December,again

It snowed heavily that December too. The first snow never got the chance to melt on the pebbled streets of Vienna before vanishing under a thick blanket of white, forgotten, just like him.

“Four hundred and fifty three days. Or was it fifty four?”

He smiled at the ground in self-pity and shook his head violently, unsure whether to get rid of the accumulating snow or memories.

“Four hundred and fifty three days.
It doesn’t matter.
Right across the street from here- Café Holburg.
It just doesn’t matter.”

However, Dan knew it mattered just as much he chose to deny it. Every detail from that night mattered to him. Engraved in the right side of his brain- it mattered.

Graham had asked him to leave work early that evening. A “favor” he had said. He did not think much of it. After all, he would take any excuse to leave work, especially for Graham. Sticking to the untold custom, Dan got there before his best friend and sipped on his coffee sitting beside the giant window.

The bell chimed merrily as the door burst open, letting in the unforgiving winter. Bouncy footsteps and flirty laughs- Graham of course. Approaching Dan, he smiled from ear to ear while removing his coat.

“Buddy, we don’t have much time. Lena is gonna be here any minute now” said Graham before thumping down on the couch.

Dan looked at him with obvious confusion on his face.

Graham laughed, “I have a surprise for her and I need you to record her reaction.”

Feeling embarrassed, Dan looked out of the window.

“Sure. What’s the surprise?” he inquired while trying to sound indifferent from behind his coffee mug.

“A surprise for you too then, brother.” winked Graham.

Brother.

Another chime and sound of stilettos graced the wooden floorboards. As Graham got up to escort her to the table at the end of the room, Dan hid himself behind the newspaper. He peeked beneath- she was wearing a white dress, the laces at the bottom brushing the top of her stockings wrapped knees. Her soft giggles crackled softly like the warm fireplace. He took out the camera and hit record. He let go of the newspaper for Lena was not going to look at anybody besides her man tonight.

Her man.

He did not know what was coming but his dread grew with every breath. Graham reached in his pocket. As Dan’s heart dropped, he zoomed the camera into her face. Lena had her hands clasped on her mouth and tears were forming in the corner of her eyes. Then she let go a series of gleeful squeals.

What was she so happy about? He did not dare to look at what was in Graham’s hands. He only focused on her face and the slow Mozart playing in the background. Every line on her face came to life and the golden specs in her eyes ruptured into euphoria. His heart beat in his throat as he zoomed out, there it was, a tiny bling on her ring finger.

No.
Dan wanted to smash the camera at his feet and throw the mug at them. He wanted to turn their table over and rip away this unfair happiness.He moved the camera to Graham’s face. Him. What he wanted most was him.

Leaving the camera rolling on the table and picking up the half-crumbled newspaper, Dan headed out unnoticed.

Auf Wiedersehen… Bruder.

Maybe

“Never think twice before saying sorry or thank you to anyone”

One of the countless life lessons Nana left me to implement. Alas, those words went in vain on an 8 year old. They say that it’s never too late to say sorry but sometimes, just sometimes, isn’t it?

I have played it a thousand times in my head- how I would say sorry to you. Maybe a text, a call or maybe go to your house and blurt it your face. Just three words “I am sorry”. It’s so simple, easy as a breeze. Then what stops me? My ego? Lack of courage? Yeah, both. But what actually stops me is the realisation that it’s not going to change anything. Neither the past , present nor the future is going to alter itself even if I apologise.

Yet, I wish I could muster up the courage because it burdens me to keep it inside. The thought that maybe you look back at those memories just as I do but the presence of my shadow makes it all bitter. Like during autumn rain how we used to wear our oversized boots and try to push each other into puddles and how much it used to hurt your pride to always be the one to end up with muddy clothes. To be pushed over by a girl!- what an insult, right? Or how we used to act like being each other’s dance partners was like the worst thing that could happen but wouldn’t want to pair up with anyone else; partners in every duo performance I did in those 5 years with the person I claimed to hate the most.

Oh, I did hate you,  as much hate a 6 year old’s tiny heart could hold. For the times you ganged up with the other guys when they teased me for being a tomboy. When every time you came over to my house and took over my own TV and I couldn’t say anything back because according to Mom you were ” a guest”. For blowing off the candles on my birthday cake every year. For doing better than me at math. And so much more.

Somehow still, friend, I still never truly hated you. Remember one day we were cycling right after the snow had started clearing and my cycle skidded off the road? I cut my knee and you piggy backed me home, laughing at my pitiful cycling skills the whole way. Or remember how during spring when I used to sneeze because of the pollen how you would tie your handkerchief over my nose? Or the lazy summer afternoons by the lake, chasing after Ruslan’s dog? Remember how I broke your Batman figurine and started crying and you laughed saying how funny I looked when I cried?

