I Took The Ladder

27th May, 2015


There are days when more than one thing goes wrong and today, was just that day. Even those who don't believe in signs and in the universe tend to doubt themselves when things like these happen. One starts to think and re-think about the rules of the universe. When I got up after writing my exam today I realised that the universe has been trying to tell me something, I am sounding like Rohda Byrne, I know, but these incidents, in themselves didn't make sense, really, but together, they did.

#Sign1 - The stupid law of gravity acting smart. 

Spilled a glass full of mango shake on my clothes just before leaving. 

#Sign2 - The realisation that my next buy should be a compass. 

My motor skills suck and that's no secret but my uncle's motor skills weren't working  either, he got confused and we ended up using the best navigation available, the roadside-navigation-service-providers, the-choor-choor-naan-guys. 

#Sign3 - When hard luck struck real hard. 

I entered the university, walked till the centre and waited there for 15 minutes for the exam to start, just when I was going to enter, I checked the list and realised that the rooms have been changed. 

#Sign4 - The sucky motor skills of the lift. 

Went to the next centre, took the lift for the third floor, pressed the button '3' two hundred crore times, it took me to the basement, yeah.  

#Sign5 - Laddar to the rescue. 

Reached the centre, sat on my desk and realised that I'll have to climb a laddar, cross a bridge, go straight from the roundabout and then take a boat from between the forests and walk another mile to reach the desk -_- The space between the bench and the desk seemed more than the distance between Jack and Rose after Jack's death. 

Sign6 - Feeling sinking in.

Somehow after changing my position 20 crore times, I adjusted and realised that two of my new pens weren't working, I had to fill 30 odd pages.

Sign7 - Killed my vibe. 

The half sleepy invigilator made eye contact with me as if I was doing something shady and by then the feeling had possessed me, completely. I knew for a fact that it's not my day and I should probably just sit quietly, write my paper and get out of the hall as soon as possible and so I did. Rationality is something I have always believed in, but it's my brain which acts funny sometimes, or is it that my brain is programmed in a way to draw meaning out of everything  everything?

Her universe #StoriesFromTheTrunk

It must have been around 3 in the morning when Molly got home. She was again late from her work and her fifteen year old son had fallen asleep. She opened the refrigerator and took out a can of beer, she closed her eyes and sighed, silently. She looked at the beer can and thought to herself, had she failed as a mother?

   She took a sip and thought, had she been too selfish in filing for the divorce? She opened her eyes and found herself crying, she had always hated crying, pertaining to the stigma attached with it. ' Women have a shorter and a shallower tear duct than men ', she had read that somewhere, she reminded herself that she is still radical, it was the tear duct that was at fault. She was trying to comfort herself, was overthinking every bit, but what else could she have done? She had realised that she was falling apart, piece by piece. She knew that she could not deal with the guilt all by herself, but she was, all by herself. She had chosen this life and had she not been sorry for her son, she would have been content. According to her, this life with emotional outbreaks and guilt was much better than the life she had been living with her husband.

    Johnes was everything Molly was not and this was why they got together at first but once they were done discovering each other they could not bear each other. Their ideology, their philosophy for life was way too different. Their son, Peter had no idea about the differences but as he grew up he too thought that it was better for both of them to separate, although he was only fifteen years old, Molly had always thought that he had an old soul. A soul which has seen everything, understood everything and was in a fifteen year old's body just so that he could stand by her.

   Molly used to believe in the universe until her divorce, post divorce, she could not stop blaming herself, the only thing she did not want to give her son was, a life without a father but she could not do anything about it. She felt helpless and tired ; mentally tired. She could perform all the duties of a father but she could never replace the touch of a father.

   She knew Peter was understanding enough that his parents can't live together and that was what was eating her, she knew Peter wouldn't crib, she knew Peter wouldn't say a word for he understood her mother more than her she understood herself, but she also knew that that could be his parasite too. His own suppressed desires might start feeding on him one day, and what will she do then?

    She was so completely torn between her son's desires and her freedom, she could not deal with her own self anymore. She sat on the rocking chair and finished her can, she stared at the wall and cursed the universe until she fell asleep.

The Suffering #StoriesFromTheTrunk

The Day He Froze, Again.

It was 5 '0' clock in the morning. He got up and started thinking about the day that had passed. He closed his eyes hard and tried not to recall the moments. He was terrified, sweat dripping off his forehead, his eyes blood shot, his lips white and his cheeks scarlet with the realisation of the gravity of the situation.

 At 5 in the morning, this was all very surreal for him, he tried to get up from the bed, stretched his hand to reach for his specs which were kept on the metallic bedside table, next to the Father's day card his son had made for him. He couldn't recall keeping his specs on the table the night before. He figured his wife, Martha would have removed the specs while he was asleep, and kept it there. He hastened with it, took his legs out of the quilt slowly, trying not to wake Martha up. His legs had been cold even under his quilt.

   As he keeps his feet on the carmine carpet, he feels a relief. The carpet was warm and comforting. He takes a deep breath and tries to block the memories of the horrible incident of the previous day, he stands up, his hands hanging from his body like that of a dead person, his steps, firm, his head, steady, his eyes, blank and his pace, slow. 

   He walks to his son's room and keeps the palm of his hand on the bed and feels the quilt, he sits on the messy white table lying beside the bed and keeps his head on the pillow as if, trying to smell his son. He finds the bed empty and gets up from the table, slowly, moving away from the bed, the memories of all those fifteen years, coming back to him, bit by bit. He sits on the floor and presses his hand hard against his mouth, trying to sob without making a sound, taking in all that had happened.The lose of his ten year old son, who had died fifteen years ago in a car accident on the 6th of October 1998. For him, it was the 7th of October.

   He had been waking up at five in the morning, feeling like it's the 7th of October 1998 since fifteen years. He had not been able to forget and move on even after Martha's several attempts. Martha felt that she was luckier, she did not have to go through the pain, the agony, the suffering of losing a son, every morning, like her husband.  

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