Playing the blind chicken
A Moment of Reflection
by Lilia M. Fiallo
Playing the blind chicken…, until autumn arrives?
When you are Young you do not think about old age because that is not the theme, you live in another harmony there are other dreams, other illusions that surround our life while the years go by…
Maybe at twenty-five years, still not firm, because one is looking at other horizons, far from projecting to be in the shoes of a person seventy-five or more years old, much less imagine a physical disability at that age. In truth, nobody projects for old age and when it arrives, the same phenomenon happens that happens when you are young and yearning to be a child again, with the difference that you can’t.
When did the best years of my life go and I without saving? How nice it would be to go back to the past and start doing what I did not do but neither can.
Today I have to think about myself; think about saving for a for calm and peaceful future, that I can have money to pay for the services of an employee who accompanies me and does the trades that I will not be able to do, buy food, pay for services, cover unexpected expenses and monthly rent. Or maybe I look as strong as an oak and radiant as the light of day, no matter how my hair looks like a snowflake walking from right and with firm step with seventy-five years or more, without having to depend on anyone.
Whatever the future today I have to think about myself; not to spend the last years of my life in an asylum for grandparents, where loneliness is alive walking through the corridors the past torments, and to top it all, nobody remembers to visit to those beings that were once loved.
Sometimes we carry responsibilities of close relatives to never end, while they observe us, and what we least imagine happens; these characters take possession of material goods that we have achieved through years of work and sacrifice, and like the dilapidated and old furniture that no longer serves, we end up mistreated and ignored in the last corner of our home.
Today I have to think about myself and put the reason before throwing myself in the mouth of the wolf, so as not to be like Simon, alone widower and without illusion, that one day, he thought he would win over his children and grandchildren by distributing the money he had amassed in company of his wife. In a moment of foolishness he gave every last cent of his children and the children of his children, believing that he had bought everyone’s’ heart and found himself imprisoned in his own trap. Nobody visits him anymore, nobody calls him or give him gifts because he no longer has money, only his pension that allows him to survive.
So Selma did not think like that who for time said: “Today I have to think about myself”. She, with determination, did what no one would have done for her. When she became a widow, she continued her journey and, far from thinking about inheriting her loved ones in life, she committed her secrets to herself. If one day she died everything would be different, but in the meantime she had to think about her well-being. She had an apartment with all the amenities she needed, a manager and because she has been sleeping a lot lately, she had three employees who took turn to assist her 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. She continued with her habits of the good life; she went to the beauty salon every eight days and twice a week she had dinner outside the house.
Today I have to think about myself, -otherwise – would I continue playing the blind chicken until autumn arrives?.
Lilia M. Fiallo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, where, between tasks and free time, she found a place to write about subjects, somehow forgotten by others. With gold letters engraved in her memory, she began her working life, in the heart of the technical part, of the air traffic control of her native country. In the midst of aeronautical phraseology and codes, the world of aviation gave her one of the highest experiences, because of the precision required by this craft, where a single mistake could cost many lives. It is there, where in her concern to communicate her ideas, she begins to write with dedication, themes a little relegated by society, the Church and the State. Discovering a truth that nobody wants to talk about, but much more real and everyday, than it seems. It is thus, as it appears, her first work, “Parir por parir”.
You can find her book at for sale in Amazon.
