Get a life!

She was applying an eye liner which made her eyes look alive. She paused for a second and looked at her reflection before applying gloss over her lips. She did that reflexively and unconsciously, the movements ingrained in her as surely as the sun rose over east. She looked at herself in the mirror with no expression on her face and her sardonic face looked back. She put on her shoes and walked out of the house without looking back. She walked long into the light, just drifting, breathing in the gas fumes of the traffic on the streets, her eyes burning in the smoke. She slowed her walk to a stroll and looked from one side to another, gazed at buildings and frowned at the honks.

She entered a park and walked on and on and finally sat on a bench overlooking a lake. She sat there and gazed farther into the light.

Someone came to sit beside her, but she did not turn her eyes to see who it was.
“It’s a beautiful day,” the stranger said. She did not turn her head. After a few minutes the stranger got up and walked away. She got up and walked away too.

She walked back on to the street, towards the direction of her house, her face a mask of serenity. The morning’s intensity was not present in them, yet she looked peaceful and settled.
Someone stopped her and asked, “How is everything?”
“It is as it is”, she responded, sounding somber. He stared at her and went his way. She sighed. “It is not his fault”, she whispered, seemingly to herself. She walked on.
“You look good”, said someone else. She looked like she could eat him alive and responded, “Yeah? So?”, challenge open in her voice.
“Sorry”, he said, his smile fading.
She sighed, “Sorry, I was preoccupied with imaginary hoodlums.”
He walked away. She sighed again.
“It is not his fault”, she whispered, again and continued to walk.

She walked into the house.
“There you are. Where have you been? Why did you walk out like that, without telling anyone? I was sick with worry and your mother...”, the lady saying that looked exasperated.
She looked at the lady and said, "Sorry aunty", her face a mask carved out of stone. She walked into a room and saw a figure asleep. Her face softened and she moved closer to the bed. “I am sorry mom, I had to. This is driving me insane”, she whispered.

Her face was in agony, looking at her mother, when she noticed her aunt beside her.
“You know she would have been worried if she was awake", her aunt said and gave her a hug. She did not hug back. Her hands were fists and her face was mask of stone again. "I will come back in the morning. Take care of her. I have placed food on the table, have it”, she heard her aunt say. She nodded. Her aunt gave her a quick pat on her head, as one would pat a small puppy and left the house.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the covered dish and looked into it and closed her eyes. Slight wetness on her cheeks seemed to annoy her as she furiously wiped the wetness and closed the lid. She took her bath and came back and ate the food. Then she went and sat next to her mother. She looked at her face lovingly and tenderly, her hand stroking her face with gentle pats. And suddenly, the tenderness swept away and her eyes were no longer sardonic, but harsh and filled with anger and she moved away from her mother, looking at her hands with wonder and staring at the shivering hands.

She walked out of the room and sat on the couch in the hallway, seeing the sleeping figure on the bed and just staring into the space. She grabbed a paper from the table next to her and started writing furiously.

Her eyes a cesspool of tears and she wrote, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Then she paused and looked down. She sighed and crumpled the paper and threw it out of the window onto the street. She sat quietly, visibly shaken and fell asleep on the couch.

Someone picked out the paper from the road and read it out loud:
I cannot. I cannot be angry. I cannot. It’s no one’s fault. It IS no one’s fault. I hate holding onto my life, holding for something, anything, a hope. I fear that the time has come, to let go. Yet, I fear that I cannot. I have to focus on something, anything. I have to get out and get away, from this madness. I cannot admit to this weakness that is growing inside of me. I have to be strong. I have to see the storm through. I need a life.

That someone looked up and shouted: “Well, get a life!” and moved on.

And I will...

I have been rather quiet. Rather unusual, when I seem to have a zillion thoughts running through me. Most of the time I end up writing, when I am stuck in a phase of life, but this time it seems like I am being a passive observer to the point where nothing seems to emit a reaction that would trigger some vitality through me.

Things important or unimportant ceased any meaning. Relations loving or hurting ceased any meaning. Friends present or absent ceased existing in the vicinity. I like to think I am being a saint, with no emotions or feelings, yet, I seem to be perturbed by the slightest trigger and have to constantly remind myself that it is not anyone’s fault that life sometimes is daunting. I would rather I could move on through this phase and leap through to another.

