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It’s 7am.
People are awake. Schoolchildren. The working class. Old people.
People are awake and breathing.
I am awake too. From last night.
I’m not one of the people.
My name is…irrelevant. Not because I don’t place any value in my own existence - I might be the only one - but because there’s enough me's out here in this city for my name to become muffled in the noise.
I’m a 28 year-old living in the city of New Delhi. My peers give me a solid impression that I’m one of them - born rich, manufactured good-looking, gluttonously entitled to a life of extravagance.
I had promise, so people said. I could have been something…relevant.
I tried. Enough, but not quite the required amount.
Why did I stop trying? The answer is simpler than the task: because it became too hard.
Dreams used to be beautiful. Challenging. Exciting. Having a sense of ambition was...intoxicating.
But I learned…slowly - perhaps someday you will too - that anything that intoxicates you isn’t going to make you better. It kills you slowly. At the speed of one second.
I almost killed myself trying to do something worth existing.
So then I stopped. It all just became too hard. I focused on other highs in life: drinks, drugs, the opposite sex, stupidity.
Traditional intoxication is just as good and comes with a no-stress hangover.
Stupidity. Let me introduce you to stupidity. If there ever was a way of saying fuck you to the laws of humanity, nature, and the universe: it’s stupidity.
You know exactly what I mean. You may not know it yet, but you’ve dabbled in it. You’ve at least made one decision just this past week that you shouldn’t have. Why? Because it gave you something you weren’t entitled to. Whoever you are, it let you in on a secret. That you can sneak outside of life - even for brief moments - and no one would notice or give a shit. So you dabble. Sometimes once in a while. Sometimes once a month. Sometimes once a week.
When you dabble once a day, and it lasts for most of it, then you’ll become me.
Darkness. Darkness is beautiful because it’s empty. It’s a dark canvas that doesn’t care if you paint on it. It just stays there. Waiting. For you to come and become its paint.
It doesn’t want you, but it still draws you to it. That’s a pretty good art joke.
Where was I? I don’t want to lose this glimpse of sobriety so I’ll try to find that train of thought again.
Oh yes. The dream.
Who killed my dream...beside me? Fuck if I know. I’d blame society but it doesn’t give a shit about me. You should never blame someone for fucking you up if it doesn’t even care that you exist.
I can’t even blame my parents. They might be flawed, but they tried. I don’t want to be too hard on them, I can’t imagine how much it must suck to realize you’ve failed as a parent. If only they had tried a little bit harder. But they gave up on me too - because it just got too hard.
So I chose to belong in the generation of people who don’t exist. Scratch that. Not people. I already told you I’m not people. I’m sorry I lost context, I’d blame my life choices from last night but I’ve been making these choices for a while.
I’ll rephrase. I chose to belong in the generation of things that don’t exist. We’re what history forgets. And you know what we say back to history? We don’t care. Forget us. We like not having the pressure to perform. To be good people. To be good human beings.
When the definition of good is changed and scrutinized everyday, whatever is good today may not be good tomorrow. So we quit.
And we love it. We enjoy it. We bask in the light of this darkness. When everyone around us stopped loving us, or giving a shit about us, darkness welcomed us. Because it never pretended to care about us. Because it didn’t have conditions. It didn’t have rules.
At this point you may be wondering why I sound like I have something to complain about. I don’t. Believe me, if you allow yourself to - I’m aware of how unimportant I really am to your perspective of life. And I wish I could show you how freeing that is.
In all the obvious and traditional ways, I’ve been given everything. I’ve never had to want something because that thing was only one wish away from being given to me. I didn’t choose this life, it was handed down to me. And I didn’t reject it. Does that make me someone you want to judge?
Judge me. I don't care. I used to. I really cared about what people thought of me.
But now I'm free.
Now I live in a field of no promise.
I moved out of my parents’ house a year ago. I stopped needing them once the money became as independent as me, and they stopped ‘loving’ me the moment I showed them that I was a bad investment.
We both cut our losses, they moved on to focusing on their other breathing investments, and I found a new level of the freedom train that I didn’t ask for.
I’m not an addict, in case that was your first thought. I’m not that clean either, and I’ve done my fair share of things, but addiction - let’s just say it too required too much commitment.
A part of me wants to continue writing this, to have some possible proof of my existence, but that part of me rarely gets what it wants.
So if you're thinking this is a story about me finally getting better, you're probably going to be wrong thinking that. Don't be upset - I don't want to get better.
This life is a one way street.
And this isn't about redemption or self-improvement. Or even about having a purpose. I gave up on all those parts of me a long time ago.
I'm not sorry if this story doesn't make you feel better about yourself.
I'm not sorry that this story doesn't have the happy ending it should.
I'm not sorry this story doesn't make any sense.
Because it's 10pm again. The clock resets.
Another part of me dies tonight and it wants to say goodbye.
But for now, I have a part-y to host.
Join me, will you?
Author's Note: This story is the result of a couple (4) glasses of wine and a couple (2) hours spent during a beautiful starry night in San Diego. It's also gender-less, I think. Anda work of fiction, in case you're worried. Probably should have mentioned that at the beginning. Oh well. Not sorry. But thanks for reading!
Photo credit: Lucy Salgado
A hindi adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927)
63I’m back to writing… with a twist. Presenting an old story in a new way, 5 years in the making.
174The text exchange between a bride and the groom on the day of their wedding.
281012802 Launches
Part of the Society collection
Updated on December 01, 2016
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