Words of Mystery

A blog where magic happens with the mysteries of everyday life

[themysteriouswriter675]

Snippets

Writing has become therapeutic now.

My first O Levels exam went well. The others should go fine as well.

I guess this writing has a specific purpose. I wanted to explore the exhaustion that has been gripping my mind for a few days. I think today was the first day that I’m feeling tired-not because of physical reasons, but because of mental ones. Today was a classic example of your body giving up even though there wasn’t a lot of physical exhaustion. I can only describe my state as...tired. I am at a lack of adjectives. 

I have to talk about my state throughout April for any of this to make sense. I spent most of my time at home- away from social life; away from my hectic schedule; away from burdensome interactions and errands. I had good sleep. I wasn’t overworking myself. I had a healthy dose of entertainment, both on and off the phone-I wasn’t bored. But while my muscles rested on my soft bed, my mind decimated itself into microscopic shreds. There was nothing but fiery anguish, a burning hatred for the present, and an icy contempt for the future. I was standing still, but my mind was gasping for breath, trying to run towards an idealized past that was no more, while running away from the hellish pits of futures that did not exist, all made up by anxiety. All my pain was confined within the membranes of the brain- to cut skin, broken bones, ripped tendons, but a shattered self-esteem, burning consciousness, and an assessment of life that was kicked, beaten, spat on, and stepped on by unrealistic expectations and hopeless spans of unproductivity.  

Even though one is just sitting throughout the entire ordeal, crying simply pulls one’s soul out using a vacuum. All those deep, noisy breaths tire the lungs beyond comprehension. Whatever determination and satisfaction is left seems to evaporate along with the fluid of the tears. The end result is a person gasping for peace, with a head so heavy that it seems to be magnetically attracted to the nearest pillow. It’s not an exercise, but it sure hell is physically taxing.

Even when not in the deepest dungeon of despair, simply living as a person who hates himself, his actions, and his state, is challenging. Your mind constantly crunches away scenarios non-stop, all leading to a variant of self-blame and regret and jealousy. Every moment is spent waiting in desperation for some assurance that certain people care about you. Every instant is spent overanalysing interactions and having nervous fits that certain people have drifted apart. Every minute not spent as a workaholic is spent assessing yourself as a lazy sloth. There is no peace. There is simply a ruthless Inquisition against a non-perfect reality, which impales you for things not turning out how you want. 

Happiness has simply become a short burst of dopamine. There is nothing to sustain that feeling. When it is a non-stop sequence, jumping between stress and emptiness, the mind yearns for something good. The distressed maid waits for her savior. But it shows its face for 15 seconds, and leaves you to your fractured mind. The word ‘good’ has simply become ‘hope’. Family stops to seem like family. Friends stop to feel like friends. When the one person you were closest to does not do anything to make you feel like your friendship matters to them, then a simple act of reciprocity from that one person is all you ever need. When that doesn’t come, it feels really, really, bad. 

So yeah, I’m not tired. I’m just exhausted. Even when I’m fine, it seems like my body needs some rest that it doesn’t deserve. Even when it seems as though I’m not in a state of sadness, the overthinking that I seemed to have repressed comes to pull me back into the abyss. And this is the anguish of anxiety. It is like an axiom that is unfalsifiable. The root of all my sadness, all my pain, might as well be fictitious, but I have no way to disprove it. It is painful. On the other hand, it might be real, it might be permanent, always here to haunt my life. It is also painful. I cannot decide which one will hurt me more. 

[themysteriouswriter675]

Rant

Again. No one’s reading this. Same old deal.

Supposed to be studying. Can’t. Or didn’t. I don’t know which. Stopped crying to write this. First one was therapeutic. This one will probably be as well. 

The last writing was self reflection. This one will be about a bunch of events that have been killing me. Honestly, I don’t know what this will be about.

I don’t want to have this life anymore. Whatever’s in the future simply angers me and makes me cry even more. Whatever’s in the past makes me regret screwing it up. Whatever’s now makes be wanna go back to before.

I’m numb. My best friend no longer feels like my best friend. Sometimes I get lost, trying to remember what I was feeling before. I now live in 5 minute Facebook videos, 2 hour YouTube streams. Family no longer feels meaning-imbuing anymore, even though they are literally the same people they were. It’s no longer about them. It’s a battle with myself and my expectations. 

Not even expectations. Even though I don’t go through breakdowns about this as often, I am not really entitled to much success either. I understand that. I’m not driven by anything. I don’t have any ambitions. I don’t have passion towards the things I do. I don’t have passion towards anything. I sometimes think about running away, about dying. But most of the times, I’m drowning in escapism, concocting fantasies, concocting lives I dream of having. There’s no other way left for me to feel anything. There’s no longer that satisfaction to anything. Nothing to pat myself on the back for. 

I feel angry. Very angry towards my friend. Angry, sad, hopeful, apathetic- all simultaneously. Hate them for ignoring me. Hate them for reasons I cannot even articulate. But there is some substance to it, I promise. But I’m dependent on them. For everything. 

I am now feeling nothing. It’s a miserable dichotomy. It’s either sadness or nothing. Or short bursts of extreme happiness. But not more.

This raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant is for no one. But I am gonna continue writing this. Won’t study. Can’t study. It’s alright. I’ll probably not fail. I don’t wanna be alone. At least I’m writing. This should do fine. If I hadn’t screwed things up, if my best friend even cared, I’d probably not be in front of the laptop. 

March was great. A fantastic month. March 25, I ruined everything. I hate myself for that. I hate everyone for that. 

What else is there? This feeling of emptiness is absurd. Simply nudges you towards crying. If anyone was there to listen. There are people to listen, but I’m not being rational here. 

The only thing my emptiness gets me to do is breathe. Nothing else. How much human is left in me?

I thought about running away. But that doesn’t help me. 

Has she replied? Nope. 

My cousin uploaded to their story. She is happily married. Ahh. What a fairy-tale. My life’s definitely not one.

What’s even the point of writing this?

Bye for now.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Empty Frustration

Hello world. Although I’m sure almost no one’s reading this. The handful of followers whose attention I might have captured have probably lost me in the tsunami knows as Tumblr. Today I’ll try to revive myself, bang open the nails from one of the countless coffins Tumblr’s algorithm puts its millions of inactive users in, if you may. I’m a changed person from when I previously used to write- no longer invested heavily in changing the world, but rather scrambling to hold together the broken pieces within. I guess as my younger self sought to change society, to change norms, to shatter systems, and break glass ceilings, it forgot to take a peek inside itself and see that......there was nothing. Nothing but a fiery ego fueled for years by undeserved praise, nothing but a lazy feaster who does nothing besides waiting for the food to come to the table, without moving an inch towards it. And it was possible before. One might as well have forgotten there was anything to contend on the inside to begin with. One of the biggest shams ever sold to young people, was that your life, down the road, would be guided by what happens on the outside- outside events, outside obligations, outside people- that you would drown in your surroundings so much, that you didn’t have to contend with anything in your homeland. Of course, that’s only a torn half of the full page- no one warns the innocent of the real Goliath they have to slay. The real war that no one stocks up for hits them when they least expect it. One day they wake up and look at the mirror, and see more than they ever expected to. The highlights of one’s face brings visions that cannot be penned down, but yet their mind seems to retain even the slightest detail of, the tiniest speck at the most remote corner.