Relationships are a boon and a bane to life, I think. Some are fragile to the extent that they break at the slightest pull away. Some are strong but wither through the wear and tear of the pull. Some are stagnant that they make no progress either by pulling away or moving together. Yet, these relations seem important in life. What good are they if they haul you over coals? What good are they if they hurl you over fire? What good are they if they frost your life? What good are they if they suffocate you? I do not honestly know. I sometimes truly believe that being alone in a cave would cure my madness more than anything and sometimes I believe that living through them and enduring the rough patches makes me stronger. I am sure that either of the options is of least help.

I want to think of a time where there are no complex thoughts running in my head. I am having a hard time coming to a specific time frame of my life, even though I am not old, to think I have lived an awful lot of years to not remember the best of my life. I desperately want to hope that the best of my life is yet to come, but, I keep wondering if there is no comfort period that I want to reminisce about. It is alarming to not have a cushion to fall back on, when I cannot move forward. The shackles that hold me are more in my mind, perhaps.

I wish I could cast aside my notions of life, my dreams and accept life as it comes. I wish I do not have to battle my inner self all the time and move forward towards the life I want to live. I wish I could let go of all the reins I seem to hold and move away, carefree and into pastures of my choosing. Yet, there is this small voice inside of me that says, the pain I go through is a reminder that I care and love and those are not bad things. Yet, there is a selfish corner that says, shit happens, let go and move into oblivion. Yeah, oblivion seems a way forward, except it isn’t! I battle myself, yet again, to find a way from the rut I seem to land myself in and the more I think on these lines the more depressing it looks. Yet, I still stand to fight through the murk and keep fighting to claw my way forward. I might not alter fate or destiny, but I sure can fight tooth and nail, if it means I get to take a step forward. And I will.

A splendid cast ...

DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional story. All the characters are fictional. The incident itself is a creation. Any resemblance to people or to the situations in the real world, is purely coincidental.

--------------------------------------------

...who cannot figure out the plot

Emotions are such powerful things. They crawl into our lives and create these crevices that make a perfectly soft soil into a patched barren land. How ironic? Instead of being rich and filled with life because of emotions, the wonderful life becomes barren because of them! Why? Because they are the very cause of disruptions in a perfect life.

She looked at herself in the mirror, the aged lines on her face, carefully covered with a concealer, the smile perfected with a lipstick and the tired eyes lit up with a hint of mascara. She looked picture perfect. She gave an angelic smile and the reflection in the mirror gave her a smile too, that warmed her heart. She took her Gucci and walked down the stairs. She looked at her husband who was waiting at the end of the stairs, the light in her heart growing brighter.

As she walked gracefully, one hand sliding down the railing of the stair case glittering in a diamond bracelet, her engagement ring shining with the lustre only a solitaire would give, he stared at her agape at the vision in front of him. His wife for ten years, who looks every bit as beautiful as she did when he first met her and aged gracefully than he did over the last ten years, made his heart grow fonder, just by her smile. Amazing that her smile could fill his heart, even after all the numerous fights and countless arguments they had. Amazing that she still makes him feel like the twenty year old kid, unafraid and daring to walk head on into anything, for her. Amazing that she still makes him feel that every moment is worth living, when she is with him. God, she is magnificent, he thought.

She could see the smile on his face. She looked at his unfathomable eyes that conveyed everything and nothing and felt a thud in her heart. She stood next to him, not knowing what to say. Silence has become a form of communication between them, for a long time. Silence when words were not enough would have made a perfect song, but silence when words were absent is a huge emptiness. Yet, her smile did not falter. Did he still love her? Did he still need her? The questions lingered on her mind, yet the smile did not falter. Years of practice at making everyone else happy, despite her emotions, made her an expert artist in the stage of life.

Little did she know that she still made his heart stop, every time he looked at her. Little did she know that she was the centre of his universe, that she was on his every thought every day, even on the days they did not talk to each other, that she was his life. Little did she know that he admired her audacity, her courage and that, in his heart, he has a shrine built for her, holding her picture perfect smiles, the sound of her laughter, her quiet tears, her feistiness, her anger, the rainbow of her emotions, perfectly aligned, one after another, that he loved to reminisce. Little did she know any of these thoughts that run through his mind, every now and then. He had no words to express and she had no way of knowing.

