Surplus

Snaking around the terminal, the line gets longer as every would-be passenger hurriedly run to the tail. It looks like an ouroboros, snakes biting their tails and shit; putting an ellipsis to the cycle of infinity. Though the vans and would-be passengers will run out some time, another working day shall resurrect them all and the same.

Funny thing about this morning, I noticed a pile of picture and certificate frames on the ground, someone's  selling them for quite a unique bargain price. The small ones are sold for a faded yellow coin per piece and I imagine that the bigger frames will fetch for larger coin combinations or even paper bills. They look like they've been dug from a fresh earth, or maybe they were recent victims of the floods that washed the province and other areas in the country. The stock photos of smiling people: a smiling couple doing a piggy back ride, a family portrait of middle class Caucasians beaming their pearly whites, a grandma with cauliflower white hair and spectacles all looked so happy. They stock photos were wet, dried and crumpled by the process, dried earth clung to the corners of the frames.

The frames were in a varying display of colors: cheap shiny red, scratched  blue, blue, semi-glossy black, scruffed silver, muddy white, muddy black, cracked brown and so on. They were being pimped to passers-by and would-be passengers.

There was a surplus of frames, nobody was even taking an interest at buying them. It was a sign of surplus frames that couldn't even be bought because everything was already digital. Diplomas, photographs from the analog times, resignation letters from a disgruntled employee, an accepted job application, certificate of participation and so on. Or, it may be the fact that no one ever has a piece of paper to be proud of right now. Well, maybe just a few people have those but we are running out of diplomas to put in a protective shell, hang on our walls and show to visitors and long lost relatives when they visit our humble abodes. 

We are at a time of surplus. We have superficial things to be proud of. Maybe, we should need to fill up those certificate frames with more meaningful representation printed on paper. I don't even have my diploma yet. Though I really think that that thin sheet of expensive paper is just a consolation prize for finishing a race. A staggering foot race that should have meant something more.

Not having that sheet of paper in a frame would mean a DNF. See? It's a grim superficial thing.