I am ListeningThey talk, I am listening, listening, listening. They tell me how they live, what their plans, dreams and moods are. They tell me about their children, parents and friends, how their children, parents and friends live and in what mood they all are. They tell me also about some quite unknown for me people and I am listening about those people's plans, dreams and moods, and it seems to me that the world is overpopulated and oversaturated with emotions, and I have to provide the exit for all that fullness like a special computer or a lightening-conductor, or they all will split their sides with overfilling or will go mad,and nobody cares what is happening meanwhile with my head. They bother me all the time, they call me on different trifles, they share that they have lost a finger-ring or ask me to measure the TV diagonally to decide if such a TV fits their furniture. They consult and complain for a long time and again I listen to them patiently, I have only to sigh with releif, having finished the conversation, when they call back again to inform me that at last they have found their finger-ring in their deep-freezer in the box of meat-balls. They impart their innermost secrets to me. They tell me the story of their forbidden love, the story of their rushing betweet duty and passion, not forgetting to describe in details what is happening during all that with their ego, and I am listening about their ego with a special respect being not quite sure if I generally own such a thing myself. They love to talk with me about their financial problems, they tell me how hard it is to make as much money as it is necessary, how difficult it is to fight with taxes, circumstances and debts and again I listen to them sympathetically, nod and take their problems, circumstances and debts with big understanding absolutely forgetting for what a great amount they are in debt to me. Sometimes, seldom, I also wish to share, and having found a moment when thinking about their problems they keep silence awhile, I just open my mouth to tell them about my innermost secrets too. But having just started I notice how their faces immediately become bored, how their eyes grow dim, how impatiently they wait for a pause to get a word in and to continue their interrupted topic, and unable to bear their sufferings I confusedly fall silent and the mechanism "they talk, I am listening" is started up again. But when it is more than I can stand, when I become mortally tired because of my crazy life and of all that information pouring in me by a continious flow, when my want to unbosom myself becomes irresistible I will take a blank sheet of paper, I will write on it how I live, what my plans, dreams and moods are, I will describe all the trifles of my being and also all that innermost and secret that is happening with me, I will describe my financial problems, not received debts and complicated circumstances, I will enclose that sheet in the envelope, I will write a made-up, not existing address on it and will leave the return address blank and, having sealed the envelope, I will drop it into a Post Office mailbox. And having imagined how it will travel around the world, I will sigh, smile and very soon will be ready again to listen to anyone.
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