She thought, did he ever wonder if she continued to love him? After all these years of their marriage, did he need that reassurance that she loved him? She held off the “I love you” that was on the tip of her tongue. For some bizarre reason she could not say it out loud. It seemed pretentious, to say it out loud. She wanted to reach out to hold his hand, but refrained herself from doing so. It has been a very long time, since she held his hand. The last was when they walked down the aisle after they were married. It is strange that they never strolled hand in hand after that day. Amazing how they have two adorable kids, who lived in a happy family to the outside world. Her insides want to melt down into a puddle of raw nerves and her heart wants to give out at the depressing thoughts her mind is rushing her past with.
“Are you ready to go?”, he asked.
“Yes, let us go”, she said.
They sat in their car and he switched on the music, while she stared out of the window at the shadows that followed them, as he began to drive. She wondered if they were her own shadows that threatened to come out of the closet.

He stared at her once in a while, oblivious to all the thoughts running in her head. He wanted to ask what she was thinking. But he kept quiet. They were used to this silence. They were comfortable in that silence. Their world looked perfect in that silence, that he did not want to break it. Did he ever wonder, for how many days that world looked perfect? Did he ever wonder, why silence ruled their world? Did he for one moment stop to think if the smile on her face was real?

Moments whizz past life, which never come back. Times where life and emotions are taken for granted. Mind in its wrapped up reality spills the guts of faceless emotions, while heart in its pumping glory cocoons them into heartbeats that translate to a living and together they give a surreal experience. But where do they go from here? As they move past the familiar silences, the music that echoed in the background became a dull thud.

“Do you remember this song?”, he asked.
“Should I remember this song?”, she responded.

He sighed, wondering why she was always this disconcerting. It was the song that played in the background of his car, when they had what seemed to be their biggest fight at that time, her not willing to give up her job when they get married, eventually. When they fought, which often resulted in her tears and senseless tantrums and an eventual cuddling of the unresolved tension, he felt it was over and done, having done his manly duty of holding her through the tears, while she felt the resentment of being a woman unable to communicate to her man. Those moments of familiar discomfort and frozen seconds and the later make up time were part and parcel of their relation. Yet, he remembered every insignificant nuance of their time, while she zoomed past the stuff and remembers nothing, or perhaps only those that she wanted to remember. He felt the bile of resentment reach his heart, which he suppressed with practiced precision and clamped his mouth shut.
She looked at his face, waiting for his response, knowing full well the significance of the song, knowing full well what he asked of her when he uttered those words of dependency on him, knowing their full blown out fight in the very same car, on the very same road, waiting for him to say that he remembered them too. She wanted to repress the memory of her first moment of insecurity, of her choice of trusting this man she wanted to walk the rest of her life with. But she could not. She could not repress it. Was there some reason he asked her this question?

“Are you going to answer it?”, she reiterated.
“What should I answer?”, he asked.
Then why did you bring it up, she wondered.
“Never mind”, she said.

And the familiar walls of silence engulfed them. Each lost in their own inner turmoil, each bearing the resentment of the unsaid words, each laying a brick on the wall that separated them.

They reached their destination and they walked into the restaurant. She ordered for them and they had their dinner, quietly. While she writhed in the familiar uncertainty of their future, he drank his beer and wallowed his anger and frustration, their familiar silence now a boon. She paid their bill, not wanting him to pay for her and they walked back into the car, when he drove them home. Next morning was a new beginning, the wall impenetrable, today a new day and together, in their own tiny ways, tried to get past the previous night. Those countless hurdles that passed their day to day mundane chores, that took monotony to a new level. Both went on with their lives, as though yesterdays were nothing and with hope that tomorrows would be better and the todays a bundle of emotional vulnerability. Emotions disrupting their perfectly normal life.

Life - it does not stop!

Sometimes in life, there are paths that lead away from our heart. We follow that path and walk through the serenity and embrace the anonymity of the new path. We walk along that path in the hope of finding something. That something is not always quantitative. But, first, why choose the new path? Because, good old same road is boring and new path promises more. And despite everything life taught us, we still believe that promise.

