I have always been fascinated by the similarities between three birds and people. There are crows who, notoriously, are those types a bit halfway between hooligans and fans of death and its surroundings. There are the “swallows”, alias the spies, those who usually bring you confidential information. And then there are the jackals, those who take advantage of a person’s difficult situation to exploit him, to the point of making him die.
Well, I have just invented a new category, seagulls, but do not be under any illusions because the analogy I have in mind has nothing positive. Yes, because if the sea still comes to mind when you imagine the seagulls, well you are left a little behind. For decades now seagulls have also been found in the center of Milan. City dumps, and the presence of food that is much easier to find than marine fish, has meant that flocks and flocks of seagulls can be found in all cities. But as mentioned, while if you observe them silhouetted against the blue of the sea, we find a certain charm in these animals, on the contrary seeing them in the city only gives us a sense of decay.
Here, I have precisely those seagulls in mind. Who are the “seagulls” with human features I’m thinking about? Just like real seagulls, they are people used to garbage, to live off the waste of others; but not necessarily in a real sense but in a figurative sense. Today’s seagulls are a mix of those analogies that started this post.
They are seagulls but they are also a little crows, and in fact their habitat is in the immediate vicinity of those who, due to various vicissitudes, find themselves in the situation of being rather helped. And what do they do? Here comes the best. Because they in the first instance configure themselves just like saviors of the homeland, those who are there next to you (who may be in difficulty) to help you but do something else. They feed on your misfortune to feed their sadism that they enjoy seeing others feel bad. In this, therefore, they are also very jackals, because where there is the smell of blood they are there, but as mentioned not to soothe wounds but rather to feed on them.
And then they are also swallows. But even here, don’t think about those cute little birds that announce spring to us. No. These outcasts live the lives of others, and they love to bring news to those who are suffering that have the sole objective of making you feel even worse. Do you suffer because, for the most varied reasons, your life is not going as you hoped? Well they bring you news of people dear to you who live great, as mentioned, with the sole aim of making you feel even more shit.
False friends, or to put it in English, false friends. Really difficult people to understand, parasites of human suffering who, having no life, try to get stuck, carving out a role as unsolicited spies, in that of others. And they do great damage, because they amplify stories and worlds that do not exist, they tell imaginary realities that often live only in their heads and, as mentioned, and it is really the thing that makes me more angry, with their too much chatter they generate in those who are sick further states and reasons for suffering, but they do, and in this I must acknowledge that they are great, with the mask of a friend who is there to help you.
The only hope, in the face of these “seagulls”, is that their victim sooner or later, maybe the day he will be able to get up from his state of prostration, get up, recognize their dirty game and make them come out of his life . Their place is not in people’s hearts, in fact, in the great marine horizons: their landfill gulls.
Landfill gulls
31 October 2022