People die. Invariably. Indifferently.

I had a fascniation of reading obituaries when I was a kid. Since kids aren’t the target of dailies, the Young World only appears on Saturdays. So the Old World filled with everyday events didn’t bother so much with imagination. It carried facts. About who went were and fought whom. Who won and the tally of it. Be it politics or sport. What sought my attention was the broadcasted show list on TV to find that my favourite cartoon will still be running on the same time when i return from school and the retelecast of the movie that I had watched already like five or six times. But that does nothing to feast the mind. But Obituaries did. And Anniversaries. Of death of course. Their family misses them. His company is his leagacy. The kid’s death was really unfortunate but it was almost 6 years back. The 40 year old man dies of aneurysm and the widow and his kids are mourning. Loving Mother of 4 and Grandmother of 12 who has nothing else to say about her life. The new born that never saw the light. Grief. Boundless. There mentioned in words within boxes. Are these the only people that died yesterday? Or just the worthy enough to be mentioned? A measure of wealth (or reverence) by the real estate of the page. But what if I died today? Will I be worthy of rememberence?

Things have not been great ever since cognisance developed. Alike any other human troubles abounded my life as well. But I wasn’t well adapted. To life or otherwise. I should have been a narcissist but alas I can empathize. So self interest took a backseat but fear of failure didn’t. Due to inactions on my part in various spectrums of life, I have failed spectacularly in all. So I’m panicking into my 38th birthday this year as living example of how bad I can do. I don’t want to be remembered as such.

I started writing just so I thought it would improve my mood. A sense of accomplishment is necessary to pass the day without a breakdown when you have nothing else on your day, or week, or the calendar. But again it was all pointless shit of self loathing and pandering. It is a wonder that I got through the lockdown easily but my life since then been worse. I realise that a menial work and regular paying job and people to love and care would do great things for ones mental health. I’m just not fit enough. Because I have never had so much thoughts of self harm since I went back pursuing the vocation I dreamt of.

Family is easy. They don’t have a choice. But friends are tricky. It is hard not to be antoginizing everything that someone does when you were betrayed young. But still you trust the process and build trust and relations. But again the slightest hint of betrayal sends you down a spiral. Betrayal has many faces. Hate casting a shadow of love.

I do not think less of you. If I think less of anyone I’d be on the top of my list. If I’m smiling, it’s purely out of my indecisive anxiety. Rarely it is because I can grasp that you are not any better. But I know I’m definitely not.

I don’t know how long I can push through. But I’ll try. Like all things this will die eventually. Me as well. You as well.

Last night I woke up in a strange room. It was strange cause it was not my room, the room that I slept in. I clearly remember going to bed last night right after dinner. I had, how do I put it, a cloudy head, where I can’t think of anything on my own. Cause that would cause a headache and I didn’t want that. But it’s not like there’s nothing running in my head. It feels stuffed with a constant stream of information flowing like when you are tuning a radio. I even hear stuff in unheard languages. It’s not set on a single wavelength but constantly tuning onto different stations or stuff or rather noises. People screaming at each other, kids playing their games, sounds of traffic, and more random stuff. But when I woke up it was silent. But not entirely. I can hear footsteps of people rushing down the corridor. And I knew then I got to go down too, cause it was time. Time for something that I instinctively knew was scheduled for, but what I’m not that aware. Down the spiral stairs of what seemed like a hotel, I followed the crowd into the atrium where everyone was waiting in queues. I chose a line to stand behind a couple of girls standing beside each other, must be friends I guess. It seemed like people were reporting to various desks with people in white hazmat suits. Huge steel boxes were being carried around by people in yellow hazmat suits with red stripes on them. I could peek into one of the boxes which were being packed with cold steel flasks one at a time carefully. Distracted by the metal boxes and walking along I thought I might have stepped on the girl’s shoes. I involuntarily held her two arms from behind to prevent her from falling. Only to my embarrassment for I haven’t stepped on her shoe but only to that thought. With cold stares from her friend, I might have frozen to let go of that girl’s hands. As I did let go of her she turned around to freeze me over again with additional cold stares. I like that girl I suppose, the girl with a bob cut hair and cream coloured pullover sweater with blue, black and red stripes across the chest. The girl on whose shoes I didn’t step on. I watch her watching me while stepping backward. She didn’t turn around. She never turned around. But I’m not looking at her anymore. Not that I don’t want to. I’m not shy of looking away at a person looking at you, given how pretty that person is. But she wasn’t around for me to look anymore. For I was seated in a chair looking at a large pot with a white betta fish with a varied green and blue coloured tail. I do like betta but never preferred a pale one. But somehow this one looked prettier and strangely familiar too. It swam out of its little pond and into the room, swimming around in thin air like it was only a natural thing a fish would do. Or maybe I’m underwater, everything is maybe. I didn’t doubt my reality or what was happening around. I couldn’t actually. I knew all this was real and couldn’t think otherwise. Then the beta swimming somewhere around a row of chairs five feet from me turned around to look at me. I knew it was coming towards me and I knew that it was my pet all along and it loves to sit on my chest. And as I started to “know” all these facts, the beta circled gracefully around me and floated above my chest. It could be how the fishes sit I guess. Then a doubt arose out of nowhere. This is too real. But this couldn’t be. I’m not dreaming or I don’t want to be dreaming. I could still feel the girl in the cream pullover sweater looking into my eyes. I’d still feel it forever. And I have my favourite pet beta fish sitting on me, all the time. But I knew they can’t. It could be someone else’s reality. Or it could still be a dream. But I didn’t want to know if it was a dream. But I gave up to what if it were my reality. The only way to know if it’s a dream is to look into a mirror. Because in dreams the dreamer never has a face. You can never see your own face in your dream. You can still see yourself in your dream but you’ll be looking at someone or something with your face cause you are looking at it or them and it’s not your face, the face that you are looking with. No mirrors around though. And I don’t want to move away from here, away from my beta or the lobby with the girl looking into me. So naturally I took my phone out, opened the camera, and I could see the fish sitting on my chest, but I couldn’t see my face. Or my whole head. It’s not like I didn’t have a head. But just that I couldn’t see it. Then I knew for sure I’m in a dream. I had to wake up. I can’t be there knowing it’s not the reality. It’s not my reality. It’ll be addicting to want to stay in dreams this way. Chances are you might end up never leaving it. I don’t want to, at least right now or this one. I woke up in my home. It was early, around six in the morning. I opened the doors to catch the early light like it was any other day. But it was still dark out. The birds weren’t there. No chirping either. Not because the sun was still out. There was thick smoke in the sky. Clouding out the whole of the sky. I looked around and I could see smoke coming out of the ground. Nothing was burning though. On the contrary, things were burning. I mean the some of the plants on the empty plots around my house were burning with smoke rising far high into the sky. I could see some trees afar with smoke rising. But there were no flames. Even on the hills across the house, I could see patches of smoke rising. It was happening everywhere because I knew it. It wasn’t wildfire. There was no fire. There were smoke and darkness. And the sun tried its best to bleed through it.