As we walk along that new path, we ponder once in a while, to go back. Of course, that is only natural, given that, everything new has a sense of risk and the comfort of the known walls is better than the luxury of the unknown. Yet, we persevere, until we hit a road block. As it happens in life, every path will have a stumble and a road block. Just to make the journey interesting.
Now, here comes the tricky path. How to move forward from that road block? It seems so easy to turn back and walk into the comfort zone. Yet, few brave venture to cross the road block. Few return, never to explore a new path again. But, the brave, who move forward, trigger the entire process again. Choose – stumble – forward or backward. But, did anyone ever wonder, why the process? Why choose? Why stumble? Why move forward or backward? Of course, the logical question to ask would be, why to stay?

More often than not, I keep asking this question to myself. I still do not have an answer.

But, life – It doesn’t stop. Not when there are questions nor when there are answers.
When life seems meaningless, it does not stop.
When life seems blissful, it does not stop.
When life seems full of life, it does not stop.
When life seems a drag, it does not stop.
When life seems chaotic, it does not stop.
When life seems to be filled with passion, it does not stop.
When life seems heartless, it does not stop.
When life seems to be filled with love, it does not stop.
When life seems loveless, it does not stop.
And the list goes on, and life still does not stop.
But why, why do I want it to stop, just for a second and let me catch up with it? Why does it want me to huff and puff and totter behind it, as it bosses me around? It is supposed to be my life, ain’t it? When did it suddenly cease being my own? Did it slip away, from my hands, just like the quick sand that slips through the fingers, when we hold it too tight? Should I scramble to collect it into my hands again? This time, will it stay?

“Of course not, you idiot! Life goes on!! Don’t you get it?” (says my alter ego. Life- here is a request, please take her along with you, the next time you wish to leave me behind!)

Story of Little Elm

DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional story. All the characters are fictional. The incident itself is a creation. Any resemblance to people or to the situations in the real world, is purely coincidental.

--------------------------------------------

 
She felt like the prettiest girl on the planet, when he looked at her that way. When his hands touched her, she shivered in reverence at that delicate touch. When he fed her, his kindness melted into her, making her weak in her knees. When he dressed her up, she felt that she is the luckiest girl on the planet.

She did not care that she was in a glass cage, she did not care that she would never get to know anything beyond the glass cage. She was content watching him every single moment of her life. She was content to be taken in hand and trimmed to shape and made weak in her knees. She knew that he cared for her, she construed that to be love. And she was happy.

One day, she was taken to the outside, into the garden. He was holding her and that was all that mattered. He put her down in the cozy green grass, while he took out a shovel. She worried that he would bury her there and when he started digging a hole, she felt depressed. She started losing her color and feeling pale. She looked withered and by the time he dug a hole to bury her, she looked dead too. He took one look at her and decided that she needed additional attention and so, he took her back to his room and placed her on the window sill. She started breathing again, her color retained and she looked happy too. She felt that he read her well and that he knew exactly what was good for her.

Every day, he gave her water and for that one sip of water, she felt grateful to him. But, she wanted more. She wanted him to spend time with her, to whisper in her ears, to sing for her, to dance with her, to tell stories to her, to show her to his friends. She waited for him to do that. One day, he brought his friends over and they had fun, while she looked on, to see, if he would introduce her to them. He and his friends were not interested in her. Not once, did he looked at her. Not once! How dare he!

She was frustrated. For the first time, she wanted to show him that she needed attention. She wanted to scream at him for being so unkind as to shut her off completely. She looked down at herself. She still looked pretty, with a sturdy build and trimmed leaves, she looked pretty in her glass cage. She did not understand why he would ignore her! She turned to look out of the window, while she fumed in hurt. She gazed into a far off land, not really seeing anything. He left the room, along with his friends and she felt alone. She looked back to see if there was a note on her glass cage, his handprint which usually lingered when he touched the cage. She was disappointed. She turned her back and looked out of the window, now noticing for the first time, the vastness and the hugeness of the nature spanned infront of her. She saw the hole he dug for her. She looked past that hole to see a huge tree, smiling down at her. The tree looked pretty too.

“You alright, little Elm?”, she asked.

She was too startled to answer. She looked at the huge tree, which continued to look at her with kindness. “Yes, I … I … “, she stuttered, looking a bit out of place and flustered.

“You know, the kindness these people show you is fantastic. But, there is nothing like freedom. There is nothing like the warmth of a mother’s womb. When he dug this hole for you, he was giving you a chance to embrace that! But, you looked unhappy. So he took you back. But, why are you unhappy now?”, she asked.