“Good days” I say. But I wonder what you say when you look back at them. Do you recall me as a companion of a magical childhood? Or as a destroyer who brought the worst ending to your best days? In my head when I think of going up to you, I imagine you asking “Why did you do that?”. Nine years and I still cannot find an answer to that. Because I was angry? Because I was hurt? But the best fit always seems to be- because I was stupid.

So, maybe one of these days when our families get together again, I’ll walk up to you instead of avoiding eye contact and I’ll let it all out- the good, the bad and the ugly. And maybe you’ll forgive me and we will take a walk down the lanes of Parkovaya, the tunnels behind the school,  the narrow alleys of the bustling Sunday markets when our pockets used to be loaded with candies and our faces with smiles. Maybe.

Worth It

“Think about it one last time, Nobu- san.”, said a solemn Satsuki. He had lost count of how many times his trainer had repeated this sentence. But he smiled every time. Even right then, standing on the 100m track beside young and competitive runners, this man with a rare heart condition, smiled.

Nobu knew that his own body was his nemesis, but his willpower was amaranthine. This track, the anticipating crowd and that finish line were all he knew, all he had. Let it take the last beat of his vulnerable heart, he had to get to the other end.

As the shot fired, his legs did what they had been trained to do for 29 years but he broke a sweat too early. “A little further!”, he screamed inward, to his soul.

His mouth felt dry, his lungs were empty but he could see it- the finish line, so close. Darkness creeped in from the corners of his vision. Did he make it?

When his senses opened a week later, he heard the beeping sound of machines trying to keep him alive. But what mattered was the sight of the medal sitting on the side table. A final smile found a way to his lips.

“Worth it.”- he repeated to himself till he reached equanimity.

10 Problems only introverts will understand:

 

1. The mind conversations: I can’t be the only one who has an entire script of conversation ready for the day I am going to meet Brad Pitt, right? We have more conversations in our heads than in real life because that’s the way we like it.

 

2. The horror of phone calls: Yes, picking up the phone to make a call takes seven prayers and half an hour of hyperventilation for some of us. Calling the customer care service or even the pizza delivery is scary, okay? Okay.

 

3. The want in but want out situation: When you want to cut all ties with civilization but cannot cut yourself out of the internet because you just need to watch those prank videos.

 

4. The non-insomniac owl: We don’t stay up all night because we cannot sleep but because we choose not to. When else can we be absolutely alone and be undisturbed by mere mortals?

 

5. The weirdo: When you tell people that you would like to do something by yourselves and the awkward look they give you as if you are the strange one. Sorry but not so sorry.

 

6. The low battery: When you are spending a great day “socializing” but suddenly all you want to do is go home, put on your baggy clothes and hide inside your blanket. We just need to recharge a bit, it just takes 2 weeks or so.

 

7. The monster called “small talk”: Let’s get this straight. Do not small talk with us, it’s horrible. Indulge in deeper conversations that doesn’t require the constant struggle to find a new question. It’s easier and more fun.

 

8. The over excited friend: Every introvert has that one friend who is always so filled with energy that it drains them out of theirs and the word “no” does not even exist in their vocabulary. If they say you need to hang out today, you have to, there is no escape, just brace yourself.

 

9. The permanent “sad face”: When you have to explain to the over concerned people that you aren’t sad and this is just how you look when you are lost inside your head’s labyrinth of imaginations.

 

10. The fix-yourself: First, being an introvert isn’t even a problem. So, we do not have to fix ourselves to match everyone else’s standards. Second, we are fabulous the way we are and if you have a problem with that then, excuse you.

Isolophilia

“Your daughter is too quiet. She doesn’t interact much with the other children.”  In spite of being an all A+ student at the age of 8, this was the common complaint my parents had to hear from my teachers. Surprisingly, my younger sister is following my footsteps. Back in my time, my parents were overly concerned with my lack of social interactions. Thus, I used to be forced to go to social events and make so-called friends. My mother routinely screamed at me for being a slow talker and continuously nagged about my lack of wit. You see, I never understood what exactly it was that was wrong with me. All I knew was that people did not accept the way I was and that I had to change myself. And so, I did.

Social butterfly is what you call extremely social people, well then, I had become a social tornado. For about five years I lied to everyone including myself, that this was who I was. I thought I had proved to myself that this was indeed me and that I was happy this way. But insecurities never left my side and there was no place on earth I preferred over the solitude of my room. At the end, you really cannot escape yourself, at least that is how it was in my case. I cannot pinpoint the moment I started to see it but I realized how everything and everyone around me was a façade. Usually transformations occur overtime, but everything for me changed overnight, I changed it because I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got myself out of the trap the popular and “witty” kids had set. And then I went from having countless friends to zero friends in a matter of three months or so. To a normal person, it might sound pretty tragic but believe me when I tell you that it was the best time of my life with myself because I finally let who I was, take over who I pretended to be. I might have looked eccentric to people but to me I was finally “me”. Eventually, I made friends I wished I had made earlier. And mind you, quality is always better than quantity, a life lesson learned the hard way.

