The conversation

So tell me this weird fantasy of yours!

I wouldn’t call it a fantasy. Have you ever had a thought of the world just going BOOM?

You might be sleeping in bed feeling all warm and all of the sudden you feel like the building is going to crack open in two and cause chaos. There’s death and destruction. I mean, just for the sake of the thought, I think of these scenarios, you know. It never happens. But that thought never leaves me. The immediate disruption by something that is stronger and powerful than any of the beings on earth. You could even be walking down the street and see a car speeding up. The person in the driver seat is in control, you know it. But, that feeling of it is going to hit another car or a pedestrian and again, cause so much chaos. Where we live and what we do for that life is so mundane, we can’t even call it mundane anymore. If you talk to a person about these things their immediate reply would be, ‘It’s what everyone does. We have to live a life somehow!’

Yes, you are right, but like this? Feeling the brutal and excruciating pain within us, and hoping for something better. Hey, I know I hope for a change almost every single day. Some people don’t even hope. They are okay with the mundane. They have gotten over it by doing more of the mundane and that gets the mind blunt enough to just exist in this placid existence.

Yes, I do have a weird fantasy of these mundane things just coming to an end. Immediate. BOOM. And then we start over. Just take our time and understand things better. Just think for a minute and take another minute to think it over. Just get out of this mundane living.

Do you understand what I mean?

I understand that you feel a sense of hopelessness right now.

No, no, no. It is not hopelessness. It is hope that gets me these fantasies. I am in a well and I hope to get out of it. There might never come a day for me to leave this place or ever feel any different. But the hope still exists. Somewhere within me. Just about to explode or implode in itself. But it never does. It is a sinking ship. The worst part is: It will always be a sinking ship. Always at a 45 degree angle about to turn upside down and drown us. but that never happens too. And so I think of these things. Either way it goes, I am happy to go with it. Just for the love of god, stop with this almost sinking and almost floating safely. The blade that we walk on is cutting us deeply but on the either side of it is chaos. Sometimes I wish I was a villain, you know. Like the Joker. Just cause chaos if I had enough will power to do so. But I also don’t want to hurt others or stir others lives into disarray by my thoughts and feeling.

How long have you had these thoughts for?

How long? The words that I spoke just now took so much of thinking to portray. They took years to built up. I read books, watched movies and I finally could put into words what I feel. They are not accurate or immediate but that’s the best I can do to paint a picture for you to understand.

How was your childhood?

I was a child. I played, I drank milk, I did my homework. I stayed silent and listened to adults talk and argue and talk more. Once, I felt like I was a hero that would fight bad guys. Right some wrong done in the world. But as I grew older I realised the bad guys and good guys don’t exist. There is this grey area and that’s where we live. That’s where we’ve always lived. Bad and good are childish concepts. Not that the concepts in itself are childish but that these concepts are taught to children to show them how to behave. But that’s not right. We grow up and realise that it was never like they said it would be. The world, I mean.

It must have been frustrating living with these thoughts and not having anyone to communicate it with. A single child, both parents working. Did you feel lonely growing up?

I didn’t know what loneliness was. I had no concept of it. I knew what I was seeing and experiencing but I didn’t know I could be living differently. What was in front of me, I accepted as reality. There was no loneliness when I was growing up. Only now, when we look back and say, ‘Here, that’s where I was lonely. I didn’t even realise it.’ But realising this now, does it make any difference?

You are here talking to me. Isn’t this conversation meant to make that difference?

If you say so. I don’t feel like talking anymore.

Tell me a story, any story. Anything that comes to your mind. Please!

Okay, I can do that. Once upon a time there was a lion. He was the king of the jungle. As the years go by, he could no longer hunt for his food. So one day he called all the animals to his den. He was to decide who he would eat. Whoever he pointed to would be his food. So many animals were terrified. But they decided to show up anyway for he was their king.

When the lion counted there was one animal that was missing. It was a young rabbit. The lion told all the animals, he would wait until the rabbit showed up.

When the rabbit showed up, the lion questioned him. The rabbit was in distress when it told the lion what he saw while coming to the meeting. The rabbit told him there was another lion and it was saying that it was the king of the jungle. The king roared loudly and asked the rabbit to take him to this pretender king.

The lion followed the rabbit and all the animals followed the king. After a few minutes of walking, they came to a well. It was an old well and it was covered by some wood. the rabbit told the king, there is a lion inside. The king ordered the rabbit to remove the woods. He wanted to face this pretender and kill him.

The lion looked inside this well and saw another lion looking at him. He roared as loud as he could, with all his might. But he heard another roar coming from the well as well. Furious, the lion jumped into the well. the rabbit quickly covered the well with the woods and he smiled at all the animals. ‘There, now nobody has to die because of the lion.’

Everyone went home unharmed. Except for the lion who drowned in the well. The lion had seen his reflection and not another lion. When he roared, he had heard his roar echo. He jumped into the well to fight this lion but it drowned.

Impressive story. What is the moral of this story?

Play by the rules and someone dies. Don’t play by the rules, you have to kill someone. I don’t know. And if you don’t do both, you kill yourself.

Obedient, rebel and desperate. The three major characteristics of your personality.

It’s like reading horoscope, isn’t it? It is flexible enough to slither inside your mind and show you what you want to see. Sometimes even what you don’t want to see. But, still not enough to make an actual claim to understand oneself.

Our time is done for the day. We will meet at the same time next week and maybe you can tell me another story. And don’t be discouraged, it is only the beginning not an end.

Isn’t it always the beginning?