Fragile Lives [BarAThon Day 3]

Do the small things have any Gods at all?

Every day, his small steps slowed down at the wrought iron gates.

Every day, his little feet involuntarily led him towards it.

Every day, his big, brown eyes framed by a dirty mop of hair peeked through the unrelenting iron bars, his itty-bitty callused fingers curling around them.

Semi-life-update-sort-of-not-really

So clearly, the A-Z Challenge is shot to hell and back – don't worry, I've slapped myself for taking it up right in the same month I joined a new job and also, lost my laptop. I couldn't even schedule posts to cheat and get through the challenge but I did write a few posts. I guess I'll just put them up at random.

Y'all know how obsessed I was with chocolates. I named my blog after it, for heavens’ sake.
You read it right. I said was. Before anything else, let me tell you I didn’t give up on my one true love by choice. It was fate. Fate always has the last say, clearly.

You know the worst thing that can happen to a person who loves chocolates? Diabetes. No, don't panic, I don't have diabetes. Yet. That was just for effect. You know the second worst thing that can happen to a person who loves chocolates? I do. It is that current thing that runs through your teeth when you try to crunch ice cubes? Yeah. That. I get that when I eat Twix bars. Just when I thought life couldn't get any crueller.

There lies buried in the annals of life my love story with chocolate. I don't even know who I am anymore.

P.S: Clearly, today is lets-step-up-the-drama-on-tiny-insignificant-things day. And withdrawal-symptoms day. Did anybody miss my disconnected randomness? :P

P.P.S: Who else loves House? Put your hands in the air and say wooohoooo :D

transience

Everything turns into a memory – good or bad – and is stored in the recesses of your mind only to be called upon when life manages to replicate some part of the memory at some point, a smell, a sight, a sound, a word…

PC

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

My tummy is hurting so bad that I can’t stand up. I will myself to think about something else but the moment my thought process leads away from the pain, a sharp jag brings it back to the focal point somewhere between my ribs and my waist. I hear the clink of vessels in the kitchen next to my room and I wander into a tale of self-pity in my mind – I lie here, suffering, and my mother doesn’t care enough to come cuddle me, say a few soothing words. She gave me some medicine about an hour ago and that was that. Self-pity can be very comforting and very destructive – a few tears leak out of my tightly-closed eyes. It would be years before I realized that there is nothing my mother could have done about it. On the other hand, the way she reacted is what inched up my threshold for pain and for that, I am thankful now.

***

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

I knew that I’d just gotten past the point of no return. Three years together have come apart at the seams. I’d parroted about a point of no return but when it really comes to pass, I feel dissociated despite the questions about the future that has a big, gaping hole in it. I think what makes me want to break things is that someone who is supposed to know me well chooses to believe the first rumor that comes around. It would be long years before I understood that when you have had enough, the first excuse is enough. I vow I’d never let a boy get me this low ever again. Now and forever, I come first. Me.

But that doesn’t stop me from beating myself up secretly for failing. The baggage is piling up.

***

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

I feel winded, like someone had taken the air out of my lungs. The long, long post that highlights everything that is wrong with me. Surprisingly, I am not angry at the writer; in her defense, I’d started it. I always thought that I’m only as flawed as the next human being, but seems like I’m more than. I know it is pure spite that is spilling out, that I wasn’t half those things by many other people’s accounts. But I’m like that chef, one bad review trumps twenty good ones. Way to kick a person when she’s down, I tell the author in my head. Forgiving her is easy, chit of a girl... forgiving myself is what is going to take a long, long while.

***

I lie curled up in a ball.

It is only when you are dying that your life flashes by you, they say.

I close my eyes tight and picture frames like the ones from 1 Second Everyday run by my mind’s eye – a half-eaten bowl of rice and a picture book about a hat that grew larger and larger, a beating that came after the kulfi in the fridge was checked on too frequently, Lego blocks in a yellow tub, a raggedy brown bear that wasn’t cute but terribly loved, Rachel, the dinosaur who has travelled all the way to Dubai – farther than I have ever gone, buttons that were bought to make earrings for best friends and forgotten in a bag, the blue credit card that has been buried at the back of the wardrobe, the picture from Grade 10 that brings a cringe to the face, Ma’s biscuit cake, pushing the cousin off his cradle, losing pets, writing stories, talking to the mirror and sometimes the pillow, hospital visits that swung between the best and the worst, the unbearable drama in some relationships, the astounding simplicity of others, one billion thoughts a day, life – past and future. 

***

The best moments of life and the worst are temporary. In the end, they are all relegated to one barrel of memories, each just a blip on the radar of my existence.

Lack of Lustre

I washed the clothes. I did the dishes. I scrubbed the kitchen floor to a shine.

And I picked up the groceries.
Then I sat down and riffled through the stack of congratulatory cards on the side table,
All of them wishing us a very happy married life.
 

The shine had faded from our eyes, but the cards hadn't seemed to notice.