These days, thanks to the internet, there is a lot of talk about introverts and they know that they are not the only one feeling the way they do. Yet introverts are the least understood people or may I say the least accepted people. Of course, I have a pledge towards everybody to let introverts be themselves and know that introversion is not a disease. But I have a greater pledge towards the introverts themselves- embrace it. Yes, it is easier said than done in the kind of society we grow up in but I cannot emphasize on how important it is. Once you learn to embrace who you are, you will see that nothing else matters. You do not feel so wary of what people think of you because it simply does not matter. What does it matter to them that the party you want to attend is not in a room with loud music and strangers but inside your head of thoughts?

Introverts are some of the coolest people I know (yes, I consider myself cool too). Their minds are iridescent and their quiet and calm nature is their minutiae. To those who are trying to fight their introversion, please don’t, there is an ineffable beauty about you. Just put on your baggy pajamas, get inside your favorite blanket and stare at the ceiling. How do you feel? If you start wool-gathering, indulging into seamless imaginations then you are a precious introvert and the world needs more of you. You are a gift.

Kids These Day

Through the eyes of society, we are the generation that is “too fast”. We are the epitome of the worst thing that could happen to children. The way we look, the way we talk, just who we are- the most annoying scene to the adult world. Yeah I get it, you want us to value our age and the innocence that was supposed to come with it. And when we do not exactly abide by the rules of nature or might I say “your rules”, we get titles such as “spoiled”, “ungrateful”, “gone bad”, “hopeless generation” and so many other fancy ones. But here is a question for those accusing eyes of yours- have you ever wondered why we are like this?

My mother used to play with dolls till she was 13. I played video games. And the ones now play with makeup. Why you ask? I ask why not? Why is it so hard for you to come in terms with the fact that times have changed? That we are not ever going back to where you were. Also give it a thought, what makes us take a fast track to adulthood when we are supposed to enjoy our young age?

We are forced to take so much more responsibility now. Every time a child acts “childish” you are the one who screams “Grow up!”. But the thing is we do not know what it means to grow up. To be responsible, to act rationally. So we look at you, our examples, and do we get a good one? No, we don’t. We see irresponsibility and illogical characteristics in you too and we are able to see it because our eyes do not have many filters. We tend to see things much more clearly than you do. So when we see a “grown up” wearing makeup as to mask her insecurities, we follow her. When we see you smoking to ease your pain, we follow you. When we see our fathers hit our mothers, we lose respect for our female counterparts, we follow you. When we see you treat us like we are completely useless, we become bullies; we follow you. So maybe it is high time that you stop trying to change us and change yourselves first. Because we are watching you and we are becoming what you have become. Telling us that we should act differently is not going to help because we do not know how to.

So the next time you point a finger at a child or a teen and utter “kids these days”, stop yourself and think if you are any much better in spite of the fact that you are an adult. If you want us to be better than act better. Show us what “better” even is.  Nobody is born ‘bad’, we are all born as clean slates. Every conduct we see in front of our eyes get imprinted there, gradually filling it up. I believe all of us are virtuous, but the surroundings scrape that off of us. And how much is it our fault? There are a lot of children but little childhood. Maybe the only way we are going to get some childhood is when you leave us to be ourselves and not give us responsibilities that our frail young shoulders cannot lift. Then maybe that girl will put down the makeup brush and pick up her doll.

One Less Blessing

 

Hey Nana, can you hear me? I’m that precious granddaughter of yours that feels drowned in regrets. If you were still here, you would mock me and say “You are too young for regrets.” You would laugh at me. Then you would take me out to eat to make me feel better because you could never stand the sight of my tears. But here I am with tears streaming down my cheeks and you aren’t there to wipe them or pat my head and tell me to let it go.

It has been a year Nana, that you left us. That day still seems like a blur. I didn’t even know the date till this year when Mom told me. What did the date matter? You aren’t here and I didn’t need a particular day to be reminded of that. I never thought I’d see you leave before my O level exams. You always said so yourself that you would live long enough to see me get married. I promised myself that I would make you proud, that it was my only opportunity. The only way I could make you proud and I had to because I was always so proud of you. How could I not be proud of you? You were your country’s soldier, your community’s good doer, your family’s glue and a person with the largest heart. You couldn’t hold on for one more year, you just couldn’t. I wonder if you are watching me now, if you are, do you feel proud of me? You saw me growing up, my father himself never did. You knew me better than he does and better than he ever will. People think I lost a grandfather, what they don’t understand is that I lost a father. And it hurts in every inch of my body when I think about it. So like a child I lock that painful thought away to save myself from breaking down every so often. The dining table is empty. There is nobody complaining about politics and giving us all the breaking news of the world. There is no more need of fetching your medicine box after dinner and no more fighting among the younger kids in the house about who is going to feed you the medicine. Remember, not too many years back I was the only one with the privilege to do so? You would wait for me to come with the medicine. But gradually the nonsense thought that I was growing up took over me and I stopped feeding you the medicine and the younger ones took my place. I should have never let that happen.

