How far is it?

The question kept me pulling back to life. Not sure if it is the kind of life I wanted; I couldn’t even understand what it is.

Or how do you define life? What is life?

My thoughts were incoherent. The raft was rocking with each passing wave. As I tried pulling myself out of the nauseating delirium, I found myself yearning to go back.

Not sure if I was really trying, I couldn’t discern my own actions any more. The train of thought was lost long ago - any attempt to reconnect to my own psyche was being thwarted by myself.

A voice from the heavens asked me - what is more evil that being trapped inside one’s own mind?

I wanted to fight back, but deep inside me a fear was mounting slowly. Any attempts to fight back might turn detrimental to the overall progress. If we fail to hit the shores before sunlight, we will be damned forever…

I turned back to alcohol as usual. I started sipping the hard vitriol from the flower vase. After the great winter, we didn’t really care about what we drank.

When being alive is a matter of chance, you don’t even care about what you breathed in.

As the vitriol got hold of my nerves, I started hearing voices from the great depths.

Not from the heavens, I confirmed. The wind wasn’t carrying anything for me. It was indeed from the depths, from the seabed to the horizons they traveled. A journey of no return - something not everyone could undertake.

I tried visualizing the pattern. The voices originating from a dead sea shell lying at the cold sea floor. The sea water appears slimy to me, the waves have a hard time creeping through them.

It takes huge effort for the waves to climb up to the Epipelagic zone. That’s were the life is. The scary bottom of the ocean is cold and demanding. As the waves tried to navigate through them, they twisted and turned.

As they were pushed to their limits, they emitted a myriad of colors - as the rays tried to penetrate the slimy bottoms, they wished to light up the ocean bed.

Dreams are a luxury for the underprivileged. The rays shattered after colliding with invisible walls. The sea floor is a strange place, certainly not hospitable. It was dark and scary. No light for the commons - they spent their life in darkness.

The commons were not allowed to swim up to the epipelagic where the life thrived. They were made to believe the moment they climb up, their lungs will burst.

Of course, no common wanted her lungs bursting into a thousand pieces. They would comfortably stay at the darkness of the bottom than trying to climb up.

Life at seabed wasn’t that hard after all, there were cartels smuggling sunlight to the bottoms. It was sold in the markets which were black anyway. Not everybody could afford it, but still dads starved for a fortnight so that their kids could have a mouthful of sunlight for a day or two every year.

There cartels were always white and fat. They had specialized vessels that ferried them to the top. Just before getting on them, they will wear a pair of hoodies - the commons thought it protected their lungs from bursting.

But that was a ploy - the commons would never find out that their lungs wouldn’t burst even if someone planted a bomb in them. Years at the bottom would have hardened their lungs; the cartels thrived on denial and oppression. The commons were kept away from any real sources of knowledge.

The bottom was essentially a scary place and it had to stay so. Once the vicious circle to keep it that way sank in, it would perpetuate forever. Nobody, even the cartels calculated it. But once the system kicked in, how could they say no to their privileges?

---

I sounds kept finding me, I had no way to letting them know that I wasn’t interested. The melodrama was too much for me and I couldn’t stop sipping my vitriol. Soon, I realized that the voices will keep haunting me forever.

I was no warrior, I was no student. I was no one. I am a woman who fell prey for the vices of being alive. Being alive is an exercise - it requires constant support.

Reading the sign boards, correcting your course, interacting with the milestones - everything needed life. Life was at a premium for me - I never had it enough.

But what is life?

Our experiences are a continuum; We don’t have access to what is to happen yet and all our experiences are in the past. The life as we have now is a sliding pointer; you have to either run with it or just let it go.

I couldn’t let it go. Existence was my biggest burn - the more I tried to cope up, the more painful it became.

Over the years, I developed empathy towards the ones who forfeited their empires and ended it all with a snap.

It takes years to build it up to what you are today. With every passing wave, it became clearer to me that taking that big decision is purely my choice, I didn’t owe anything to anyone.

If nobody shares my pain, why should I be consulting them before putting an end to it?

I am not a coward, I am not a hero either. Only thing that deterred me from ending it all was the fear that my death will be romanticized. I was no doll and it shouldn’t matter what they did with me after I am gone. But still, I shuddered at the thought.

I took another sip and noticed something peculiar across the horizon.

(To be continued…)