Distracted - Armando García-Dávila

[Larry Robinson]

Distracted 

Each morning the rising sun bears witness to the commotion of our hectic lives. Thunderous machines tear down and rebuild the city, others repair streets using monstrous jack hammers as we race to work honking our horns at lazy drivers. Helicopters hover high overhead warning us of traffic tie-ups. We turn up our radios to hear happy announcers play happy music and happy advertisers who make us laugh and make us want. 

And all the while our employers, our churches, our families compete for our precious time. 

And we can’t miss our television programs. We pull for the pretty young lady to be the next idol. And listen to the roar of fans at the stadium as the ball soars across the field like a bird on the wing. Oh, what a play!

You understand that it’s hard to hear much else, don’t you?

We do feel bad about the issue though. You know, the one about our war in your country.We see it on the news: the rubble that were your homes, your mourning for your children consumed by fire and hate. And the young soldiers who’ve lost their legs, lost their arms, lost their sanity as politicians on the right shout at those on the left; one deaf to the other. Their incessant ranting and uproar is so hopelessly confusing. We close our eyes to it, close our ears to it lest it claim our mental health. We turn to wine, turn to ale that lends a moment of precious serenity in this lonely, frightened and confused life.

But when the sun has set on our frenzied world and the moon has made its way high into the black night and it is so still that even the crickets are silent and at long last there is quiet. It’s in this time of solitude that the dreaded question begins haunting our troubled sleep. 

“What, in the name of God, are we doing?”

Then mercifully the alarm clock shrieks and the din begins anew.

	- Armando García-Dávila
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