Sinister

"Excuse me, could you hurry up. I don't have all day." This from a woman at the grocery store, on a Sunday morning when the lines for every register are at least ten people deep.

"Hey...HEY! I said I wanted this with extra foam. This is pathetic!" This from an outwardly well-to-do young man concerning his cappuccino.

"Hi, is this the Smith residence?"
"Sorry, you have the wrong number."
"What?"
"I said, sorry, I am afraid you have the wrong number."
"Well, this is the number I was given..."
"I don't know what to tell you sir, but this is not the Smith residence."
"Well what the hell am I supposed to do now?!"
*click*
A conversation with a distraught individual who had the misfortune of dialing a wrong number.

"Hey! Baby baby, you are doing that all wrong, let me show you the proper technique. We will get your back in tip-top shape so you can slip into that nice strapless dress." This from one stranger to another at the gym. The advice was not solicited, nor was it desired.

What are all of the scenarios I have described above? They are samples of interactions I have observed or experienced over the past two weeks. I could have listed many more, but that would have been an exercise in redundancy. I am not going to stand on a pedestal and condemn these people. Everyone has a bad day. Some people rarely have good days, and for all I know I might have witnessed these people at their best. What I really want to know is what the people around me were thinking when these little affronts to goodwill and civil discourse happened before their very eyes.

I watched people standing in line not noticing the intense disrespect, inflated sense of self worth, and general poor manners. Their eyes were not open or their attention was focused elsewhere, and there is no point in wondering what a person thought of a movie they have never seen. What of the rest of those who were present? They saw what happened. They heard the dialogue. What transpired in their minds? Did they feel anything? Did the feel pity? Were they offended? Were they angry?

I was not angry in any of these situations. I was irritated, but I was not angered. However, the little voice within me took on a very different tone. It hissed as it spoke. It dropped into a lower, deeper more sinuous register. The face within went from the smiling young man I see every morning in the mirror to something very different. Its chin dropped a few inches to add a shadow about the lips and eyes. The upper lip rolled back ever so slightly to show a rictus grin. The skin took on an ashen tone. Cheekbones became more pronounced and the eyes took on a golden hue. The face within took on a truly vulpine visage and one not unfamiliar to me.

I found myself toying with thoughts of responding to the rude patrons ahead of me. Firing mocking and cutting words at deserving targets. I wondered if it would be entertaining to watch the fool with his now-perfect cappuccino take two steps and spill it across his tailored suit. I snickered on the inside as the woman in the grocery store had her credit card repeatedly denied. She was in such a rush, and yet there she was, a slave to her own misfortune. Were the people around me thinking the same thing? Did they see justice and divine providence? Did they see anything at all? Perhaps they felt pity. Perhaps they were truly good and kind souls and felt pain at the misfortune of everyone involved. Or maybe they were just like me. Maybe part of them was very much like a viper, and saw the guilty being punished through the gaze of a snake's eyes.

I like to think that people are fundamentally good creatures. How else could we have built society? Yet at times like these I look within and see something very different. I see scales in the den of serpents. I see fangs grinning in the dark. People might be good. People might be noble. But I look within myself and I think that deep down, in the hands of our childlike hopes and innocence, we all hold a hidden dagger. Deep down, we are all a little sinister.