Sometimes you must walk down a lane or street made narrow by construction. What do you do when you see other pedestrians coming from the opposite end? Do you push walking demanding the others to stand back? My upbringing does not condone such conduct, so I always stop and let the approaching pedestrians pass first. Women generally thank me, but as for men, not so much…… I remember the conversation I once had with a middle-aged French woman who could not get a promotion or pay rise like her male colleagues. I was incredulous that gender inequality still exists in France, the birthplace of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity.’ Her boss ridiculed her for her age too.
Last week I was on a plane that touched
down in Porto, Portugal. A man was
visibly hurrying to go home, so I stopped to let him go before me. However, this man made sure of it by elbowing
me, totally uncalled for. It was a
glimpse of what was to come because my turn in the queue wherever I went would
not progress because there would be men to cut in front of me. Sisters in Porto helped me out in the end,
but the men nearby acted as if it was business as usual. I thought Asia was the only place where peer
pressure on men existed to act tougher and superior to women.
THE CHARACTERS
SERPENT,
aka NAGA, the eight-headed
deity. The snake represents the frailty that sees us stray from the
path and often into darkness. Big predators make the headlines, but
ordinary people are tempted to commit small-scale cheating when shielded under
the mantle of anonymity. On good days we can fight off the
temptation, but on bad days when we have just lost something and the world seems
unfair, our hands reach out for it while a sinking feeling spreads inside our
hearts, warning us that this is not the way to get even with
life. However, God or the universe may not mind if the gain is
minimal? So we tell ourselves.
NAGA represents
the second chance and atonement in life.
GODDESS IRIS/NEMESIS:
Instead of picking one from the existing religions, all of which I respect, I
opted to represent the universe's will via Goddess IRIS. God gave us
light, and Goddess followed it up with the sound, but as sound travels slower
than light, no one knows her existence despite benefiting from her gift,
music. Something turned this once open-book IRIS into NEMESIS, Goddess of
Retribution.
THE
SPIRIT of LOUIS XIII: The king of France who reigned
from 14 May 1610 – to 14
May 1643. Enigmatic character the world may not have fully appreciated,
not unlike the current, which can be substantial even if the river looks calm.
OMELETTE: the dog who was the pet of Louis XIII in its former life.
TRUST: The
Nephilim, rejected by the angels and the man, opted to take over the dark
throne vacated by the Serpent. Devil was the name imposed on the
Nephilim by the man, while the name he chose for himself is TRUST.
ADAM: Of course, the first man was created after God's shape.
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