The Nice Guy

This story is dedicated to him.

I mean to describe the phantom that stepped in my life, and left as human being, transitioning from translucent slivers to an enlightening soul. In the past, he’s been a masked persona and fortunately my decision to unveil the mystery of his existence only helped me in ways not everyone will understand.

Therefore, this passage goes out to him

“I know a nice guy”

Yes, it’s true. I do know of him. I was close to believing that such a term never existed; that all the nice guys were probably an extinct race. In fact, being nice came at a price. You’re either nice to the wrong person, get hurt and build yourself a wall that protects your “nice-ness” at all costs. You’re forced to keep it to yourself, and you end turning into a monster by hiding your benevolent sanity.

“Yes, I know a nice guy”

As much as I believed otherwise, I was open to trust a bit of myself to trust that not everyone was bad. Of course, you can’t trust what you can’t see, but why don’t people who are scared of the dark ever get scared when they close their eyes?

“This nice guy that I know?..Yes, him”

He just happened. I can’t tell you how, but I’ll tell you why. He happened because I was nice to him. Maybe that’s how you find nice guys. You make it a point to open that wall you’ve been building around yourself. Maybe if you just pry open a brick or two, you can let the light in.

“I met this nice guy the other day”

I was on the opposite platform. I got off two stop earlier to get a glimpse of this guy. He didn’t know I meant to see him. Would it be a pleasant surprise? Would it be a surprise at all? Before I could worry further, I saw this guy standing there, waving. He was smiling.

“So, this nice guy”

I broke down a few more bricks on my wall. I never expected that someone so new could get old so fast. There was pizza and mocktails. There were endless rants about bosses and home life. Conversations about history and food were never ending. And then there were red velvet cakes and attempts to pass each other by in alternate metro path ways, just to get the kick out of playing a little real life “Where’s Waldo?”

“He’s a nice guy”

People can stumble and fall quickly. “Even giants fall”, he often said. It was then that I realized, getting up was hard. Sometimes you don’t need help and sometimes, you need all the help you can get. This kind of guy is the voice inside your head to make you get up and move on. The voice that tells you that you’re not here to give up and that you’re here to show people what you’re not only made up of blood and bones. The voice that tells you to “Be nice and stay strong”

“I know a nice guy”

Yes, he’ll stay there. Even if you walk away for a bit and come back, he’s still going to be there. He’ll still watch over like an angel, making sure to be that voice when you fall again. He’ll understand when you start rebuilding that wall. All he’ll do is stand guard outside it, to make sure canons don’t come barging in.

“He’ll always be nice to you”

“He’s a nice guy”

“I know him”