Thursday Thoughts # 75

from Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard:
" In the fairy tales, the poor girl smiles when she becomes a princess. Right now I don't know if I'll ever smile again.
My heart plummets in my chest until it bounces around my toes."


Today's Thoughts:

this post is inspired by the words I read at Lee's Kitchen Connection yesterday.
She wrote a little about the violence rampant in the world today and how we should grab life by the throat and be happy. 
Eat the chocolate cake, she says, dance in the rain.
Life is short.

My post is from a little closer to home. This whole past week has made me quite sad and there isn't anything I can do about it.

You may have read here occasionally, my reference to 'the zombie' who lives in the flat upstairs from me.
I call him that because he is very quiet, rarely seen in the daytime, (or any other time for that matter) and he is grey. Grey hair, grey skin, grey clothes. Unwashed.
 
(Possibly too much information), he is one of the mental health tenants living here, there are quite a few scattered throughout these flats. All quiet, all harmless.

Back to C, upstairs. A few times when he has been out, people have "latched on to him" (is there a better phrase?). They come home with him and don't leave for several days. 
Until he is distressed enough to begin swearing and begging them to leave him alone. He doesn't know how to cope with people. He never knows who these people are, they say they are his friends, but he doesn't know them. I've heard them talking.

The latest group, I think there were three of them, stayed in his flat,  and harassed him in ways that are just so cruel. I think they stole money from him too. I heard one of them saying something about "it's only $15".
I heard him shouting for days for them to please leave me alone. Eventually it got to the swearing, he'd be shouting for them to f*** off. 
By Saturday he was so distressed, he came down to my flat, visibly shaking, apologised for the noise and asked would I please call the police. I said I would and he went back upstairs. Before the police arrived, he was back at my door, asking could he please come in. 

Believe me here when I say he isn't a violent man. 
He was close to breaking point so I let him in and he crawled along the floor refusing to get up where his head might be visible through the window.

Want to know why?
Of course you do.

Those viciously cruel people, had one of those laser pointer things that teachers use and they'd been pointing it at his head telling him they were going to blow up his brain. 
For a week, they'd been there tormenting him.
 
He doesn't know that isn't possible and I couldn't convince him. He was completely terrified. 

I was very glad when the police arrived, they spoke to him, asked how many people were upstairs (none now, they'd left when he told them I'd called the police, but he couldn't stay up there because they were watching and would blow up his brain through the walls or window).
 
Eventually, the two policemen took him back upstairs and I turned on all my fans to get the smell of long unwashed body and clothes out of my living room and kitchen. I don't know what happened upstairs, but they left after a while and C was there alone. 
But still very distressed. 

About an hour later, he came down and knocked on my door again. He had a full backpack and gave me his keys, telling me to give them back to housing as he was running away where "they" couldn't find him.
And he left. To live on the streets I suppose. 

I held the keys a couple of days in case he came home and wanted to get in, but eventually took them to the housing office and told them the story. Mr....said he would contact the mental health people and they would look out for him. I gave a description, grey, thin and smelly. 
He is on their rental records, so they know who he is.
 
Yesterday (Wednesday) , a lady from the mental health  people came to thank me for what I had done and to let me know that C had been found, had suffered a major breakdown and was now in hospital. I wasn't home when she came, so she spoke with neighbour P (the nosy one) and asked her to pass on the message. P did.
I hope very much that C will be alright, I don't know that he will be coming back here to live.

Here's what I would like these cruel young people to think about, (although they're the sort who never will). 
Imagine he's your father, your brother. Perhaps your son. 
Would you like people such as yourself, doing to your son (father, brother) what you have done to this poor man?

How can they do such things? In the name of fun? 
They weren't teenagers, they were older, I saw them outside a time or two, one, the girl, sat on the lawn and did things on her ipad and phone for a while. I kept my doors locked of course.

So it isn't just wars and terrorists "out there". The violence is right here at home too. 
And I am very sad about the whole thing. Because they probably won't get caught and will have gotten away with it.