Elm looked on at the kind old lady and pondered over her words. She grew restless as she thought about them. She was stuck in a glass cage, with her world wrapped in a tiny block of glass, with her feet in artificial mud and her leaves and roots, trimmed to fit this shape while her brothers and sisters are out there, living a carefree life, with their feet buried deep into the mother earth and standing tall and dancing with the children. She looked at herself and realized, she made the choice of staying in this glass cage, because she loved him. She wanted to be with him. She felt miserable knowing that she is missing the possibilities out there, in the free world, while she chose to stay with him.

He returned home and he lay on his bed. She looked on and not once did she see him turn his head towards her. No sorry either, for not introducing his friends. No sorry for not talking to her the entire day. No sorry that he had not fed her. She felt sorry for herself. He was supposed to love her and be her world. She looked on at him, wondering why she felt out of sorts.
The next day, he hurried out of the door, having woke up late, yet again, for his office. He really should get his priorities right, she sighed. Damn, she loved him. But, she was thirsty. The meagre spoon of water she had a couple of days ago was not helping her and he did not feed her today. Her will was snapping and she was withering and he was not there to hold her hands through it all! She was losing consciousness too. She was hyperventilating, but there was no one to help her now.

When he came home, his little Elm looked dead. He cursed and fed her a glass of water. She felt choked, the water is not going in. she tried to tell him that he was pouring too much down her throat, but he was not looking at her. He was talking on the phone. She was furious. She tried to stomp her feet, but they refused to budge from the soil. She was choking and her spasms increased. She was feeling suffocated and she looked to him for help. But he was busy on the phone. She looked on. She thought back to all the days when he fed her, every day. She recollected his face, the expressions that he had when he spent time with her. She realized with shock, that he had always been like this. He had always been this self-absorbed. He did not look at her, he did not care that she looked pretty. He just cut her to shape, because he wanted her to stay in the cage. She was hurt beyond words when she realized, she was held captive all this time and she was a willing prisoner. As she realized she was in on her last breath, she felt pity on herself, for wasting her life, fantasizing on her perception of him, rather than seeing the facts. She suddenly realized, she was not even pretty. She was small, she has no self-worth, she was being fed, by a person who took care of her, perhaps out of pity and not out of love! Her world, as she knew, came crashing down. She lost her consciousness again!

When she woke up, she found herself in a yard, sprawled nude. She was embarrassed beyond reason, when she looked around and heard the snickers of her fellow companions, her brothers and sisters, looking at her, with amusement.

“Get up. You are not alone there little sister. We are here for you. You can do it. Grab on that Carbondioxide, there is plenty of it here. We can help you live, if you make little effort. We are here for you, holding your hand, to take you to our mother, who will nurture you back to health and royalty. It is a huge process, but you need to take baby steps. But, first, you need to take a step, to believe in yourself and believe in your worth.”
Despite her weakness, she tried holding on, grabbing onto anything that can give her a chance to see him once. She heard the word of advice, but they just don’t understand. She cannot survive without seeing him with her eyes, every single moment, even though he cares little whether she survived or not. She held on and gazed past her companions, into the small window. Her eyesight wavered, but she held on to the hope, to see his face and go into heaven.

“Breathe!”

There he is, her charming prince. She looked at him in content and she felt she could close her eyes now. She looked down and saw that there was another Elm in the glass cage, drinking a spoon of water from his hand, looking ecstatic. Elm jolted out of her weakness. She realized she was replaced with a look-alike, nevertheless replaced. She was not precious after all. She withered and he threw her out, presuming that she is dead and moved on, while she held on to his memories.
“C’mon, you can do it, breathe”, she heard someone day.

“Oh, poor baby, look how weak you are. I am here now, I can take care of her. You all have chores to do, get moving”, she heard a voice call out and looked around. Everyone of her brother and sister went back to their chores. She looked for the source of her voice, when she felt a warmth rise into heart. She felt her feet covered and she was glad for the heat. She was being fed, with a different sort of food. She wanted more. Perhaps, the voice heard her, because she was having more. She looked at herself and realized, what it means to be home and in mother’s warmth, for her feet are buried deep in soil and her mother wrapped herself around her, providing her warmth and food. She sighed, content!