I was sitting in the pleasant lobby, which didn’t seem
pleasant to me –not now anyway. The internal dilemma was never ceased, continuously
poking my tear glands; tough battle was going on when she came up to me. That typical mocking smile of hers,
'So the coward is sitting here. Hiding herself! You are such a perfect epitome of good-for-nothing.'
Criticism and mockery is what I’ve got always, and honestly, I've become immune to many things but this! Everytime I get criticized or mocked, it hurts
more than ever.
'You are demoralizing me!' My voice shaking, 'I can't.. I just can't..' The battle came to an end and I broke down sobbing.
‘See see! This is what I call a perfect coward! Afraid-of-everything. What are you afraid of I don’t
even know!’
'Them! Its them I’m afraid of! What will they say? What will he think? How is she gonna react? No, I’m
better off a coward!' My sobbing fastened. As gradually as I was realizing
every word to be absolutely true –my heart was sinking deeper, the pain was
getting intense. I was flooded with tears, and my breathing was getting
shallow; shallower.
‘Oh ofcourse! Haha, your they
are just amazing. See, baby you are! You started with minor deception and look
here, how brutally self deceptive you have become!’
'Whats wrong in that? Not
knowing is better than –'
‘Are you serious? You
don’t know? You really don’t know?! Hahah! Deceptive! This is what I call deceptive. Could you do anything? Anything? I doubt that honey. You just sit here, make your own philosophical theories and weep.’
I got control. A little. Every word of her was hardening me in a soft way, because I was realizing. Realization with a soothing pain. I knew I was being deceptive, and I had my reasons. But here,
to this person, I didn’t want to explain anything. All this while, whenever I
opened up to people, they failed to understand. They failed to figure out. And theres
noway she could understand. The feeling
was piercing enough to provoke a whole new tsunami of tears. I sighed, and the
tears went back to where they came from.
'Absolutely.' I answered with severe tolerance.
No more I had the strength to
take any more mockery. I was fine with my decision. Never walking up, never
accepting. This wasn’t my time, and for the first time in my life, I knew
right. For the first time in my life, I was right; or sort of right.
* * * * *
And standing here, under the open sky, sea before me, the despair
crawled up and again occupied my chest..
Sometimes, its better to keep it to yourself, better to
hide. Its better to close your eyes.. I know that I should know, but then could I un-know? -No.
The pain of not knowing is tenderly better
than the pain of knowing. Deception is my way of living.
I see nothing before me
now and I feel nothing within me now; except the thorny feeling that nobody, nobody could ever know....
The retreating waves in their thrilling voice, whispered to me ‘think no more; just dream, dreamer.’
I sighed.