steady rhythm of feet pounding against the layer of death had slowly beaten the emotions out of them.
A familiar call gurgled from the front of my mind and echoed through the rows of machinations that reside in my mind. Its 7 am. I hear my doorbell ring. “Who would come to my house this early?” I think to myself. When I open the door, I see a pair of travelers. They seem weary, yet composed in their disposition. I couldn’t get a good look at them until they lifted their hoods to reveal themselves as Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman. The revelation was too much for me to handle so I fell back in my faint.
“Are you okay?” Walt Whitman asked. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” I said. “Well, nothing endures but personal quality,” Whitman said. All three of us entered a state of laughter. There was a certain light that they carried about with them. I felt as if someone in the world actually cared about me for the first time. We all shifted ourselves to the couches. They took their bags off their shoulders and began to assemble their arsenal of discourse that has crawled slowly through my ears whenever I read their works. “Are you sure you’re okay, son? I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence,” said Douglass. Another sound reverberated through my body, and the chaos in my mind began. The lines of their words began to condense, clinging to each other for protection. “This life that surrounds me isn’t as iridescent as you would think it would be in this moment in time,” I said. “The decadence of this nation is appalling to me. The only vision people have any more is of a paycheck.”
They looked upon me with a sense of understanding. “I know we are of another time, but we have encountered that exact decadence in our time as well. When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind,” said Douglass. “I agree,” said Whitman. “I have seen the value of life being stripped away from men, women and children for the gain of coins. It pained me to see such a thing occur because I would see myself in each person I’ve come across. I know you are feeling the same pain as well. A pain I would sound out as a barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” “I am,” I think to myself, but I don’t need to tell them that. The pain of it all appears on my face as clear as day. “I don’t just see myself as one of them, I am one of them. I’m apart of the disenfranchised. The 99% of people struggling to survive while the 1% keeps our nation’s wealth to themselves. As much progress as we have made as a country, there are systems put in place to ensure regression.”
Another sound. My surroundings felt as if they were melting away as the different colors of the room swirled in their eyes. Their eyes showed continuous understanding. They have been through this. They have been through worse. Who am I to complain when their struggles clearly gave them wisdom. “That is the problem with a nation built on the backs of other. It will continue to reoccur without action,” said Douglass. “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” “Peaceful action, of course,” said Whitman. “Though the Civil war was inevitable, it was not the cure to fix the way the country was broken at the time. I thought Song of Myself would assist in the remedy.” No war can fix something that is causing a war within ourselves. Douglass sits back more in his seat, “It is not your fault, Whitman. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” I wonder to myself if they lived in this time, how much change would they be able to bring about in this world? Both revolutionary in their rights, but people on social media are able to get simple words and phrases around the globe in an instant. I look to my phone and the same decadence I despise looks back at me. Technology can make or break just about anyone.
I look to Whitman as he sits calmly, occasionally knocking back on the rocking chair, contemplating and observing me closely. "You could’ve published Leaves of Grass just about anywhere on the internet in this day and age,” I said. Douglass and Whitman both stare at my phone in awe that a small thing like this can do such big things in the world. “Yet, it fails to truly connect us with other people. Social media does not make you as social as the name suggests.” Whitman’s enamor over the concept instantly dropped significantly after my statement. “If a man were to see me on social media, and then in public, he would not say a word?” Douglass asked. I replied with a sigh, “yes, unfortunately.” Whitman shook his head in disappointment. “If a someone I have on this social media passes right by me and has shown a desire to speak to me, why should he not speak to me? And why should I not speak to him?” he said. “In reality, people disassociate themselves from the world outside of the internet. What you see on the internet is not always what is,” I said. Douglass looks on with partial disbelief. “Experience is a keen teacher, I suppose,” he said. “You say there are systems in place to ensure our regression, maybe this is one of them. Much like our religious masters at St. Michaels would rather us engage in degrading sports, than see us behaving and communicating like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings. The hold that our masters had on us are not the same as what hold the powers that be may have on you.” Whitman suggests, “it seems to me that part of what ails you is something that can be removed rather easily. With that much availability to information as you hold in your hands, it can be very overwhelming and distracting. A focus on the self is very necessary. After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on, having found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear, do you know what remains? Nature remains.”
Another sound rings in my ear and I closed my eyes to avoid the metamorphosis the room was about to experience. I opened my eyes to see that rather than the space around me deforming, it morphed back into what I’ve been able to see before. I looked around to see that Whitman and Douglass are gone. I walked back to the kitchen to see outside my window that the sun was setting on the plants that now look healthy enough to eat right off the roots. I took a shower and brushed my teeth to see myself in the foggy mirror. I was able to recognize myself for the first time in a while and I cracked a small smile. I walked back to my safe haven and wrapped myself deep into the concaves of my mattress to close my eyes once again.