Who Shot The Sheriff?

Whod've thought that I would see an old friend after what, 500 years? I don't know who he is anymore. It's disconcerting, the changes, time, the now-gone similarities, no common ground anymore. What did we have in common anyway? Half a nationality? Mr. Basman? A school building?

There's a certain level of out-of-bounds curiousity; of wanting to know what goes on in his head, how he turned out, how different or alike we are from each other considering our similar backgrounds and experiences. More like trying to understand my predicament, what brought me here, what pattern I followed.

The important question here is, is it fair to use him as a mirror? Maybe there are more differences than likenesses.

*****

Maybe I wasn't as mean to him as I remember, but knowing myself, I know I was to some degree, quite the bully.

The truth is, the Sheriff shot me.

To all the people I bullied, whose opinions and points-of-view were unimportant, non-existent to me; what gives me the right to contemplate their (newfound) intellects now? Their senses of humor? Their rugged features, their grown-up ways?

I do not have a right to claim them as my friends now. I have NOT EARNED IT.

I have no right talking to them, listening to them, introducing them to my other friends.

In so many ways, I needed the people I bullied. I did it for acceptance. I wanted to be funny at their expense. I'd lure them with the silhouette of friendship, kindness, generosity, so that they end up trusting me and thinking I'm their only friend. And then BAM. The Mighty Mighty Turnaround. The Poking-Fun. The Locking-In-Bathrooms. The Laughing-At-Faces.

I'm probably beyond karma. I am fortune's fool.