stranger than fiction

the saying goes ... we watch drama (soap operas) to see real life and we watch the news to see drama.

i watched stranger than fiction with will ferrell and freedom writers with hilary swank the other day.

i thought to myself how life has become so unbelievable sometimes that even if you put it in a fiction novel, it would still seem surreal.

as i watch the news, i see the killings in iraq and i can't believe that the place where i used to live has been reduced to a statistical contest of who's got the most casualties: the iraqis or the americans? whose bomb went off to kill innocent civilians? and which sect of islam is waging jihad?

i see also the unfolding of madeleine's story - the poor kidnapped little girl and the media frenzy accorded it. i am glad that at least it's being covered but what hypocrisy as thousands of children disappear from their homes, from their driveways in third world or developing countries without as much as a milk carton photo? who gave them media mileage? is a white girl more important than a girl of color?

i can also just imagine the twisted plot of whoever kidnapped her to be so inconceivable and morally distorted or simply evil that it belongs in an agatha christie mystery with darker story lines.

with everything that could be seen in phantasmal stories, everyday life doesn't veer far away from it - with dark-clad men bringing evil to the land as the mighty burning bush has earned the ire of cold war russia, as colorfully clad men and women walk around as if an anime character, as the life that was unimagineable has become a drama worth writing a play script for.

life indeed has become stranger than fiction.