I’ve clearly become a far less skilled writer. But I feel more satisfaction writing this down than I ever did writing even my most brilliant stories. I’ve learnt a lot over the years, and one of the things I’ve learnt is that a machine will rip a human off into shreds when it comes to writing the most accurate, to-the-point piece one can. The chronology of the bulletproof, immaculate paragraphs of an algorithm almost seem to have been constructed, if I may, by decimal-precise instruments whose sole job is to not miss a single detail. And if that is what people set to imitate, then these words become strings of letters- writing loses meaning. I know that now. My previous self would hate the fact that I’ve interrupted my initial musings to go on a completely unrelated tangent. But I don’t deal in paragraphs anymore. Language points and content synchronization is no longer the lens through which I view my writings. I now deal in thoughts. In emotions. In stories. In conversations with voices from the inside. This writing won’t win prizes. But I’m at least able to write messages to the second person that has grown inside me. This person listens. This person responds. This person looks at the world and guides me based on what it gathers. This person isn’t me. This person isn’t someone else either. But this person exists, and will even drive you to a gun, or a bottle of sleeping pills, if it is provoked to. As we grow, this person becomes us. And I’m writing this to pen down what this person thinks of me. 

Our days slowly morph, from the daily operations of an input-output algorithm, from a series of orders, from sports discussions, from childhood tiffin politics, from fretting over results, from mischievous giggles, from escaping relatives, from trying to fit ourselves into the grilles of our balcony, into something more morbid and harrowing. It turns into panic attacks, into anxiety, into stacks of unread books, into clinging onto friends who sometimes don’t cling back as much, into periods of time when the only two things you know are that you are looking at yourself and that tears are flowing out of your eyes, into week-long spans of running out of things to pat yourself on the back for. It is primarily that. The very idea that we can think for hours about what would happen if we die without flinching at the very idea in an instant amidst an unfaltering affection for reality should not be normal, but it is. 

There can only be moments of digging upwards, reaching topsoil, and devouring the trees and the air before the dirt beneath the ground slides apart like quicksand. How long those moments are depends on how hard one can whip themselves into pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. Crafting that whip takes an extraordinary amount of religious dedication towards self-positivity and optimism manufacturing. It requires us to rip the ends of our receptors into oblivion till we are blind to the suffering that pulls us back again, howling, whimpering. The heart becomes heavy, our movements become more erratic during sudden moments to voluminous regret and frustration flowing through our cursed veins. We expect texts from people who, ultimately, don’t text. We expect people to notice us, feel our absence. It is all a fairy-tale. No one cares enough. At least the people you want to do not. You feel like abandoning people. But people do not need you. You need them. It takes a moment to wrap our heads around it. But one day, we look at ourselves, and realize, that the only well that quenches our thirst is contaminated with cyanide. There is no escaping the poisoning, the pain, because the alternative is utter destruction. Sometimes, the cyanide is purely fictitious, a figment of the imagination. But it is all the same. You feel a burning rage towards your friends. You call them scum of the earth, even though all they are doing is failing to live up to the sky-high expectations that the person inside you set. 

But then again, all of this is before one opens the lid and look inside. All of these are simple iron pellets, shot at your body in preparation for the missile to come. You open yourself. Skin the flesh from the bone, rip the bone in half, and inside, there’s only Calcium. No feelings, no emotions, a person without a droplet of empathy. This is the body that you’ve been living inside for years. And imagine realizing that while you are alone, one day, when your life flashes by before your eyes, and the only thing you ever remember doing is hurting others. Hurting yourself. Thinking you are the best in the world. Building the lazy feaster whose body you would occupy one day. Imagine you distinctly remember the day it happened. Imagine that you cried for 4 hours straight. Imagine that the person you spent your whole life building is one that has personality dysphoria every night. A person that has developed the instinct to sit around and wait for things to happen. A person that cannot create order from the chaos he is given, and instead bathes in it, suffering in willingness, in complete submission to his self-annihilating nature. A person, who, in order to be forced to do something, has to be given the opportunity cost of severe physical or social penalties. One can only imagine it. Only those who have gone through it sit in front of a laptop at 1 a.m. and type it for the rest of the world to see. 

One would think this is saddening. It is not. There is a part inside. Like a mother that screams to her child that exams are in 10 days. That part sees the fire that is coming to burn the trees. It sees the eerie calm before the storm. But I have become numb to my sheer incompetence. It is a sort of expressionless torture. It is the stick you grab to beat yourself that you care you do not have the energy to put to use. It is the fire that you light to burn yourself to make yourself feel the weight to your wasted years that you do not even feel like jumping to. I would say I feel like a robot. But a robot is programmed to do what it is told. I don’t even do that either.   

The rotting mascot of a human being I made myself was stripped naked and put up on a humiliating exhibition. I decided that I can talk, and decided to open a page of my life that I want to burn with a lighter, rip slowly with my own fingers, as if to have the illusion that I’m causing it pain, drown it in cold, unforgiving water, and throw away in a lonely, isolated trash-bag. I decided to join debating. I don’t want to talk much about this part of my life(which still continues to this day though), because I know it way too well, and I feel like talking about it does no service to this exercise of self-therapy. 

I didn’t plan an end to this excerpt. This was a photograph of my journey to being the pathetic human I am. Happiness, purpose, drive, love, inclusion- I am tired of being told that these things will come to me. I am not that long-haired sweetheart with a stable relationship and a thousand-page manual on social dexterity. I am not that sweet, wholesome person that everyone ascribes a positive contribution to their lives onto. I am not a sailor with a map. I’m a warrior that does not know how to wield a sword. A “nerd” who doesn’t study. A debater who doesn’t practice. A person that has manufactured a personality that I’m forgetting how to keep up. I’m nothing. There is nothing inside. A defunct car that has been pitched as a speed beast by salesmen who do not know the inside. This isn’t a story. An excerpt. This is a diagnosis. A periscope view. Of my inside. A pathetic, void-consumed, meaningless inside. I thought I would feel better after writing this. Turns out my emptiness has just been replaced by more of it. 

[themysteriouswriter675]

Why Freedom Matters

There’s a war of ideas going on in the Western world, as there should be. As abundance, automation, and technology is frees up more and more time for the general masses, while simultaneously threatening to topple over the very building blocks of society (employment being an obvious one), it is leaving humans with a lot of time on their hands to really think thoroughly about the lenses they use to view and verify reality. It is easy to gauge why such discussions did not take place in the historical past to the extent that they are taking place today. Even in 1895, when the Industrial Revolution had tightened its grasp on the daily lives of commoners, the average person lived on less than a dollar a day, below the UN’s threshold for abject poverty. This is really a testament to the fact that even until recently, the world constituted absolutely terrible suffering for its inhabitants. History is a teary, bloody mess, filled with disease, terror, hardship, infidelity, discrimination, and every possible hammer to your state of being that one can imagine. So it’s understandable that philosophical conversations were scarce in a world where people tried their absolute best simply to live to see the next day and to ensure their families did so.

But it is different now. At least far better than it used to be. The sheer number of scientific discoveries and advancements that got us to where we are today is huge, and can fill up libraries upon libraries of densely packed books, as it rightfully does so today. But the end result of it is something we live through everyday and don’t really appreciate to the extent we should- we are living exponentially better lives with access to healthcare, education, liberty, leisure, luxury, and other amenities that our ancestors could not even imagine would exist in heaven. Even though it is not the case for everyone, things surely are great, and will only get better as time goes by.

