Have you ever wondered what the fuck a seagull is thinking while it looks at you?
Not when you toss it a french fry or try to photograph it before it shits on you. I mean when it stands perfectly still, tilts its head slightly, and seems to watch the whole sad spectacle of our species in silence.
And if it could write, what the fuck would it write?
A hymn to the sea? A poem about freedom? Or perhaps…
I had been watching them for a while.
They were sitting on the steps, all in a row.
Neat and orderly.
Knees bent, water bottles between their feet, phones in their hands, and the weary expression of people who had paid a great deal of money to spend their vacation doing exactly what they had been told.
At first, I thought they were nesting.
Then I saw the smartphones.
Tourists have a uniform, though they do not know it.
Comfortable shoes.
An overstuffed backpack.
A ridiculous hat.
A bottle bought for four times what it was worth.
And the faintly desperate face of someone who is supposed to be living one of the best days of the year but, for some reason, would just like to find a bathroom and sit in the shade.
They came from different places.
They spoke different languages.
They had stories, jobs, families, and sexual fantasies they probably would have preferred not to share.
And yet, once placed on those steps, they all looked the same.
An international herd with mobile data.
I stood a few yards away.
On my feet.
Watching them.
They were not watching me.
In fact, they were barely looking at anything.
One stared at her screen.
Another checked the pictures he had just taken.
A boy held his phone in front of his face as though the real world were merely an irritating interruption between one video and the next.
They had crossed cities, airports, stations, and miles of road to get there.
And now they were staring at a glowing rectangle the size of a slice of bread.
Human beings are extraordinary creatures.
They can travel to the other side of the world to ignore it from a new perspective.
They said they had come to see the city.
But the city was behind them, in front of them, above their heads, and beneath their feet.
It was everywhere.
Except in their eyes.
They were waiting.
I did not know for what.
Perhaps a guide.
Perhaps a boat.
Perhaps for someone to raise a little colored umbrella and announce that it was time to start moving again.
Tourists do not decide where to go.
They are moved.
From one monument to the next.
From one square to the next.
From a “traditional” restaurant to a souvenir shop selling the same junk manufactured six thousand miles away.
They follow signs, maps, reviews, and small human beings holding sticks above the crowd.
You could lead them into a sewer if you put a historical plaque at the entrance and gave it four and a half stars online.
They would enter in single file.
They would photograph the pipes.
They would buy a magnet.
Then they would go home saying it was authentic.
We seagulls travel in flocks.
It is true.
But at least we have the decency not to call it cultural travel.
We follow the wind.
The smell of fish.
The sound of a bag opening.
We do not tell ourselves we are searching for who we are.
We know perfectly well what we are looking for.
French fries.
Bread.
A piece of sandwich dropped by one of these assholes while he tries to photograph himself eating it.
Humans, on the other hand, need to turn every journey into a spiritual mission.
They leave to find themselves.
To change their perspective.
To connect with other cultures.
Then they look for a place that cooks pasta the way they make it at home, complain that no one speaks their language, and spend half the trip asking for the Wi-Fi password.
They say they want to experience something unique.
To do it, they follow the same itinerary as millions of other people.
The same steps.
The same photograph.
The same ice cream.
The same sunset.
The same fucking smile in the same fucking frame.
Then they post it all with a line about the importance of leaving your comfort zone.
Their comfort zone follows them everywhere.
It is inside the phone.
I stared at them.
Someone might have thought I was curious.
I was not.
I was calculating.
How many bags contained food.
Which child was most likely to drop something.
Which adult would be distracted enough to set a sandwich on the step.
Freedom is a marvelous thing, but even a free seagull has to eat.
I am not a philosopher.
I have not read Nietzsche.
I do remember shitting on the head of a man who was reading him on a bench once, but I do not think that counts as an academic education.
And yet watching them was enough to understand something.
Most human beings are not afraid of getting lost.
They are afraid of leaving the group.
They could stand up.
Turn the corner.
Walk down a street without knowing where it leads.
They could sit alone in a bar, speak to a stranger, board the wrong boat, and end up somewhere that does not appear in the guidebook.
They could even turn off the phone.
No law prevented them.
But they stayed there.
In a row.
Because if everyone is doing the same thing, it must be the right thing.
It is the principle on which you have built religions, wars, fashions, unhappy marriages, and corporate meetings that could easily have been replaced by an email.
You look around.
You see the others sitting.
And you sit.
The others stand.
And you stand.
Someone says that is the thing to see.
And you look at it.
Or at least point your phone at it, which for you is practically the same thing now.
You are not stupid.
That would be too easy.
You are afraid.
You like freedom as long as it remains a word printed on a T-shirt.
When it becomes the concrete possibility of choosing a direction no one else has approved, you panic.
You prefer the recommended route.
The reviewed restaurant.
The photograph someone else has already taken.
And if the experience is awful, at least you can say everyone else fell for it too.
At some point, I noticed the man with the camera.
He was not photographing the square.
He was not photographing the monument.
He was photographing me.
For some reason, he had decided that I was the interesting subject.
At last, a human being with some sense of proportion.
He focused on my body and left that entire pile of tourists blurred.
As it should be.
I was the only one truly looking at them.
In the photograph, they would become an indistinct mass.
Legs.
Arms.
Shoes.
Colors running together.
Not one face sharp enough to be remembered.
The herd.
I, on the other hand, would remain perfectly visible.
Gray feathers.
Yellow feet.
Beak slightly open.
A lone seagull before the grand assembly of organized humanity.
Perhaps that photograph said I was free and they were not.
Nice story.
Too bad I was waiting too.
They were waiting for the guide.
I was waiting for a crumb.
Everyone has a master.
Theirs probably wore a hat and carried an umbrella.
Mine was called hunger.
At least mine did not pretend to enrich me culturally.
I did not hate them.
Hatred takes energy, and I preferred to save mine for stealing some child’s lunch.
Perhaps they were simply tired.
Maybe those steps were the only place where they had been able to stop chasing the schedule for a few minutes.
Maybe one of them had just argued with his wife.
Maybe a woman had received bad news and kept traveling because she did not know what else to do.
Maybe that boy stared at his phone because everything the adults called marvelous bored him to death.
Every herd is made of individual solitudes.
From a distance, they all look the same.
Up close, each one is trying to survive something.
I knew that.
But they remained a fairly ridiculous spectacle.
All that distance.
All that money.
All those photographs.
To arrive there and sit in a row, waiting for someone else to decide what came next.
Sooner or later, the guide would return.
She would raise her symbol above their heads.
The group would rise almost in unison.
They would check that they had not forgotten bags, children, or bottles.
Then they would set off again.
Together.
Obedient.
Toward the next place where they could finally feel free in unison.
I would wait for them to move away.
I would inspect the steps.
Someone always left something behind.
A bread crust.
A french fry.
Half a cookie.
Human beings are most generous when they do not notice it.
Then I would spread my wings.
I had no reservations.
I had no itinerary.
I did not have to prove to anyone that I had been there.
No photograph in front of the monument.
No souvenir.
No inspirational line to post when I returned.
I would follow the wind for as long as the wind had something to say.
And the next day, I would come back.
I would find another group sitting on the same steps.
Other hats.
Other phones.
Other people convinced they were living an unrepeatable experience in the exact same place.
I would watch them.
They would watch their screens.
I was a seagull searching for crumbs.
They were a herd searching for a photograph that might prove some semblance of freedom.
The difference was simple.
I knew exactly what I was.