The Mirage of Happiness

The Mirage of Happiness

[Preface 

It is indeed very difficult, almost impossible, to come back from the dead and it has taken a rather long time. Just a few days back someone had suggested, "You need to 'hook things out', you know... if you can't get it with straight fingers."

"Never learnt to bend (my) fingers like the politicians. Now at this stage in life when my hairs are greying over....," I told him. He giggled but then suddenly I brightened up. "You know sometimes I feel like I'm being lured to the end of the line. One day the Big Angler, instead of finding the bait gone, shall surely hook me up like a minnow or a carp. That'll be the only hooking up I'll experience now, I think," I added.

He burst out to his seams with laughter.

] 

...

Enchained, paralyzed, restricted, caged... I live at the end of a blind alley, if I live at all.

Do I cry over it? 

I do. What else is left there to do except lament over things and events that could have taken a far better turn and might have made heaven possible but instead chose not to.

Is there independence? 

No way! The Bird of Freedom is enchained.

Is there hope? 

A tiny flickering of light is still visible far, far away. That's all.

How do I live then? 

Moment to moment just as I die with every beat of my heart. I don't kill myself outright. I feel like I need to suffer what others can't.

Why? 

I don't know. I just feel it in my head, feel it deep inside.

How can I continue like this? 

There are dozens of ways I cannot continue along. What remains in the end is the only possibility, no? The wind can flatten me down to the ground, crush me. But it won't break the chain, carry me off. And so I remain... where I have been chained.

I oftentimes pull the hairs out of my head, bite hard and swallow harder. It's unfortunate that I haven't gone insane so far but that would have been better I suppose. And yet to preserve my sanity I keep thinking about the possibilities: what would I do if I had all the things that you have? All the opportunities, the doors as well as the windows?

And perhaps that makes me who I am.

Do I not worry? 

I certainly do. If humanity were not to worry about things that could go wrong, then progress would have been impossible and everything would have gone backwards in time. Neither mistakes could have been avoided, nor disasters averted.

There are regrets, sure. When limitations confine you, there are fewer options to pick up, possibilities get reduced. Oftentimes one just has to face it all and suffer hopelessly. But perhaps that is what it is that makes a man(kind). No ego, no pride... Just a humble being with profound realizations that there are many things that cannot ever be changed, many events that cannot ever be undone, changed or chosen.

And these are integral parts of life. And that is one good thing that has to be lived, dull or colourful. As it comes. The question is not what comes but how one faces it. Yes there are certainly ways to stand and face the tribulations like a man(kind).

So, even if it be just glasses of water, let's clink them and celebrate. At least for a moment, at least for the time being, and as long as we're together. 

Cheers!

[The passage or passages presented above are taken from a book by the author. The emoticon has been taken from google search and I hold no copyrights to it: it belongs to the original creator and/or copyright holder who I do not know. It has been used here for purely literary/educational purposes. When claimed, credits shall be duly given/made to the rightful owner.]

Desperation

...
'S*** you, man!' he expressed his feelings.
'No need to,' I told him, 'I already have been.'
'F***!' he swore.
 ...

A long time ago, a boy stood on a chair, looped his vest on to the bamboo rafter of the ceiling in his room, and tied it around his neck. Then he kicked the chair and hung there for a brief second. The sweat-eaten cotton of his vest gave way and he fell hard on the floor below, narrowly escaping the edges of the fallen wooden chair.

But he got a rather painful bum that made him weep without opening his mouth. When he got through it after a while, he cursed rather bitterly. There was no rope he could use.

The pain lasted the following couple of days.

Then a day came when he drank out of a toilet cistern. 'Shit!' he cursed after letting his stomach cool down a bit. He had no money to buy water in the concrete jungle, and there was no friend.

The next day, he had no money to pay for the books even though the exams were just around the corner. He could not prepare himself to have them taken. He said quit. Then he cursed again.

Then the next day, he went to mix concrete with a shovel. The landlord made him dig a big seven feet deep hole in the ground after the work hours were already over. No extra payments. He got drenched in the end, and when he got out of the hell-hole his legs felt shaky, and his back ached. He cursed himself this time, and did not say a word.

After that, he got a series of electric shocks so much so that he now could sense it in his fingers even though it was not there. He got thrown from a standing drum while chipping the walls and fitting wires, catching one of his fingers between the metal rim and his own weight. The finger went numb that evening. Then it swelled like a sausage. The hand felt like fire the next morning. Then he got a fever that evening, and needed to swallow the bitter-tasting paracetamol tablets.

It did not stop!

The nail turned blue, still feeling like a red hot ember and then after about three days the pain subsided a little. Then the nail went dead.

'Damn! He cursed just the same.

The nail took three months to fall off like a dead leaf in winter.

Then the devil came; once, twice, many times over. And there was no money to buy the medicine that could have lead it to another path. He nearly went mad.

It was just about the time when one of his friends committed suicide, hanging by a shoe-lace from a window railing.

'F***!' He cursed that evening.

But it stopped by itself, appearing only once or twice a year; but when it came it came with blood all the same. Bright red streaks that hurt, and the sight of it frightened him a lot.

Then one day, it felt like it was too much. He had read a book before, but this time it meant for real. He swallowed ten tablets with water, there being no money to buy a drink that would have made it easier.

That evening his head started to buzz like a hive of bees. His ears went crazy like hell, buzzing things all the time into his head.

Night buzzed, and the sleep buzzed. Morning buzzed, afternoon buzzed, and the evening buzzed, too. His heart pounded and slowed a little, but did not stop. 'Shit!' He cursed from time to time, in his hazy sleeps as well as his foggy mornings and afternoons.

The buzzing took away hunger and he did not feel like eating a thing. It continued for more than a week. And then it left only a horrible experience behind.

 'Shit! Shit!' He continued cursing.

The buzzing would just as appear and disappear from time to time over the rest of his life. And he would keep cursing.

...

'I don't believe you,' he said.

'You don't need to,' I told him. 'What happened, just happened.'

'Damn!' he retorted his disbelief again in the end.