For the majority of history, humans have battled hard- with their own nature, with the cruel forces of inadequacy and with other people, and have lived short and grueling lives under ruthless circumstances to fulfill their physical needs and wants. When your daily income was less than a dollar a day, and your life depended on the mercy of the local landlord, and on the hesitation of neighboring conquerors, there was not much you could do to ensure a livelihood, other than to live by the dictates of your superiors, and hard did the nobility make the commoners work. From churches to cathedrals to mansions to statues, all was the fruit of the blood and sweat of the peasants, but the property of the kings and the emperors and the merchants. In return, they got barely enough food (enough to live, if one was willing to forego one or two meals a day), livable shelters (livable being the overstatement of the century), and the permission to live. Well, that was all the proletariat could really ask for without having their throats slit by the cold metal of the swords of the bourgeoisie.

Something must have happened in the last 300 years, that must have caused the radical transformation of society from a hellish den of chaotic, pitiless torture to a peaceful mountain top overlooking the vast expanse of potential and well-being. Something must have happened to liberate people, by the billions, from the iron shackles of helplessness, despair, and suffering. Something must have happened to condense, into around three centuries, the progress that people imagined to be spread over countless eons. And to find that something, we have to look no further than the Enlightenment, to the likes of John Locke, Adam Smith, and other liberated minds. These people were at the forefront of a new way of life. A way of life, which made possible the most significant improvement in human well-being in the entire history of Homo Sapiens. 

Separating and dissecting the tenets that propelled the Enlightenment, the most fundamental idea that all their work possessed was a semi-religious emphasis on the importance of  the freedom of the individuals to live their lives by their own accord, without being restricted by the dictates of the collective, of the tribe, or of the government. It was this focus on the sovereignty of the individual that was the foundation of the work of John Locke, his legendary declaration that “all individuals own themselves”, and the bulk of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”, the Bible of the capitalist school of thought, that was, and continues to be to this date, the biggest liberator of individuals across the social spectrum from the lottery of their birth. A society that values the sovereignty of the individual is one that gives people the ability to turn their lives around and transform their fates by the virtues of hard work and personal responsibility. It is one that truly frees individuals from cultural pressures, from differences in upbringing, and from the age-old iron weight of taboo and stigma.

All of this sounds prophetic, but prophetic declarations are not even close to being enough to lift around 90% of the world out of debilitating starvation, harrowing illiteracy and frighteningly low lifespans. There is, of course, a single foundational assumption about the nature of individuals that constitutes the claim of individual freedom. I will try to expand on it, and try to show why this claim is of merit, and gives more reasons to have freedom, and not less.

Also, freedom is not a uni-dimensional entity. I not only propose the freedom of individuals in a political sense (freedom of speech, thought, etc.), but also vehemently support the freedom of individuals to pick their own careers, to pick their own religions, and other things of that sort.

Every individual knows what is best for himself/herself

Before elaborating on this, let’s ask- what exactly is oneself? What exactly are you? Well, you are the controller of your consciousness, but there are many things within your consciousness that you are unaware of. Your intestines continuously digest food, your heart constantly pumps blood, and your livers constantly detoxify your body, without the slightest hint of your control. So there ARE some parts of you that are you, but are outside of your control.

This bring us to the question, what exactly is it about our lives that we can control NOW, THIS MOMENT. Well, it’s definitely neither or past nor present, because both of these have already happened. So, we can definitely influence our future, because that is something that has not happened as of yet.

Then, let’s ask- what exactly is it that you need to know about the direction you are heading, in order to assess the quality of your future? Well, you certainly need an aim. Now, what is the spectrum of possible aims? It is very, very large. You can pick financial security, and tread along predictable paths of life, in search of guaranteed outcomes that you know are most likely going to manifest themselves, either because almost everyone treads along that path with some degree of success, or because the path consists of stable and secure careers, that are probably predictable, but guarantee some form of return. You can also be the type that increases the range of possible outcomes, in order to target outcomes that manifest themselves into tremendous success, while risking potential catastrophes/failure, e.g. investing into an ambitious startup project. Like these, there are countless aims, both temporary and long term, that one can choose from in their lives. The question then becomes, are all these aims good? And the answer is, definitely no. We have to accept that there are truly malevolent people out there, who deeply want to inflict suffering to others, sometimes to further their selfish interests, and their aims are in direct synchrony with their devilish attitudes. Some aims are simply misguided, either due to a naive understanding of the world (”I’ll set out to fix the world”), or due to less-than-optimum company, which may distort our perception of the world, either due to peer pressure or due to the indulging in collective foolishness(a good example is the hipster movement of the 60s and 70s, which encouraged people to drop out of college, supposedly to show how “cool and rebellious against the system” they are). Some people simply don’t have an aim, either because they are facing a serious dilemma in their lives(to settle down or to focus on my career), because they are suffering from depression, or because they have not yet come to terms with what kind of a person they really are, and where they want to go in their lives. 

The validity of claims is a different issue, but if one thing is clear from this, it is that there sure are a SHIT TON of ways to be happy. One can rest peacefully knowing that they have a daily job as a bank accountant, and a lovely family to get home to, while some people find meaning in being indie game developers and turning their childhood passion for games into an actual career. Some simply prefer being at home cooking meals and playing with their children and watching them grow from little bundles of joy into responsible, mature human beings, while some get a kick out of working their asses off to get $150,000+ a year and not being burdened by the responsibilities that come with settling down with a family.

The reason freedom matters is that there are possibly an infinite modes of being that will generate happiness as an output for you, and it is you, out of all people on Earth, that has the best idea of your neurology in order to figure out what exactly your optimum modes of being are. 

This, of course, is not a widely accepted idea, especially in South Asian communities, where the persistence insistence to be either a doctor or engineer rings irritably in the ears of millions of teenagers and, sadly, even children, who are burdened with the obligation to pick the career of their parents’ choice way before they can figure out what actually is good for them.

The reason this is the case, is that in societies where the middle-class make up the bulk of the population, financial distress is a key factor in the mental processes of adults. Doctors and engineers are respectable professions that pay a hefty sum of money to their occupants, and so are enough for paying the bills and securing a safe life.

But the problem is that your parents may simply be wrong regarding your future, because their optimum mode of being and yours (i.e. the mode of being that generates happiness for that individual) may not only be different, but may also be extremely foreign to one another, because the aims associated with that mode of being may be completely different than the aims associated with the mode of being your parents may want you to aspire to. Sure, a doctor may be rich, but for that career to be fulfilling, your aims really have to be to sacrifice yourself to the good of others, and to spend lots and lots of years studying in order to reap the fruits of your hard work many years later. But that simply may not be your cup of tea. You may want to be at the edge of danger and risk by opening a new importing company, or an online retailer. You may want to satisfy your artistic urges by becoming a painter and selling your drawings. This mismatch of optimum modes of being, and the enforcement of young people to live the mode of being preferred by their parents, is the source of countless resentfully spent lives, anger-and-dissatisfaction-driven abuse, and even helpless suicides.