In those last months Nana, I hardly saw you even though you were mostly home. I was going around doing extra classes for the exams the results of which you didn’t live long enough to see. I was working with that goal in mind, I would make you so proud. But while doing so I forgot about you as a person completely. I would still see you at dinner but never stick around long enough. The day it all started to go down, I was on the dining table and you called out from your room. Even in my worst dreams I couldn’t have thought that it would be those series of events that led to the end. That I would be helping you down the stairs to the car for the last time. That those were your very last step. When you were in pain you kept telling me that “This is it. This is it.” I wouldn’t believe you. I couldn’t believe you. I didn’t want to. But you knew. The next day, every second I spent away from the hospital I felt those words weighing down on me. On the day you left I spent the entire day there but you chose the moment I was not beside you to let out that last breath.

I thought a miracle would happen. You taught me to believe in miracles and that they happen to everybody. I would trade all the miracles of my life for that one miracle. But no Nana a miracle didn’t happen. I regret so many things now. Too many. I could have changed my last memories of you. I could have made you happier by spending time with you. I should have done so much and that still wouldn’t come close to what you did for me from the start. My results came out just the day after your death anniversary. Mom burst out in tears just thinking how happy you would have been, how you would be dancing around the streets giving people sweets and declaring to the whole world that your granddaughter is the best. When you would see me crying for that one mark that made me lose the chance to the scholarship, you would say that you would pay the fees if I stopped crying about it. And I wouldn’t so you would pat my head and tell me how this is just a lesson life threw at me, that I should get over it and be happy about what I achieved. But you aren’t there to do that. So I’m going to cry Nana, because nothing and nobody else seems to be enough to erase any of this distress. Then I will do what you ALWAYS asked me to do- count my blessings. But from the past year I have one less blessing to count.

Remember Me?

You are thinking about being someone else now. As your long fingers tap restlessly on the keyboard and your eyes dry on the computer screen, I am the part of  a million thoughts you keep pushing away as hard as you can but never far enough. You say that there is no point in thinking about me, right? You think it’s too late. Is it really? I thought I was talking to the girl who believed nothing was impossible if she put her mind to it. Well, I guess I’m not talking to her then. Sorry, wrong person.

But if you are that girl, do you remember me? I’m not the astronaut you wanted to be when your Dad introduced you to the Moon and its mysteries. I’m not the archeologist you wanted to be when you stumbled across the knowledge of dinosaurs’ extinction. Neither am I the dream that rose in your soft heart when you saw people in pain and wanted to relief them. Nor am I the pilot who would fly across the globe to see her grandparents. I’m none of those fudge sundaes with whipped cream and cherries on top. I’m plain. I’m boring. However, I existed firmly in your heart as well as your mind.

I am what you wanted to be when you opened a book and marveled at those simple words put together that created exotic stories. When you wrote your first lines. When they praised you for it. It meant so much to you. Oh what joy it used to give you! Yet, it did not take you more than a few discouraging words to put it down and place a brick on it. You thought I was a mere delusion. That I was another one of those childhood fantasies. You lie to yourself dear. Tremendously. Then lie again by saying that you are being honest. Fear planted its seeds in you and now the roots have grown deep. You feared not being good enough to pursue me. You feared being mocked. You feared that there were barriers when the only one stopping you was you.

So, now you shut me out even though in the core of your heart I radiate beneath all the lies. I am what you used to want. Now you want to be another one of those mass of people you used to call ‘grey’. Doing what they should do and not what they wanted to. And you had promised yourself that you would never let that happen. But what does it matter to you anymore? You’re going to sleep peacefully on that broken dream though you always brag to yourself that you never break promises. Such a pity.

You have piled up so much denial and lies on top of me that I can hardly make my presence known to you. If you deny me again I’m going to be left in this pit forever, forgotten. So tell me now,just one more time, do you remember me?

Letting Go

Just like how that drop of rain kept hanging on the tip of my nose, trying to give in to gravity but never being willing enough to let go.

 

 “So give me hope in the darkness

That I will see the light

Cause oh that gave me

Such a fright.”

                                     -Mumford and Sons

 

 

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