Kyle was a cool guy. In high school he was the star quarterback, but he gave it up to focus on academics in college. He didn't need the football scholarship anyway. His dad's construction company could pay tuition, fees, fraternity dues, and basically anything else Kyle could need. Sometimes when he was running low on cash, he could ask his mom for a little deposit from the Lipstick Fairy. At least that's what she called it since it all came from her running the state's largest makeup distributor. Sometimes though, he had to work odd jobs so he didn't have to explain why he was short on cash after buying some Mary Jane. That wasn't fun walking his fraternity brothers dogs sometimes.
But overall, Kyle didn't have to worry about too much, and in fact, he didn't care about too much. He didn't know what was happening outside of his campus and he wasn't bothered by his limited worldview. He just wanted to hang out, have a good time, and live a good life. He wasn't hurting anybody, and nobody was hurting him.
One night, his fraternity hosted a house party. Kyle could only party until midnight until he had to sober up. He had a family function to be at in the morning. It was hard to leave such a rager, but sometimes life was hard for Kyle.
The poor guy had only a few hours of sleep before there was a pounding at the door. He ignored it the first few times, thinking it must be some drunk guy thinking it was his room.
"Kyle, open up dude!" He got up from his bed and opened the door to see his fraternity big in the doorway with no shirt on. "Listen, I just hooked up with this girl, but now she's crying and she won't leave. Will you get rid of her?"
Kyle didn't want to. No one wants to deal with some overly emotional drunk girl. But he owed his friend one. Kyle walked down the hall to his friend's room and saw a girl putting on her clothes, her appearance in complete disarray. She was drying her tears with the sleeve of her hoodie when she got the chance.
"Hey, I'm gonna walk you out." Better not to give a girl an option, he thought.
She followed silently. They got to the curb, and Kyle was about to turn back and go to the house.
"Can you stay with me while I wait for my uber? I just really don't want to be alone right now."
He didn't want to, but he shrugged indifferently, nodded, and stayed next to her.
Oh no, he thought. She's crying again.
"Sorry, I just can hardly stop. I checked my phone after we... well. I got a text from my brother. Our dog passed away. I've had that dog since I was 7. I just can't believe he's gone."
Kyle stared at her for a little bit, and then looked back at the road. He could remember when he lost his dog a few years ago. It was awful. I guess she's not just drunk, he thought.
Kyle tried to take his chance to leave. "Well I should really be going..."
"I'll never forget," she continued, "playing with him when he was a puppy. My friend Layla came over and he wouldn't stop chewing on her curly, red hair!"
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Girl with curly red hair
Source: pexels |
"That's funny," Kyle said, "Mys sister Layla has curly red hair."
"Layla Turner?"
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"She was my best friend when we were kids! But we grew apart when your family moved."
Kyle didn't say anything, but now he was thinking of his little sister, only a freshman in college this year. He pictured her at age 7, playing innocently with a puppy dog. Then he pictured her left alone and disheveled on the dirty floor of a fraternity house after she received heartbreaking news.
"How far is your uber?"
"10 more minutes," she said.
"Come with me. I'll go get my keys and take you home."
She followed him silently back into the house. He wasn't going to let an upset girl go home by herself.
Author's Note: Based on the story from the "7 Secrets of the Goddesses" in which the Buddha doesn't allow women into monastic orders. It is only when he sees his mother crying over his father's death that he can recognize women are also people with feelings and emotions that merit acknowledgement. In my story, Kyle doesn't recognize the legitimacy of a young woman's feelings until he can see his sister in her. He realizes he wouldn't want his sister to ever be in a similar situation.
When hearing the story about the Buddha, it made me think of current feminist movements right now like the MeToo movement. Men often say "I'm a feminist because I want my mother/sister/female cousin to be treated right". "Rape is wrong because I wouldn't want my sister to be raped." To me that is such a pointless perspective. Men should hate rape and inequality because women are humans. But for Kyle, like the Buddha, he has to be confronted by the legitimacy of women's emotions to accept it.