A beautiful movie that portrays the benefits of aligning your actions with your aims is 3 Idiots, a Hindi Movie starring Aamir Khan, who plays the character of Ranchor Das, a university student who fulfills his dream of studying engineering. The movie is about Ranchor, his two friends, Farhan and Raju,  and their endeavors, pranks and their friendship, sadness, helplessness, love, happiness, musings in a world that values financial security over the following of one’s passion. The movie is really good, and I highly recommend watching it. But the movie has a far deeper meaning, as the main character, Ranchor, is really a mythological representation of the best that can happen to you when your actions are perfectly aligned with your aims. Throughout the movie, Ranchor remains focused, and is never bogged down by stress. He radiates a positive aura throughout the duration of the movie, and is never in fear of what the future has in store. This is the ideal state of a person who clearly knows what they want, and is actively working, and allowed to work, to materialize a future based on their optimum mode of being, in the sense that the person clearly knows what they are heading to, so the future is certain, and relatively free of unpredictability, especially unwanted predictability. The person is given an added dose of motivation and determination because they are pursuing what they truly want in life, so they are less likely to be overwhelmed by what they are doing. This is especially relatable to students who have been forced to study a subject in university they never liked, which makes everything that much harder. The person is always in absolute readiness to face what is ahead because he likes the path forward, so the body and the mind are in absolute harmony, which causes increased positivity and a decrease in meaninglessness and cynicism. All of these ideals are portrayed by Ranchor, which is why it makes the character that much more likable, which is proof for the fact that the allowance of freedom in an individual’s life is also helpful for a person’s social prospects, because the person is surrounded by like-minded people who share their same passions.

This is it for today. I have much more to muse about, but time and energy have become limiting constraints. 

[themysteriouswriter675]

Time is the enemy of the privileged few. Cost is the enemy of the masses.

Wendover Productions, “Why Planes Don’t Fly Faster”

[themysteriouswriter675]

Dare

His heart pumped blood profusely as he stood by the edge of the cliff, caught in a dilemma that would either make or break him for good. As the roaring waters made violent splashes against the abrading rocks down below, he tried to decide between confronting the sheer magnitude of the height, or giving in to the soulless creatures, who may have already began their expedition in search of their lost hostage. The milky white figure of Uniqueness stood beside him, watching droplets of sweat roll down his forehead onto his cheeks, and then dropping into the wet soil below. “Mortal,” spoke Uniqueness, “you do not have much time left to make your choice.” But for him, each second seemed to bear the impact of a thousand years. The choice was hard. He was going to make a jump down a cliff, which, he heard from childhood, was one “from where all the bad and disrespectful ones jumped.” Although he knew he was making a right choice, he also knew that making this jump was the equivalent of disowning himself from his own kind for eternity. It meant making a choice no one had ever made in generations, but then again his kind wasn’t the one for change, anyways. As he tried not to get lost in his thoughts and think calmly, his ears were constantly deafened by the shrieking noise of the majestic waterfall, its water falling down the cliff and making a huge thud on the ground, some crashing with the rocks, some escaping into a rock-clad stream that continued downwards. But he also heard, that after all those hurdles, there would come an eternal spring, with water so warm and so refreshing that it would make you forget every other concern in the world. It would be so surreal, so relieving, that it would make the waterfall and the deadly stream seem like baby steps. But he could never see the spring, nor could he today, so he asked Uniqueness, “Is there really a spring down there? Should I make this impactful a choice based on something that may as well be a myth? ”

 “The spring,” replied Uniqueness, “comes only to those daring enough to make the jump.”

As he was staring downwards, he could hear the noise. “They have found you,” said Uniqueness, “but you still have time.” As he looked around, far down the forest path, he could see multitudes of figures sprinting down the path, and they were in millions, as if the whole of their kind had come to stop one person from making “the jump”. They all looked the some, with an empty hollow where their soul should have been, and rusty shackles around their brains. Their dull, yellow eyes could not be seen, but he remembered them very clearly, him being used to them staring down at him whenever he tried to get out of their sphere of authority. He figured there would be one figure among them, more normal than the others, and more prominent from the distance-his Physics teacher. He closed his eyes and remembered:

“HEY, YOU!” shouted the Physics teacher, “You do this sum by MY METHOD! Who the hell gave you the permission to use your own made up method to do this sum?” “But sir,” he said, “the answer is still corr-” “ARE YOU GONNA TEACH ME HOW TO DO THIS SUM?” he shot back, “You may as well write the correct answer from the back of your book and say the answer is still correct!” “Sir, the method is sti-” he tried to defend himself, but his sir would hear no more, “THAT’S ENOUGH! GET OUT OF THE CLASS!”

As he remembered this, he wondered how many other times he had been kicked around for doing things his own way. He was really tempted to believe that the spring did exist, and that there was really a way to free himself from this claustrophobic grid called society. He asked himself, was this the moment he had been waiting for? A moment where he would stand in front of an Exit Door, and make a decision whose outcome nobody could dictate to him? A moment where everyone would come running towards him, unable to control him in any way whatsoever, and helpless to his autonomy? And if that was the case, he had little time to make it worthwhile, because the group of lifeless creatures running towards him were now audible to him, and he could hear them shouting out words of warning and phrases of persuasion. “If you want to stay with this wretched kind,” said Uniqueness, still calm and composed, “you may as well turn back now.”

The winds blew harder how, sending the surrounding trees into shaking fits, and elevating the fallen leaves and shrubs from the ground. He wondered whether a tornado was coming, but more importantly, he wondered what the outcome of this standoff between him and everyone else would be. He looked around again, and he saw two faces in the distance, ones which he had expected to see-his parents:

“Mom,” he said, “I don’t wanna be a doctor. It’s just not my passion.” “Listen dear,” his mother replied, “remember Suzy, our neighbor’s daughter? She just came out of med school with a degree. Works in her own clinic, and earns a ton of money.” “But,” he replied, “Economics has always been my passion, and I haven’t understood a thing of science since Grade 7.” “Are we having this discussion again?” interrupted his father. “It’s final, and we mean it. You are going to med school.” “WILL YOU NOW EVEN DICTATE WHAT I WILL DO IN THE FUTURE?” he shot back. His father gave him a look of sheer anger. He got up, did not say a word, and slapped him in the face. “I say what you do. And you’re going to med school.”

The sky was now turning to a shade of brownish golden, the clouds blocking the rays of the evening sun. He was now shaking, both out of fear and confusion. He had a minute to make a choice. And he could not take it without assurance.

“Uniqueness,” he asked, “why did you specifically bring ME to this cliff, out of all people? What made me so special?”

Uniqueness laughed, and answered,“Because you never realized that you have an unshackled brain and a soul in place of a hollow.”

The skies started spilling rain on the surface of the world, and heavy rain ensued afterwards. The voices of the creatures, nor the sound of lightning, could shake him out of his realization. His hand reached out to his head, and instead of feeling metal, he felt rough skin. He always thought he was different from the rest, and he could feel the rebellion that resided deep within him. He now felt more confident, and he started thinking that maybe, he was destined to make this jump. And suddenly, his fearlessness took over his conformity to societal standards.

“You have little time,” Uniqueness said, as it witnessed the change in his expression. “you have to decide whether you write your own faith, or you let them write it for you.”

He didn’t know whether a Spring existed at the end, but he realized that a good outcome wasn’t necessary to make the journey worthwhile.

