My dad’s in the office and my mom is asleep, warm under the sheets that are keeping my blue feet covered. Dada is on the sofa across the room, checking his emails and whatever. I have to sit here and pretend like I’m studying, when actually I’ve been staring at the same page for four straight hours today. I think of all the things that happened in these few days. Nothing in the world ever scared my mother. Now she starts shaking when she sees the curtains moving. Her eyes are sunken in, her hair is a mess. She stands next to the door when I am in the bathroom. She hasn’t slept well. She looks like a grandma, when I’m still 17. All because the ground decided to do the Harlem shake after 82 years in this city.
All the news we ever saw on TV, the disasters of Chile, Haiti, and Japan. Everything. It’s us now. We’re the hot news now. I thought disasters like these were unfair in my part of the world. That I hadn’t done anything to bring such a chaos. But it doesn’t work that way.
A part of me has become an atheist now but I still ask people to pray. It’s like cursing almighty for all he has done then falling on your knees begging for his help.
I’ve suffered nothing. I’ve lost the complaints, the fights, the grudges, the broken heart blabbering. Most importantly I’ve lost my people. Should I feel relieved, that I’m alive or should I feel bad that someone else is dead? Diseases spreading everywhere. Going out to help people is very very risky. Chicken hearted coward. Yes I am.
The moment when you come back home from all of this, is the most difficult one. The house is definitely not the same. Broken glass pieces don’t hurt you. What hurt you are the things that stayed unbroken. You can almost feel them shivering, be it your clock, your food, you pen or your clothes. You feel like apologizing to every single object that stayed unbroken. You ran away from this home. You left it for the sake of your own life. You watched it wobble for three whole days. Now you come back asking for shelter.
Guilt.
Some people don’t even have this shelter.
And it feels so ridiculous, cleaning up and going back to your own life. Studying for the exams you hate. Doing everything you don’t want to. Because, well, welcome back life.
I’m literally sitting back and watching my life go by. Every second I’m closer to death. Every second I lose a chance of changing myself for good.
And it’s devastating.
Here and now?
I don’t know.
.
.
.
.
My brother lost a friend in the Everest avalanche.
And every hour he comes and hugs me.
He doesn’t cry. He just takes deep sighs frequently.
Life.
.
.
.
I can almost feel chunks of me falling down and melting. They’ll never get stick back to me. My life hasn’t changed. Neither have I. What should happen is happening, that’s all. What will come and stick to my body is this experience. No disaster in the world will shake this off of me.
My head is fogged up, or maybe it’s too clean for me to believe. I don’t know.
.
.
.
I now feel like somebody pushed in a time bomb behind my back. And every “beep” is as clear as the little voice in my mind.
I have to do something.
I still haven’t arranged my papers and pen. But in a few days’ time I will have to go upstairs, back to the room where I ran from on Saturday, pick up the papers and pens, fill the ink, take out a fresh new page and spill out, what has been stacked up in my body for days. I don’t want to burst in tears and mourn over the cracks around the house. I want to smell the ink and write on what’s left. I want to see my mother moving on, my brother moving on, my father moving on. People say the world never stops no matter what happens. I’ve seen it stop. I’ve felt it stop. And it feels terrible. You want it to move on, as fast as it can.
I’m just a kid. But today I’ve realized nobody has grown up. The day we grow up is the day we die. Because that day we are the most educated, the most experienced and the wisest we could ever be all our lives.
And none of us want to grow up.
Get your guts together and pull yourself back to reality. The more you sit back and watch, the more your chair pulls you in.
Grab yourself.
Shake your world.
If you don’t, something else will.
Literally.
R.I.P., the victims of the tragic disaster of 25th April 2015.
Our pride and heritage shall always be remembered.
Image : Doodle by Anushruti Adhikari