|
Monday, May 12, 2003
The Weeping Demon
Before you make anything of the title of this article, it comes from one of Akira Kurosawa's segments in his classic movie 'Dreams.' There are 8 dreams that he portrays and interprets and The Weeping Demon is one of them.
The scene opens with a man staggering across a nuclear fallout. He walks around wondering what will become of him and as he surveys the devastation around him, he feels lonely but not alone. Because suddenly in the swirls of smoke a demon suddenly appears. A one-horned demon. At first the man is taken aback because of the grotesque appearance of the demon.
But as they size up each other one gets the feeling that they both are afraid of each other. The demon asks the man if he is human and the man just looks at him. The demon says that he too was human, a farmer in fact.
But because of the nuclear fallout a lot of mutations have occurred. He shows the man gigantic dandelions, bigger than most people. He shows a rose whose stem springs from the flower and has a strange bud at the end of the stem. The demon blames man for the destruction and the madness. The man asks what he does to survive and the demon says that he eats anything but he also says that he too can be eaten. Around them where other demons who had two or more horns and it was usually the two or three horned demons that ate the one horned ones.
In the silence they hear moans and screams of anguish. The one horned demon whispers to the man that those are the two and three horned demons who are doing the awful noise. They have gathered for the night and just like every night, they desperately ask to die but are refused death.
The curse of the demons is immortality. They cannot die even if they wanted to. The demon brings the man to the place where the other demons have gathered. It is in a small crater with pools of red water that seem to be blood. The man sees the gnashing and the crawling of the demons. They seem to be in torment. They are asking to die but they cannot. Trapped in trap that has no escape.
The man seems to be mesmerized as he looks at the gathering of demons. The man looks at the one horned demon and is shocked because the one horned demon is writhing in pain. The man steps back, not knowing what to do and the demon screams at him to leave. He urges the man to leave but the man seems to be stuck. The demon approaches him and says leave. Leave unless you want to be a demon yourself. And the man leaves, scampering down the hill and being swallowed in the smoke of nuclear fallout.
The Weeping Demon is not my favorite in the movie but there is a line there that has stuck. Leave unless you want to be demon yourself.
In our dealings with people we are often given choices. People are basically good but sometimes when we are lucky or unlucky we get to meet well, demons. And most of them are not grotesque or filthy. Most demons in fact have charm, wit, and intelligence and can even be clothed in goodness and respectability. Who ever said that demons need to be ugly. The real demons are pretty, handsome, and perhaps even holy. Sarte was right, "hell is other people."
In the story May Day Eve, Anastacia is asked by her daughter if the mirror in the hallway revealed the face of her husband or that of the devil. Anastacia answers that it was the face of the devil that appeared. And the child reels in horror and asks if the devil was ugly and the mother says no. He was handsome just like your father she says. The daughter asks, did he have horns and a tail. The mother pauses for a moment and says bitterly "yes but at that time I could not see them." How true and sad.
I have a friend who was betrayed by the very same people she trusted. She was offered a job and she accepted it because she trusted the person giving it to her. A few months later she found out that the job did not exist, well it perhaps existed only in the mind of the person offering it to her.
She was then told that she was offered another job, a demotion in fact.
Others would have protested and made noise but this friend just took it like the decent person that she was. She had to undergo various forms of humiliation but she came out of the situation a lot better. She took the situation and saw the lesson in it. She had class and worth. And a lot of people of people admired her for it.
It is not easy being like that. Our tendency is to lash at the injustice done and curse the heavens for allowing such a thing to happen. But who said that life was fair. Oftentimes in our lives we see evil triumph and we wonder about the fairness of God. Like why would He/She allow something like that to happen. Most of us are decent people and sometimes when some thing bad is done to us, we wonder at the cruelty of the act. We question how can some people be so mean and cruel. And we can be bitter and cynical.
We can fight or take it. We can do revenge or act with grace. I used to wonder about that friend of mine and how she was able to take all that was heaped upon her. She would just smile at me. Last Christmas I got a text message from her. She said, "let us be glad Rene that we acted the right way." I stared at that message for a long time admiring the depth of that statement. If others are cruel we need not be. If others are shallow, we need not be. If others lie, we do not have to do so. If others hurt us, we do not have to follow their example. If others prostitute themselves for positions and power, we have a choice to keep our selves intact.
I know now the wisdom of my friend. She took it and showed the ones who oppressed her who was the better person. There are demons in all of us but there are angels too. The choice is ours. But I have a question.
Tell me, why does the demon weep?
(May 12, 2003 issue)
Want Sun.Star news on your mobile phone? Click here.
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