His feet left the ground, and before the lifeless creatures could reach him, they saw him jump into the depths below.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Sin

As he tripped on his clumsily tied shoelaces onto the cold hard pavement beneath his feet, he tried to get up and gasp for some air. He seemed to have forgotten the last time he had taken air into his now fatigued lungs, although it was just ten minutes ago that he was standing in front of Flat A2, calmly taking in huge breaths in preparation for “the act”. As he tried, in vain, to get back on his feet in search of stability, he looked around him, and the first sight his eyes witnessed was of pitch black figures, walking in a demonic fashion towards him and screaming lifelessly at him. Their eyes seemed to have popped out of what seemed to be empty, gaping eye sockets, and a stream of blood was incessantly flowing out of them. As they got closer and closer to him, their shouts grew louder and louder, and their words made lesser and lesser sense with each passing second. At one point, the ruckus grew intolerable, and the noise seemed to be tearing each and every nerve of his living brain. He was starting to lose track of time and space, and all he could hear was the word, “DON’T!” He was not trying to fight back, and instead, was thinking whether all of this was just part of the torture he would be subject to in Purgatory, where he would certainly go for his horrendous actions. But, for a split-second, he thought, maybe, all of this was just a bad dream, and he rubbed his eyes, calmed himself, and opened them. But, when he saw that the demons he were seeing were just people creating a crowd around him because he suddenly fell to the ground, instead of feeling calm and relieved, he went into a bursting fit of panic and cluelessness as he was again reminded of the disgrace he had committed a few minutes ago. He was unable to distinguish between the reality and his traumatic hallucinations, and he frantically got to his feet, pushed past the confused crowd and ran. Just ran. He didn’t know where he would go, and he didn’t know what he would do afterwards. He just knew that whatever he would do, he just had to get away from that disgusting place. As vivid images of the gruesome remains within Flat A2 flashed in front of his mind, self-hatred and guilt oozed out of his distressed soul, and his regained conscience sucked every bit of life that was still inside him. As he stopped to take out his handkerchief to wipe his sweat, he noticed something that he did not a few moments ago. Both of his hands were stained with pure red blood, and he went into a screaming fit that deafened his ears. He tried to rub it on his sweat-clad T-Shirt, but it wouldn’t go. He tried to bring himself back into his senses, but he couldn’t do so in any way whatsoever. As he thrust his handkerchief out of his tight pockets, he saw that they were also covered in that filthy red substance. As he felt disoriented from the earthly realm, he submitted himself to his sins and knelt down. He felt like Macbeth, trying to remove blood which was not there, yet as permanent as the mark his action had made on the canvas of this world. He started sobbing like a toddler, as he failed to find any similarity between his true self and the version of him which murdered his parents at Flat A2 15 minutes ago. His entire body became heavy with shame as he realized that the person his daughter called “the best daddy” was just another cold-blooded murderer.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Reunion-Part 4

Trevor sat, clueless and expressionless, as he absorbed a moment he never prepared to witness. His beloved sister, the only family member he truly loved along with his parents, was now counting her remaining seconds. Of course, Johnson was out of the question. “That bastard, he probably does not even care for his sister,” he thought to himself. “Don’t even know whether he cares about Emma or whether she is alive or dead”......... “Anyways,” he wondered, teardrops still dropping from the corner of his eyes, “I cannot waste any time. I have 3 months left to cover up for a lifetime of conversations that won’t happen.”

He quickly packed some clothes of his into his large suitcase, and it felt unusually light for his hands, since they were used to crammed ones. He hurriedly took along his car keys from the closet drawer, locked the door of his room, and knelt down to tie his shoes.........then, he remembered:

“Trevor,” spoke Emma, consoling him out of his fear, “you’re a good boy, right?” “But Sis,” sobbed Trevor, “ I don’t wanna go. There are b-bad boys there, and I have ne-never s-stayed without Mommy for more than a mi-minute...” “Listen, Trevor,” Emma calmly explained, “you will have lots and lots of fun in school. Trust me, there are kids who are just like you, eager to play, eager to learn. You’ll make great friends. You know, there is a biiig playground, and the teachers, they will give you many chocolates....Fun, right?” Emma continued, as she wiped the tears out of Trevor’s cheek, “Stop crying, okay? Come on, let me tie your shoes real good”.......

“Oh Emma,” Trevor spoke out unconsciously, “How would have I gone to school that day without you?”

As the engine grunted hoarsely, and the car thrusted forward, Trevor pinched himself to confirm whether what he heard was just a bad dream needing to be reminded of. He thought of many things. He thought about what his parents, especially his mother, was going through knowing that her daughter would be no more after three months. He thought about Johnson’s reaction to this news, or whether he even heard it or not. But, most importantly, he thought about Emma, and what she was going through after hearing this news. Sure, she rarely caught up, and she was always in her own world of fame and money, but he could never think about how he could repay the love and care that Emma had given him throughout his childhood, and even a little into adulthood. So in his heart, Emma held a very dear place, something which he doubted even his mother did. He was sad, but also tolerant to the fact that there was a significant difference between the Emma that came rushing into the field the day he injured himself while playing, and the Emma that barely answered his calls and replied to his gradually irregular texts. But he knew that no matter what the distance between them was now at this moment, Emma definitely still loved him from the bottom of her heart, and he was keen to utilizing as much of the time that he had with Emma as possible. He was certain that the Emma he knew would rest her career for the time being, because no matter how successful or responsible she was, she was still the same Emma who skipped school just because she had a “97.5 degree fever.” Just now, Trevor thought as he tried to control another sob in the middle of driving, the fever was now cancer and the school was her life that she had sacrificed her most beloved thing once, family, for.

He wasn’t sure whether he would bump into Johnson at their old house, but, if things were to turn out that way, he wondered how he would handle the situation. He knew a fight wasn’t a plausible scenario, given the environment of the house, but he doubted how much he would be able to control his anger at the sight of that disgraceful man. When his business suffered a robbery following an enormous profit, he was almost certain that Johnson was the one who had arranged the robbery. It was evident from many of his actions at that time, like not talking to him as much as he used to do, or making a grim face the moment Trevor’s business was discussed, that he was jealous of Trevor and his blooming business, and his doubts were further propagated by the fact that Trevor’s business and Johnson’s were rivals at that time, and that both of them were battling for a very valuable investor. He did realize that his suspicions were overboard, and that the extent to which he took the fight was just too much. But it was not that he was the only person at fault. He, throughout the fifteen years of their row, had tried many times to lend a reconciliatory hand to his younger brother, but Johnson was humiliated to such an extent that he refused to ever forgive his brother, and had even cut whatever little connection he still had with Trevor. He understood Trevor’s position, but was particularly angry at the fact that Johnson had dismissed every moment of their once unshatterable unity, every opportunity to come to terms with his brother, just over a small, although insulting, misunderstanding, that too for 10 whole years.

As he drove through the still immaculate driveway of his parent’s home, his mind nostalgic with childhood memories, he noticed something.

Johnson’s car was already parked there. 

[themysteriouswriter675]

Reunion-Part 3

The pillow Jade was squeezing a few minutes ago was now stained with fresh tears. Jade’s world seemed to have fallen apart at the cracked tone of Emma’s voice. She still remembered, the wide smile on her face when she came running into her arms on Graduation Day, confident that she was going to go places and do big things. That was the day that cheerful, agile girl had turned into a self-confident and responsible woman. Emma had told her that day, “Look, mother. Look at this certificate? This certificate will take me to my destiny. I want to show the world that what I want to do is what I am capable of.” “Emma,” her mother had told her that day, “I know that you can do anything you set your mind to. And however you wish to utilize that amazing skill and talent of yours, I will always be by your side.”..........

Today, she thought, the girl who had dreamed of changing the world, the girl who proved that she could do anything, was now broken; shattered by a destiny that could only let her live so long. She wondered. Emma must have had so many things still unfulfilled in her life- her lifelong wish to go on a vacation to the Bahamas, her intention to join art classes in her spare years after retirement, the autobiography that she had planned on writing once her timetable allowed her to do so- all of this, the 20-year old Emma used to say. She had so much left to do, but so little time to do it. Yes, maybe 3 months was  not enough to fill in the gap between Emma and her parents that had been caved in over the years, but maybe it was time enough for Salman and Emma to sort things out and start things over. Jade had never blamed Emma for not giving as much time to her parents as she would have liked her to. After all, she was not just another common woman, with her significant chunk in the business arena and the line of clients that she had to handle on a day-to-day basis, and even though Emma had neglected countless family trips, skipped checking back on her parents several times for the sake of the facilitation of her dominance in the corporate arena, and had sort of distanced herself from the people who had raised her with their blood sweat, she was ultimately extremely happy with the person Emma had spent 15 years to be. And even though she had nodded along to Salman’s solemn rants about his utter disappointment with Emma, she had shoved them as deep down into her heart as possible. She knew, she had made a oath to Emma on Graduation Day. An oath that she dared not break.

