Midnight. A shadow is outlined in the distance, beneath the only dim light, which had been flickering for hours. The shadow approaches the divider between the two tracks and bends forward. It grabs a card from the black hand emerging from the ticket booth. It puts it in its pocket, jumps onto the train rushing past the left rail, and disappears into the dark tunnel, taking with it every trace of humanity that had ever existed in that place.

Years later, two friends stand at the exact same spot. Only this time, unlike that night, the station is illuminated by many lights along the platforms, leaving no room for implication. Their names are of no importance. X takes a card from Y. He jumps onto a train and disappears into the brightly lit tunnel.

The next day, that card is inserted into a scanning device. A door opens. X faces a weapon whose magazine is emptied onto him. He collapses to the floor instantly dead. Y laughs. He places the corpse in a bin, carries it to a car, and begins a short journey. Ignoring the sign that reads “Passage Forbidden,” he reaches a cliff whose depths have remained indistinct for years. He throws the bin down, so it may keep company with the hundreds of bins containing X’s ancestors throughout the centuries.

Some things are inexplicable to certain people. We may sense that a pattern must be broken before dignity, hope, and love are lost. Nevertheless, we continue to repeat patterns, just as the Earth continues to follow its circular orbit around the sun.

We owe it to ourselves, at least when it is clearly visible, to reconsider every value and belief that keeps our blinders low. Oppression lurks beneath the surface, and it is our duty to liberate ourselves. No solution comes falling from the sky. Generation after generation of people continue to be oppressed — by their social environment, by a teacher, by an employer, by a friend, or even by their own self.

It is time to look the truth directly in the eyes. To close our ears to guilt and emotion, to reconsider our fundamental goals, and to love ourselves as we are, without allowing nostalgia for people, objects, and memories to distort our judgment of a happy life.