One Morning

A Reflection - Fachhochschule Hof, Germany

She woke up to an aching head and puffy eyes. Her head spun terribly. It took her a moment to steady herself and to keep from falling into bed again. But she could not remember anything. She tried to recollect the night's incidents, but it was too much stress for her already splitting head, so she dropped it and decided to go in for a hot shower. While she ruffled through her stuff, the open laptop on the bed caught her eye and it all came back to her in a rush.

She had been awfully upset last night. But now that she had calmed down and slept over it, she thought, was it right to be pissed off at him? In fact she wondered whether she was pissed off or just disconcerted. But all this thought could wait till the shower, b'cause she desperately needed a calming drugging effect. If then she felt, it had been unreasonable, she could forget the whole thing and get back to normal as if nothing had happened. It was easy because she had never told him she was frantic, so for him nothing had anyways changed.

She gathered all her things and was off to bathe. The warm shower pacified her instantly. Ritualistically, as always, weird incidents played through her head and following them a sequence of imaginations, observations and analysis. During one of these eccentric moments, a bizarre thought struck her abruptly. A thought which destroyed the entire life ahead of her. She stood there, unaware of the hot water spraying down her back. A moment too late, it hurt and she pulled herself back, rallying in a state of semi-consciousness. Everything else wiped off her mind for those few minutes.It seemed ages since she had woken up. Her whole world had suddenly turned upside down. How could she not have realized for all these times. And now it had caught her off-guard. She surely did not need any more impending debacles at this point of time. She had enough spice in her mortal existence to go on for years. She wanted to cry out loud but no voice came out.

She stood there, numb. She had just realized that in the recent past she had been living a hollow life entirely. Why did she need to 'think' what she must feel? Wasn't feeling and emotion spontaneous? Yes they were, until a while ago, the time she had crossed dead ends everywhere, had confronted disappointment in every venture. Not monetary or ambitious ventures, emotional ones. She was faced with pain and humiliation of the kind she had never experienced before and it crushed her. But eventually she arose a new person, changed, then she thought, for the better. She suppressed her heartfelt intuitions and trained herself to follow the path which made 'others' happy or which was 'right', regardless of what it meant for her. She succeeded.

Her sagacity had ruined her. It had been so easy just to single out the conscientious avenue each time she was confronted with a fork. Exceptionally perceptive of the mind's psychology and the human brain's emotions, she was wise and her wisdom had made the task simpler. She just hadn't stopped to think what did 'she feel'. And now that she had, she found herself devoid of sentiment, of zeal, of empathy. She had no feeling left in her any more. Today, she risked the ordeal, endeavored to discern herself, but it dawned on her, she was neither upset nor outraged, she was nothing, just an empty vacuum space. It did not really bother her what would ensue next. But she had 'believed' all this time that she was grieved 'cause that's what she had habituated herself to do, when destiny had been very mean to her. It had been her rapprochement. And now she had paid a huge price for it. She had traded her soul, irretrievably and painfully.

Then, she had not known, it would approach this juncture. It had just been a transient panacea for reconciliation. Now the only seam of her present and past were her eyes. Her serene, vacant eyes were surged with a spasm of emotion. She looked into the mirror and dressed herself. Her old self looked back at her and blinked. She could do nothing, she was paralyzed. She stole away from herself and with one last glance into her eyes, she turned and headed to work.