The keypad made melodic noises as Salman dialed in the numbers to Trevor’s cell. He took some time remembering the last part, but the phone finally made the assuring ringing sound.

“Dad,” started Trevor, “it’s been so lo-”

“Let’s just cut to the chase,” cut in Salman, grimly. “ If you would have wanted more conversation, you would have at least phoned once in a while.”

“Look Dad-”

“Stop. Just stop. I’m not in a mood to make a point.”

Salman’s tone was unmoved, despite of the catastrophe that had happened just a while back. There was a kind of indifference to his tone, although the case was a bit more complicated. But he continued.

“Your sister has Stage 4 Colon Cancer. She has 3 months left to live.”

Salman disconnected the phone after some silent seconds and what heard like the beginning of a sob.

[themysteriouswriter675]

The Road Not Taken

As usual, very random and casual, so don’t expect much.

Two years ago, when I was still a dumb kid from 6th grade, our syllabus had this poem called “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. The poem was all good and fine, but to my then immature mind, the poem did not create that big a dent in my soul. As they say, a piece of literary work provokes different thoughts if read by the same person during different time periods of their lives. And this same thought was what struck me a few days back when I happened to cross paths with this poem during one of my reading sprees. I, being a different person from two years back, decided to give it a try once again. But what happened this time was surprising. Each word, each syllable produced a completely different melody from two years ago, and I was so awestruck by this poem this time (largely because this poem describes most of who I am today, so I could relate 100%) that I was surprised that my two-year old self could not extract a fraction of meaning out of it. The lines make a hum in my mind:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both

Actually, as much as I like this line, I am actually very happy with the path I am taking my life through. Given how this generation is slowly becoming a prisoner to gang culture and social media, there actually ARE only two paths that you can take- you can either be a slave to social convention, or you can not. The environment of coevals around me are is so different from one I would prefer that, sometimes, I feel that I am a completely different type of human being from my classmates and coevals. A generation of critical thinkers is what they say is coming next. I may be wrong, but I think we have a long way to go before this statement holds any value in the context of the country I live in. 

My Language Class holds a good example. Our teacher ran out of ideas, so he assigned our class with the duty of coming up with topics for discursive essays. It was then that my sir told me that the topics that I suggested: “Our religious views are always coerced. Discuss.” or one that my fellow classmate suggested about atheism, and another that was suggested about the rising trend of gang culture, were “too complex for the class.” Instead the topic that we had to write on, was one of those recycled ideas that seem to pop up every now and then: “Should ECAs be mandatory?” The kinds of systems that Bangladesh has in store for its next generation are ones that push students deeper and deeper into their comfort zones, without challenging their thinking in any way whatsoever. Rather, what our education system relies on to grind students is just increase the bulk of the curriculum every passing year, which just doesn’t do much to improve our skills in the long run. 

And all of this is just about textbooks. I would have talked about practicals, had they existed in the first place. Our Science books were imported from Scotland, and the books we read in Class V were the ones that their Class V students also read. But here’s the difference: the books had full fledged practical experiments in them, and our administration just skipped past them, saying that students would create a ruckus in the lab room. So what the school did was that it suppressed practicality, creativity, and fist-hand engagement in the name of robotic discipline, and I really wonder what this “discipline” would bring in the long run, especially the things they sacrifice in the process are ones that we need in order to differentiate ourselves from people who also know the same formulas and equations that we do. And a system that curbs the facilitation of intellectual and creative stimulus not only does all of this, but also takes away our ability to express ourselves uniquely in an era where individuality is becoming more relevant than ever. This creates a system where everyone is exposed to the same mindset and ideals, the same textbooks and formulas that the generations before them had been exposed to. This, in turn means that people of the same generation have less and less rooms for diversity, and grow up to be very, very similar to each other. And this toxic culture, where what a generation stands for gets restricted to a few characteristics that a conservative power structure has enforced on them, means that there literally isn’t any room for expressing your individuality, and since this is what I am subject to all the time, I have to maintain a dual image just so that I can feel relatable to the rest of my generation. So ultimately, my favorite lines of the poem:

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

I’ll let the lines do the talking on my behalf.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Reunion-Part 2

Jade and Salman were as faithful to each other as you could be. In their days, the “first love” you had was usually with the person your parents selected for you, and it was the day that they met that the pair was reminiscing upon.

“Remember, love?” Salman spoke, “The day of negotiations, my parents called it. The first day I saw you.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” remembered Jade. “I was having a playful fight with my sister, naughty girl she was, always used to tease me. Back in those days, the girl wasn’t even told that she was being taken to meet her would-be-husband. So there I was, and my parents were like, ‘Dear, we gotta go somewhere.’ I didn’t even dress for the occasion. Looked like a witch that day.”

“Enough to make me fall for you,” added Salman.

“Oh you silly lad, trying to be all giddy and romanti- oh, oh, oh, remember, the moment you saw me? I think you were sipping tea or something. The face you made when your eyes met mine. And-and-” Jade started laughing before she could finish her statement, “you had spilled half your cup on your brand new suit....”

“Oh, not again,” Salman said in a tone of playful annoyance, but, seeing his wife’s crackling laughter, joined in after some time.

“And...a..remember.” she gasped, “ your father had given you such a bump with his elbow, I...I... thought you might as well have spilled all the tea in your mouth!”

Jade was now crying with laughter. Salman did nothing but just look at her for a minute. She was still the innocent, playful lady that had come with her parents to his house 55 years ago. She had not lost even one bit of her original beauty, and back when she was in her twenties, Jade used to tell everyone, her smile used to turn all heads in her neighborhood. Their wedding was arranged by their parents, since both of their fathers used to be roommates back in college. Jade’s father was a faithful Catholic, with Salman’s was a Muslim. Their duo was quite popular when they were in college, mostly for their dashing looks and their immaculate flirting skills. Anyways, Jade and Salman had met each other a few times before, but that was when they were infants, so the day they met when their families got to know each other was technically their first meeting. Salman fell for Jade’s adorable nature, while Jade fell for Salman’s handsomeness and his courteous chivalry, a chunk of which was inherited by Salman from his father. So, as it turned out, they had no objection regarding their marriage. 

Since then, they had had a very stable marriage, and their family of themselves and their three children was nothing short of ideal even 10 years ago. But things started going downhill when their two sons started fighting over a business dispute. And the fight had grown to the point that it had crossed all lines of decency. The two brothers now lived in separate parts of the town, and Salman had forgotten when they last had a normal interaction with each other. They would still, however, frequently come to meet their parents, but, by chance, if their trips to their parent’s coincided, it would result in one of them postponing their trip, or, if they happened to see each other’s face, many an insult would be hurled and many a tear would be shed by Jade. Jade had given her entire life to raising her three children. After all, she would say, “if my kids are happy, I would die, if needed, to prolong their smiles.” So it was unimaginable for her to even think that the brothers who never used to let go of each other during their childhood, would grow up to be sworn enemies. But now, they were slowly starting to cope with this condition, and Jade and Salman had made each other their pillars for support and their last hope. Salman was worried whether saying this would make him an ill-wisher of his family’s unity, but it seemed like, somehow, this family conflict, this bitterness between siblings, had strengthened the bond between this old and committed couple, although it would not seem like it from the outside.

