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I want to share a piece of my mind to the world through writing and film.
Don't Talk to Strangers
Jul 21, 2020 4 years ago“Don't talk to strangers,” is a sentence that echoes in my head every time I break this golden rule. Quarantine brings out the worst in people. “Don't give out personal information,” is another phrase that bombards my mind whenever I hint at something too close to reality. But now is a time without rules, in which boredom hunts our repeated days and sucks us into a parallel reality. Life in Mexico looks like a faraway dream that was once my life, but after closing some friendship cycles and pouring my feelings onto paper, I realised that there is much more than this bubble-wrapped society. There is a world out there. So. Back to strangers. It all began as a joke. My sister and I found a trending website on TikTok in which you could speak with anyone in the world. England, Australia, Brazil, Spain now all seemed just around the corner, as we spoke to countless people doing the same thing as us: nothing. Some of the friendships we made on this website were as simple as five-minute conversations. Others lasted a few hours. And a tiny bit of conversations lasted a few days. That is where the Stranger comes in. In one of our many adventures surfing on this website, we met them. The Stranger is nineteen years old and lives in Kent, United Kingdom. But that is not even half of why our lives are so different. The Stranger is truly the one that popped my bubble, ripped it apart. The Stranger claims they left school at age sixteen and does not plan on going back. The reason? Drugs. In the enclosed society I live in, in Mexico, it is rare to hear about drug dealers or even about junkies, but for the Stranger, selling drugs is the only thing that keeps their life afloat. To be honest, I was taken aback, I even thought about blocking the Stranger as I saw them write the word Xanax on my screen. I had to re-read the message a couple of times. I knew the next step was to stop talking to someone who had any connection to a drug like that. But I gave the Stranger a chance. I was intrigued to know what went on in the world of drug dealing so unknown to me. Turns out the Stranger's family is a low-income family. Divorced parents. A brother who steals his money. A troubled kid kicked out of High School for selling drugs. What are they doing now? Working a minimum wage job at a mattress factory near their house with a dealing business on the side, to afford living in an expensive country like England. After countless texts, I learned to look past that and get to know the Stranger. They are nerdy and passionate about learning history and reading. Their favorite animal is the black panther and they're obsessed with watching the worst British TV shows ever. They're funny, caring, and also intrigued to know more about a different kind of lifestyle—mine. Of course, there were tense moments. Our worlds collided more than what we imagined. The Stranger sent me a picture of them smoking weed. I looked at it in their hand, so casual, so normal for them, yet so shocking for me. I got these waves of fear, a reality check. I started to look at their image again. Bluntly. Thoughts of blocking them again tortured my mind. Questioning voices traveled through every corner of my head echoing, “What are you doing?” That question still haunts me: “What am I doing?” Why am I talking to someone I don't even know across the globe who's life is nothing like mine? Would they bring positivity to my life? Probably not. But we can't be blind to reality. And that is why I texted back that one time. I see the person the Stranger is, their background does not define them. So, strangers. We are about the same age. In completely different parts of the world, with different cultures and incomes, and yet there we were. Texting with some force, filled with curiosity and of course the fact that for once in a long time, we are all united by something unwanted: quarantine. Might not be as bad to break the golden rule, right?
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