Doctors, Patience

It has been sunny this week, but not warm.

I don't know where they came from, but people have started wearing medical facemasks (you know, blue paper, elastic) to keep their faces warm. There are quite a few of them right now wearing medical gear, not because they're sick and want to keep the germs in, and not because they're healthy and want to keep the germs out, just because they're cold. But I've never seen something look so out of place.

I didn't like it for a while, because I thought that people looking at them would think that the masqueraders behind them were diseased--people who already view the Heartside population as defiled and infected. I can't stand this, and don't want any visual reminder to stimulate it.

But then I asked Dave why he was wearing one.
"I've got this until something better comes along," he said, "I'm just waiting on it."

And then I relized who else wears these masks: Doctors, surgeons, the world's definition of success and progress and respect. Something better.
When I see these masks now, I forget who is behind them, and who could be behind them. I think about the fact that something could be different. That one thing in the early life of this person could have caused them to wear this mask for a completely different reason, a different necessity.
(And something later in life could do the same.)
There is no division.
It's just a street name.