While Jade was still laughing from her joke, her cellphone started ringing. As she controlled her laughter, and went to pick it up, Salman went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.

It was no mistake. Salman could clearly hear Jade crying from their room. Surprised and afraid, he ran as fast to the room as his legs could carry him.

“What is it?” he asked, as he lifted his wife with one hand and held the bottle with the other. “What happened. dear, what happened, what ha- listen, listen, calm down, I am hear, you can tell me, honey.”

“It’s Emma dear,” wailed Jade. “It’s our daughter, Salman, and she has months left.”

Salman lost grip of his water bottle

[themysteriouswriter675]

Reunion-Part 1

Three months ago

April 17th, 2015

At St. Peter’s Hospital

Sitting on one of the benches in the Oncology Unit didn’t feel like it. It was more like witnessing a catastrophe from afar. As the doleful receptionist called out one name after another, the piteous patients faced one of two fates- either they would explode into tears upon leaving the doctor’s room, or they would go into a state of euphoric relief, unseen everywhere but only in the confines of what was one of the most traumatic rooms of an otherwise extremely posh hospital. Some of them, like the middle-aged mother who was juggling between her three naughty children some time ago, approached the doctor’s room with an expression that may as well have announced to the world that she was having an appointment with Death. But, as Emma witnessed from afar, she walked out of the room with relief, and, with tears in her eyes and a smile that stretched from ear to ear, fell into the embrace of her husband, with their three children trying to figure out why they were having that little celebration of theirs, them being of an age where they were still too innocent to decipher the troubles of the world.

 For almost the entirety of the thirty minutes that Emma was waiting in the lobby, she had noticed an elderly mother with her son waiting nervously, but calmly, on the front bench. The mother looked measly and troubled from afar, and Emma was thinking whether a life spent relentlessly running after her family, with no time spared for herself, was to blame for her gloom. She had thought about settling in with a husband for some time back in her twenties, and after extreme calculations and deductions, she concluded that marriage would be too large a distraction from what she thought, at that time, would be a flourishing career. And oh boy was she right. She was one of the top entrepreneurs in her country, with a lifestyle that would turn the heads of anyone but the most satisfied people, and if happiness was a drug to her, her work life would be the supplier. Her family would have been too, had it not been for some notable incidents that had taken place some years ago, which she was too terrified to go over at that moment, as sitting in the Oncology Department as a potential victim of what was one of the deadliest illnesses known to mankind wasn’t exactly a soothing experience.She was suffering from severe body pains and sickness for some time, and when she finally decided it was time to go her personal doctor, his first impressions were not positive. He told her to have a biopsy test and an ultra-sonogram, and now, here she was, after one week, sitting here, not feeling very safe. Before, she always used to have a feeling of safety and comfort wherever she went and whatever she did. If she wanted to go on a holiday, she had access to the best hotels. If she wanted to go out shopping, which was usually in the best mall of her town, she had the luxury of going out with her brand new Mercedes, which had actually cost her a fortune. Even if she had a slight fever, or even a minimal sneeze, she had the service of her personal doctor, who was one of the top ten doctors in the country, and if that wasn’t enough, she could buy flight tickets for an Airbus in the Business Class in the blink of an eye, and could go to the best hospitals and have access to the best available equipment and facilities. But yet, as she was sitting in St. Peter’s, which was a pretty respectable hospital according to her standards, she was feeling a sort of fear within her, that even though she had access to the best of everything, being a victim of this incurable malice would result in nothing but her untimely demise, and nothing, not even the $10,000 worth of medicine that she had arranged for in case the result was negative, could alter that fate. For the first time, she was feeling helpless, since she realized that no matter how much money she had, nature would ultimately bring her down to the soil one day. But that did not mean that she was suddenly feeling that her 10 years as a businesswoman had gone to waste. It was just that she was now prepared to accept anything that Fate had written for her.

Finally, as she was pondering upon all this, the receptionist called out,”Miss Emma”. She clumsily and nervously walked to the doctor’s room, unsure of what she was supposed to feel. Now, it was a question of whether she was to enjoy the fortune she had created for herself for months, or for years. 

As she opened the door, she was so preoccupied that she forgot to close it as she walked in. When she sat down, the doctor spoke:

“ I’ll be frank and honest. Look, madam, you have 3 months left. We went through your reports, and we have detected Stage 4 Colon Cancer. As for medicat-”

She wasn’t even listening. Her senses had stopped after “three months left”.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Reunion-Prologue

She laid down in submission as she saw the heartbeat meter slide down into an infinitely straight oblivion. It wasn’t fast. Reading by reading, integer by integer, the green digits on the “death screen” decreased,one by one, for a time that seemed unending to her and the group that stood surrounding her. Nobody shook her, and neither did anyone shout, say anything, or even try to make any efforts to revive her, as even they knew that she would submit herself to the inevitable, be it in the next few minutes, or hours. No attempt to a last minute conversation was made: it was just a family of four huddled together, who had stood the test of conflict and indifference, and were finally united through the bond of shared sorrow. And it would be a safe bet to say that none of them had ever expected a time where they would stand within such close vicinity to each other again, without a quarrel breaking out in the blink of an eye.

She was having all sorts of thoughts, and, to her indignation, none of them were about her fame, her wealth, or her Mercedes that was still parked in the basement of the hospital. The moments she measured in paychecks and contracts, now that she looked back at them, seemed like nothing but bland brushstrokes in the landscape of what could have been a very bright and colorful life, had she not wasted her precious time locked away behind the doors of her office room. She had expected that she would die a very glamorous death, with complacency, pride, and memories of her lavish legacy accompanying her on her deathbed. But the conception of death she had conjured up while proudly seated on her comfortable couch had been destroyed the moment she realized how this very deathbed had dragged her down from her pedestal before making her one with nature. The memories she was having now were not about the award she received in a business conference in Vietnam, but about the happy childhood that she spent with her then inseparable family back in their cottage in the good old days. But she was at least happy that her untimely death, and the three months before it, had managed to unite a family that, not long ago, had sworn conflict in the face of division. 

All of this had passed by, and she hadn’t even realized that the reading of her heartbeat had dropped down to a dangerous 10. The surroundings around her were starting to mix and blur into a color similar to that of the ceiling in the ICU. Her family stood there, helplessly watching her, hands held together, with tears in their eyes. Her mother had now completely broken down into a sobbing animal, unable to come up with words during the last moments she was now spending with her daughter. The agile, innocent princess that her mother called Emma back in her childhood was now involuntary, lying down on the hospital bed, with no signs of commonality with her five-year old self. Emma was now a 35 year old woman, stressed from a crammed career that she dedicated her blood and sweat to building up, but now tears were rolling down her eyes as she realized that she could make no sense out of it in the last moments of her life. She was now gasping for breath, despite the oxygen mask around her mouth. Her brothers were now trying to calm their mother down, although they were slightly sobbing themselves. 

All of Emma’s childhood, her first friend, her first time scoring 100% in an exam, her first trip with her family, her first crush, her first lover, her first job, her first paycheck, her resigning, her business, her money, her apartment, her dresses, cars, shoes, leggings, rings, watches- it all whizzed by within the space of a split-second, as the reading turned 0, and the last breath was spared.

It all started 3 months ago. 

[themysteriouswriter675]

Some Peace And None 5- Supremacists in Diplomatic Disguise

NOTE: This is more of a rant than an informed write-up. Quality of writing may represent that.

2016 shall definitely be not remembered for creating pioneers of equality and liberalism. Well, USA definitely won’t be. If you want a country of stark contrast, given its change in ideology in recent years, look no further than USA. Remember, this was a country which was seen as a landmark of equality and prosperity. It was a haven of uncloseted homosexuals,a bastion of free speech, and a place where different points of view were not only respected, but cherished. On the other hand, you had white supremacists, bigots, and an unwavering hatred by a portion of the population towards innocent, regular minorities, a significant portion of whom are Muslims. All of this, though, is not shocking, as we shall look into later, but what was surprising was how the US managed to uphold an image of tolerance and diplomacy, despite embracing one of the most racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and anti- multiculturalism rhetoric in recent history. And in the face of this contradiction, a strong, authoritarian leader was all they needed to tear this facade, and to show to the world who they really were-Donald Trump is too apt for this description. His rise to stardom was somewhat a reincarnation of the divide and rule policy, feeding into the fears and insecurities of the white majorities. His policies are a mixture of hateful, Islamophobic, anti-Mexican, anti-liberalism, and Protectionist gibberish that do nothing but reaffirm the supposed superiority of the white people over these “threats” that are supposedly “taking their jobs” and “are a threat to security”. He wants to impose heavy surveillance on mosques, wants to severely cut down on migration, and wants to back out of trade deals with other nations in order to “bring back the jobs”. A very heavy layer of “whites first” narrative surrounds this. Most of his policies just assure white people that they are better, and safe from the “dangers” of the outside world, and strive to create a homogeneous block of white skin who are spoon-fed their success and their confirmed victory over the “barbarous” world outside. They just want to be told that USA is only for the whites, a place where their egos can freely inflate, and one where they will just be patted in the back and told that they are special. And they are willing to let go of every single advantage of bilateral trade deals, every penny earned because of a liberal economic standpoint, every single hardworking Asian, Muslim, and Mexican and African American, and every moment of unity between people of different races and colors, just to be assured of their supremacy, just to be “protected” from foreign competition, and just to be told that their homeland is the inherited treasure of the greatest race in the world. This has created a generation of easily offended Americans, allergic to any kind of change. A nostalgia to live in the good old days, where every free, independent person roaming the soils of USA was white, male, and straight, and every foreign entity was either shackled or reduced to only their will to live exactly as the whites wanted them to, prevails subconsciously in the memory of every conservative Catholic. In the midst of economic tension, Americans have seemingly forgotten to give the basic respect and dignity that is due to every single hardworking, sober citizen, white or not.

And if you think that this racism, this feeling of superiority, is only confined within the boundaries of America, you are not right either. Sure, many of you have heard about Donald Trump, and have done a fair share of research on his policies. Introducing, Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front (FN),and presidential candidate of France’s election, due in 2017. Seems like a pretty, innocent lady from the outside. Is a mini-Trump in the inside. Here is a list of her intended policies and remarks:

1. Reduce migration to a twentieth of the present amount

2. Back out of the EU to cut down on immigration and protect fledgling industries

3. Heavily survey Muslim mosques

4. Enforce traditional French values on citizens of every race and religion

5. Give increased punishment to just “anti-French” discrimination

6. Give greater weightage to French workers in the workforce

7. Believes that a single culture and language is essential for France’s success

8. Likes Putin’s protectionism in Russia

In the wake of the war on terror, people, instead of reaching out a hand of sympathy to people who are unfairly stereotyped against, have resorted to further tightening existing groups and excluding deemed “outsiders” to facilitate their “supremacy”. This increased trend of authoritarianism, populism, anti-establishment politics and Protectionism, has given birth to leaders like Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen, and is likely to create more in the future. These racist people live in the shadows throughout the Ages, carrying out discrimination within their communities, and passing their views onto their children, waiting for the groups like ISIS, which smear and radicalize traditional religious and cultural values, to rise and strike fear within the general masses. These people then rise up, and claim that their views were inevitable, and ultimately make it to the positions of power, spreading fear and uncertainty among millions of people, ultimately leading the Donalds of our society to rise and assume power. The world needs logic and a sense of calm, something which these people certainly do not have.

[themysteriouswriter675]

Some Peace and None 4-The Questionable Maintainence of Standards of Labour Safety

As we go on with our daily lives, in the sheer safety of a stable base to stand on, we tend to not pay close attention to some seemingly regular activities, which, if we were told to do, would send chills even down the spine of the daredevil within us. Quite a few days ago, two mechanic were called to our house for some ordinary maintenance work of our air conditioner. What was not so ordinary, however, was the way the mechanic got so the condenser outside the window. Firstly, he was not wearing any safety apparel whatsoever. That meant no helmets, and no high friction boots. This mechanic went down to our street, brought an ordinary wooden ladder(not metal, mind it), climbed up to the second floor, used whatever little space between the grilles on the wall of the window as he could, wearing FORMAL boots, and in  what was a overwhelmingly dangerous ordeal,  and climbed from that narrow wall onto the condenser, which was fitted to an ADJACENT wall.  

When asked how he could manage such a daredevil stunt without fainting halfway through, he replied with a smile and the answer,” It is our regular job, we have no problem doing so.” A very dangerous principle outlined that statement, that smile, and the life of the regular mechanic. Not just mechanics, but labourers who construct buildings. These buildings represent the pinnacle of human engineering. They are a landmark of the progress that we have achieved as a race. They are a part of our daily lives which we take for granted, and let fade away into our general surroundings, oftentimes without awe. But when the people who construct such a modern, such an inclusive structure, are subject to, or facilitate, such a backward mentality, that basic safety of labourers, that fundamental guidelines to protect the lives of these labourers, and to provide them some margin of error of their judgement, is unnecessary, we are really undermining the safety of these constructors. Being a company, reputable or not, it should be basic responsibility to ensure that their employees have at least some chance of surviving a fall from a couple storeys. Just because they are low-paid, just because they have opted into this life of bearing risks, does not mean they should be deprived of basic safety standards, and no financial statements of heavy losses should be able to justify cutting costs on integral equipment.

Some, if not a lot, negligence, also exists on behalf of these mechanics. Especially, in countries like Bangladesh, where reluctance to maintain rules runs like haemoglobin in our blood, awareness about the importance of equipment for these labourers is low. Even when it comes to companies which are sensible enough to provide equipment, these workers look at safety apparel like burdens rather than guidelines which should be followed in all instances. Sights of risky stunts like hanging from ropes without helmets while climbing under construction buildings, although very common, go largely unnoticed in the eyes of the law because of poor implementation of safety laws and regulations. Deaths during construction works are common, and when they die, the fingers are mostly pointed towards the companies, rightfully so, but what remains largely uncovered is that some of the employees neglect safety barriers by refusing to comply with safety laws. On top of that, police, instead of bringing the unawareness of employees and the negligence of companies to justice, stare at the workers from afar, witnessing what they think is just another day in the office, instead of questioning these violations.

As long as we do not take necessary action, the smile in the face of the mechanic shall remain a testament to how these mechanics accept their fate, without any hesitation. Salute to your courage.

[themysteriouswriter675]

I shall be going on a cringe hunt. Gonna remove incomplete stories. And edit and repost articles which I think are good enough. My timeline shall not be cancer anymore

[themysteriouswriter675]

Student: I sprained my finger and can't play gym.

Teacher: okay.

Student: I have an anxiety disorder and can't do my speech in from of the class.

Teacher: Everybody gets nervous. Get up there.