Mailman Jack 2

Jack falls into a short but overwhelming trance. He knows that if it weren't for the fact that he is actually sitting in the office where he works, the trance would have been, if not longer, more intense. The existence of other people, or the potential thereof, keeps him alert. He is conscious that his thought is fading into the background of memory just like the image in front of him as he processes less and less of reality, and more of a memory of a drunken man, wearing a black leather jacket, named Ronald in Jack’s head.

Ronald is not the man’s real name, but the name of the bar the man was standing in front of when Jack was passing by him. The man was probably kicked out of Ronald’s Bar, Jack thought to himself. Ronald, as Jack calls him, had some redness on one side of his face as if he has received a weak punch, probably from a girl he harassed inside, Jack thoughts continue. He dismisses the girly punch quickly as too much speculation, unfair speculation.

But Ronald is obviously not a saint. Jack was made nervous while he was passing by the bar in front of which Ronald was angrily murmuring things to himself. As a consequence, or at least a consequence is what Jack convinces himself it is, he gives Ronald an overly nervous stare, to which the drunken man angrily responds.

The man swears at jack and tries to swing a punch at him but misses and falls on the floor, just like the typical angry drunkard. But jack is an objective person and despite the extent to which having someone try to hit you is personal, he thinks of the incident in abstract terms; he tries to think of it in logical terms. Jack blames himself because he likes to think that he is in control of every situation. He realizes that this is not really true when it comes to dealing with the chaos of this world, especially people. But he convinces himself that had he controlled his reaction and only glanced at the drunken man in a non-offensive manner, or didn't look at all, he would have avoided the whole encounter, and this recall of memory would not have included Ronald, but probably someone or something else that holds more beauty.

His own reflection that he is captured day-dreaming of past experiences, starts to increase his alertness and readiness to come back to the real world from this trance he is having and possibly enjoying. His thought continues just before he gets back to Sally who is actually calling is name with worry about the unresponsive man sitting on the desk next to her.

He starts to think about the ethical and social responsibility pertaining on how people make other feel, while performing daily ordinary activities. He starts imagining people in his head, people whom he is trying to convince of his thinking. He start with simple things first and tells them that you can say hello in many ways, including an enthusiastic way that gives energy, and another depressed way that makes people feel sorry for you. This can be easily extended to the way you look and talk to people of course. Arrogance can show in your voice, in the way you look at people, and even the things you own. People are free to own things of course! But they have social responsibility to be careful and not let the things they own reflect on their behavior, and most importantly the essential characteristic of modesty and kindness.

“Maybe my stare was an unfair over-reaction that provoked the drunken man”, Jack admits to himself justifying the attacker’s offence because he has been judging the man since he saw him, making himself an ethical offender and perhaps the drunkard was able to sense such an offense but wasn't able to inhibit the compulsive reaction that made him want to hit Jack. At the same time, he acknowledges the fact that he is overly justifying for the poor evil drunkard. Jack is indeed usually cognitively dissonant and even over the simplest of matters.

But why did Jack start to think of that man? Jack is remembering a man whose everlasting impression in his mind would always be as an evil drunkard who has done many wrongdoings. But what was that man’s first wrongdoing? What was his first evil? How innocent was that man before his first wrong-doing as an adult!  Jack imagines a sequence of wrongdoings that very gradually increase in their evil, which led to the Ronald that he now knows. He momentarily allows a harsh thought that makes him and Ronald essentially the same: both of them started wrongdoing and have infinite potential to continue being evil.

All this runs through his head while in his short trance, wondering if he’s ever going to be a good man again. Indeed, a lot of things can happen in the mind, in such a short period of time. If only this realm is explored more often by the buzzing people around Jack, his world would be a much peaceful place. His mind wants to take him to yet another detour, but Sally is too worried about him to leave him at peace.

He’s been aware that she has been calling him for a while now, perhaps for 2 minutes or so, which is much longer than the usual time he can ignore someone insisting to get a response from him. Still her last call make him so alert and responds with surprise like someone who has been woken up with a loud scary yell. He reflexively turns his head towards her, says yes clearly and quickly, and waits for her response. He is annoyed by her question “are you ok?” but skillfully responds with a polite “yes, thank you.” A typically boring conversation follows.