58. reality vs. fiction
Is it two sides of the same coin? I'm here for both, I want the whole coin.
What up Detroit.
Last week an event happened in my neighborhood. At 2:22 am someone broke into our neighbors’ car and robbed something from them. What? Wait for it.
I was writing my journal, as I usually do, 8:15 am, sipping my coffee, living my life. When a police officer got out of his police officer car and walked up to my neighbors’ house. They had a quick chat and it took my brain two seconds to start knitting a fantasy blanket. The first story was: my neighbors’ kids had been kidnapped. Quickly, my head started working again. And I assumed it couldn’t be that.
So I built a new theory. Since neither of the parents were crying or screaming, the kids were fine. Maybe one had broken an arm or a wild animal (here we have foxes, peacoks, iguanas and even alligators) had entered their house.
I texted my neighbor, we’ll call her Vanessa. She replied immediately “Someone broke into our car last night.” Okay. Cool. So no funerals.
In my reality, Vanessa and her husband, we’ll call him Jeff, are a very normal aºnd cute family. They have two little boys and they always wave and smile at us, since day one.
In my reality, they’re a cute normal family. At least that’s what I thought. Until I asked Vanessa “Did they steal something?”. She smiled uncomfortably. “A gun.”
I tried covering my first, genuine reaction: horror.
They had a gun in their car? I mean, sure. This is America. This is Florida. But, THEY had a GUN in their car? I smiled and made a weird joke I can’t remember. Walked back to the gunless safe space of my home.
My reality trembled. I couldn’t understand. My reality shifted dramatically, adjusting to new evidence: the image I’d constructed for my neighbors wasn’t accurate at all.
But, what is reality? Let’s have a look at the dictionary: