Short Story: Him Drama

I was excited to meet her after a long time. Also she told me she desperately needs to talk. I knew it’s probably another “him-drama” so yeah I was anxious to hear her out too. Its funny how with time our problems grew but we, me and my bestie stayed the same.

She arrived earlier than I expected which meant ‘the problem’ isn’t a minor one. The moment Zaib came she asked me if we could be alone somewhere, (away from the family). That's strange because she used to be the family-oriented one. Anyway she started to unwind the moment we went out for a brisk walk.

“He just never stays away!” shouts Zaib throwing her hands in the air. I was quiet but I knew whom she’s talking about; her fiancé. “I have started to feel all different sorts of things and I want him to understand!” she added.

Zaib paused for me to speak up, but I didn’t. Didn’t want to rush before hearing the entire story. She looked away as we walk and continued with little calmness in her voice this time, “They drive me nuts, all of a sudden they start talking against him. When I fight for him, they start to argue. It gets worse. I become so radioactive that I just walk out on them and avoid human contact for a while…”

I interrupted her asking, “And apparently this “Avoid-human-contact” includes him too?”

She stopped walking instantly and nodded at me with worry in her eyes. Arrite so now we know what she meant by: ‘He never stays away’

I so badly wanted to hug her tight cause I knew the torture she’s been through for the past few months. But then I didn’t want to make it look like ‘pity’.

We become too quiet but even at this moment nothing felt awkward. Five minutes later we were in my kitchen where I made her my favorite drink ‘Hot Chocolate Milk’. (Yeah I am Alex from Madagascar, when you are at my place you get MY favorite drink not yours.)

Drinking the milk Zaib sighed with relief, and expressed her gratitude saying, “Running down my dry throat in this rough weather, this drink truly feels like LOVE.”

“Reminds you of him, even when you’re avoiding human-contact, huh?” I asked with a nasty grin set on my face. (Err, I had to ask.)

There was a long pause, (where in my head I was like, oh so she thinks I’m not human?).

Then her eyes sparkled with a bright smile but she didn’t say a word. Although I could see she got the message in the right way, when she grabbed her cell phone and gave him a call. 

Have faith when you lose everything else

Hope is a crazy thing; it keeps us alive when we desperately wait on closure. Even when we are certain there is no way back. This constant urge to try again, never leaves.

It is plain water that rains down your cheeks from eyes that don’t blink. Carefully ignore the pieces on the floor. Brainstorming like crazy but you still can’t conclude how you got here. Little jokes, little dreams, little mistakes, little do we see, how little things can cause such collateral damage. Scars keep the pain alive when the wounds have healed. Collecting reasons to why you keep running away from what you need and why you keep chasing unwanted mess.

 It grows harder to resist thus we fight back. We run, we fail, and then we face it. Other times we just ignore, let it be and accept its presence. You say you work so hard that there’s hardly any time to breathe. What about the moment when your attention span escapes you and the subconscious take over. You know you are there, still there…

We don’t give up, we play dead and we keep breathing. Or we die and fake breathing… Either way you don’t question anything that doesn’t make sense. Maybe you’ve been in the prison for so long that this ceiling feels like perfect home. You say you don’t need hope, but then again it’s not the only word you lost the meaning of. You lost so much and so many times that losing has only become a rid of the baggage.

We all do see ahead of time but confusion keeps it vague. We try to keep it that way for we can’t stand the complexity of your brains. And then there will be days when it’s hard to avoid experiencing tomorrow as good as today. The moment when you are perfectly sure about things, don’t hesitate to TRUST yourself. 

Me & My Fans!

Let me warn you, this article is going to be about ‘MOI’. Today somehow I ended up listening to Love Myself by Hailee Steinfeld – so yeah I have all the rights to be a Narcissist for the next 10 minutes. Aala la la la la laaahhhH!

Arrite, I woke up to a very long text from a little girl. Despite all those grammatical mistakes and my drowsiness I could see she was happy. The text had my name in it and her English teacher’s name, who is my childhood friend. Twenty minutes later when I read it with more clarity, it made my heart swell.

The kid was trying to tell me how she presented her speech exactly like I do And I have no idea what she meant for she has never seen any of my presentations. Anyway the girl goes on describing how her teacher said her gestures and way of speaking is a lot like mine. And that made her feel smug.

This little girl is a fan, she observes me real close, like most of the kids do. To be honest it gives me goose bumps for whatever they see me do, they follow! Not that I’m complaining but it comes with immense pressure of responsibility.

Kids are like: Oh Aapa is eating yogurt, let’s eat yogurt!

A 5 year old friend of mine still believes I am his younger sister, regardless of the fact that he has to raise his head 90 degrees to look at me. If we see it from a broader perspective then maybe kids can see what our REAL age is.

Err… I can’t be younger than 5 years that’d be really creepy.

Most of my family question why children see me as their ideal. It doesn’t take any effort to be a kid-magnet even if you're a nerd who talks to a white screen all day. On every wedding I’m chased by a mob of tiny fans. They always have so many stories to tell. All you have to do is TALK to them. They love attention even the shy ones. These little brats would hunt you like Zombies.

My bestie calls me, a kid-pleaser. (Ahem…. She’s just jealous). Kids get fond of us when there is no hierarchy between you and them. Irritate them, chase them, make them chase you, just have fun. And if you haven’t experienced it, you are missing out on the FUN in its purest, innocent and frenzied form.

They text me like:

Kid: Hello Aapa

Me: Hi

Kid: Aapa let’s talk!

Me: Okay :) 

Kid: Ok, Start...

Me: -_- ???

Yeah. Then Aapa would have to START off course, as soon as she figures what to start. *facepalm*

Short Story: Texting

He takes a deep breath while leaning back on the wall next to the window in his office. Vacantly he stares at the sunshine outside, with hands in his pockets. “When I see you, read your text, feel your words, or hear your voice, I get this strange nerve-racking feeling” he said calmly looking down at his heart.

She sits up straight in her chair and gazed at his chest too. With worried expressions she hastily inquired what he meant.

He sighed and continued, “I feel like my heart grows actual limbs like an octopus, which cut open my chest like blades and wiggle out. You can’t imagine the ache. They restlessly move towards you, as if you are the target of these colorful ferocious tentacles”

She busted into laughter, and then he had to quickly add with a grave impression, “It’s not funny…. It’s rather irritating when you know it is REAL. It takes me a lot of trouble to ignore the sensation. This octopus-heart just keeps growing bigger and stronger”

At this point her face instantly turned from amusing to awfully grim, she replied almost in a whisper, “I know. I feel it too…”

“You do?” he asked like a 5 year old kid, who has no idea how his crazy imagination made any sense.

She forced a Mona Lisa smile and answered with a pensive look, “I feel it like a living rope around my waist, so alive that I react to it. I feel when you tug me to yourself with your thoughts, and see me squirm. You smile satisfactorily when you watch all of my efforts to wriggle out of its grasp, go wasted.”

She looked up at him to seek affirmation of her interpretations. Where he only lowered his eyes and started to grin broadly.

He sent back the text, “He knows.”

She replied from a thousand miles away, “She knows.”

The short break ended as they got out of the beautiful scene. Then they placed their cell-phones aside and got back to their hectic daily routines.

Jump for the Infallible Words

 The hardest choice you have to make is between the words and the actions. Sometimes WORDS solely seem far more convincing than the actions. Winner among the Illusion vs. the Reality is obvious, but what if the delusion is more honest? What if you want to actually jump of a building to see for yourself… if you could fly? What if the tempting risk is itself the reason to exist?

A part of you accepts the laws of gravity, still the choices are crazy. For when you stay to accept the real, you would surely die. It’s not the regret that kills you, if you don’t jump. It’s the certainty of your heart that you won’t survive either way.

The thing is happy ending does not make a great story. The sacrifice does. One who has tasted the trauma and endured to see how it converts us to diamonds. They would start to long for it like a hungry beast waiting on food for ages.

Hero did not survive to write the history, but their arduous hard work made others do so.

There is nothing more sabotaging than the art that stops loving you back. It can’t stop you from distractions anymore and refuses to be one itself. Later it fails to stop you from the fall. Why? Perhaps your art trusts your faith. It believes you can fly above the clouds. Thus enlightens the inextinguishable you. Maybe indirectly it helps you feel again. Even when you cannot function right, you tell yourself it’s no biggie; you have always been clumsy anyway. Put it off, shut down the studio!

Then why won’t you JUMP?

Everyone is looking for distractions from the truth. Searching for an escape to live another day, without the dreaded meeting with our conscience. All the members actually bear their share of pressure but they never say. Nobody would talk about it. Yet everyone is aware of the struggles and the torment. Alongside there is always the hope to get through just fine.

You do feel it. Nonetheless the other side of the test is only a vague picture. Like a song in a foreign language you can be mesmerized, and dance to the beat. Only you don’t understand the most important element of it.

Then one day when you take the fall, you find there were so many real strings ATTACHED to you. They could NOT help you fly… but were enough to SAVE your life. Now you just need time to figure out if it was a good thing or bad. 

Joy of Bakra Eid!

Desperately I waited for our ‘Qurbani ka Bakra’ a day before yesterday. We have always bought the goat a day before Eid. It’s my dad’s idea of less mess around the house.

Anyway I got busy with some chores though I’d jump and run, to get the door on every bell-ring. Finally they came back with a beautiful white goat covered in black patches. However they didn’t return with just the goat, they returned with a story to tell.

“We were looking for a goat and bargaining around when suddenly we heard the uproar”, my brother gets up and continued.

“Me and dad got attentive and turned to see where men were running and rumbling ridiculously. We knew what was coming but didn’t know if we should run too. And then the vision clears, everyone was out of the way. Now we could see a crowd running and behind them chasing a huge angry bull! However we didn’t bother running. We just stood there enjoying the show, until the Bull stops all of a sudden and turn to our direction. Yep, we started running too.”

At this point I had to stop my brother to ask if Dad ran too, cause that would make a really funny picture in my head.

And he continues with all the witty sounds effects, “Yes! Everybody was running! Aaaaggghhh!! Dad started running in another direction, I ran in the opposite direction. We didn’t have time to think, we were running for life. After a few minutes of madness, thankfully we were out of the bull’s way. Gasping for air I stopped and looked for dad. 

Standing there I could see the bull hiding behind a huge cement pipe at a distance. The bull peeks out and gave THE STARE to the men sitting and talking to the customers. The moment they saw the bulls head come out, all 10 men ran for their life! This was so absurd because the bull didn’t even run behind them! It just looked at them? The fear was humorously bizarre; I mean they were enough people to hold the beast down.

One courageous man did take initiative and grabbed on to the rope in its neck. Then the bull moved in his direction and our hero runs away.

Somehow later they grabbed the annoyed bull, off course when this beast got bored.”

I asked him to repeat the funny bit again and he did it laughing. He said it felt like a REAL funny prank on social media.

I’d always treasure the hilarious picture this story made in my head. Hope you enjoyed all shades of this beautiful festival too.

Eid-ul-Azha Mubarak!

Finally Found You!

‘I love you!’ How many times have you heard these three wondrous words in your life? And how many of these people are still by your side? Ouch!

When we are mature to think above what environment fed us, we see how they missed it entirely. Truth be told, the person who actually means it, won’t even say it. They don’t need to spell it out for their actions are enough. Quite like your family, this person would be there for you without demands or greed. There won’t be any constant reminders, which turn to shackles for you later. Love in itself is selfless. Love would only make your life easier. All the bizarre cheap poetry that defines love as a self-destructive-weapon is nothing but drooling over a crush. Love is meant to protect you; it’s no different than the CARE you have already experienced since your childhood.

Every sacrifice is crafted to adorn you. Above all, this person would respect your dignity and your soul. Understands you, and sees through you. They would respect and abide by your rules, as their own. For sometimes discipline is there to beautify us. Yet this person does not dissolve you, but distinguish you. Despite your differences they complement you and stand by you. Serve as nothing less than the ‘Glitter’ to your own identity. Think of this person as good Make-up, it doesn’t hide the good in you, but only enhance it.

It’s the place to rest at last; you won’t have to run anymore. Neither would you have to worry. Something tells you this person would stay no matter what. Their soul feels as safe with you as you’d feel around them. You won’t have to say anything at all for this person would already know. The only feeling you’d be able to interpret is “Finally I’m HOME”.

Love is a respectful, beautiful, spiritual connection to experience. Sadly the idea has turned to something really filthy and disgusting today. They make you a slave in the name of LOVE where it was only designed to SET YOU FREE!

If it’s anything other or less than this, stop fooling yourself.