The recent past topped with snow
The recent past topped with snow
A new job, pictures from a friend in a foreign country and a fictional spin on stream of consciousness writing
Warning: Fiction ahead! Leave your well-meaning concerns about my mental well-being at the end of this sentence and enjoy reading the piece without the burden! But the part about landing a new job - that’s indeed true and I’m grateful for it! Onto the piece now.
It was half past ten in the darkness and she couldn’t sleep. Thoughts raced in her mind about the new job she had just landed. She remembered feeling happy a while ago but clouds of mellow heaviness filled her heart. “Oh, come on now! You’re supposed to be happy right now. Be happy!”
Nothing seemed to answer her question, a long-lasting question about figuring out the answer, finding if there is supposed to be a meaning to it all. She had wanted to study literature and write books but recently she didn’t quite write anymore. She watched a YouTube video that in its short narration tried to make a point that a large majority of people desired to be writers because they felt neglected in their lives and this act of putting their feelings out there was a rebellious act of shouting into the void. Writing didn’t set her heart on fire anymore like it used to before, not always but there definitely were moments and they were missing now.
She had a perspective shift since she started writing for a prospective audience instead of writing for the heck of it; and the former felt much the same way subjects felt interesting (or not) in school based on the teacher that taught them and how much of a liking she had for them. Her math teacher looked over her shoulder as she solved problems and her English teacher’s lisp was a continued presence in her mind as she tried to read a chapter. Likewise, she had created a single highly critical persona of her readers that nodded sideways with disapproval at every sentence she wrote. “This is depressing. That’s a boring sentence. ChatGPT could write it better. Maybe try humorous.”
Her parents and friends were happy for her. Her dad congratulated her with a bout of ecstatic affirmation, he had jumped up and down. Not many dads do that. Her friends did it using a lot of ‘sssss’s in the word ‘congratulations’ and multiple heart emojis at the end of their texts (if you’re the friend: try not to forget that this is fiction. Fiction). “There you go again, you melancholic human! You have to find ways to be sad.”
Life was good right now. So, why this void? She couldn’t point to this feeling of strange nostalgia for something that never happened, someplace she had never been and some experience still unlived. It occurred to her that she might be mourning the end of her days of bearing no responsibility when she could procrastinate like she was in college but hadn’t she also felt depressed that she didn’t have much to do, except work on the gazillion ideas that floated around in her head and filled many pages of her notebook which weren’t motivating enough to start working on?
Maybe tomorrow, after she wakes up at her parent’s house, she could help her mom set up her craft business on Instagram. Cool photos would be taken and a whole art direction scene could be staged. A splash of pink and orange painted a tiny portion of her heart. Maybe thereafter, she’d eat her mom’s tasty food because everyone knows the best comforting meal in the world is made by mom. Things were not great for another household but she hoped they’d get better. Another wave of grey overpowered the bright colours.
It’s ten past eleven and she remembered how her suburban surroundings would be a delight to go on a morning stroll around. She yawned, scratched her scalp and wiped off the tears that were a result of the yawning. Maybe her dad will take her out to that lunch at Taj which he called ‘a party’. She remembered he had sent her a few photos of some birds he had clicked. They had complicated names but he loved them and the photography.
She scrolled back on what she had written so far and wondered if she should just post this and call it an issue of her newsletter. This piece was raw. But what happened to the days when her pieces were hopeful and had an ending? She wanted to go back to college but Bangalore was nice too, if only she made it a point to explore it more. For that matter, any place could be turned into something worth exploring. As she wrote more, numerous thoughts from the recent past surfaced. A wide brushstroke of green across her chest. “Go trekking. Houses are for shelter when you need them and the great outdoors is always calling. Always.”
The other day she met with her best friend from college and they had a sleepover. The next day morning she offered to go on a walk together and the best friend agreed. A juvenile dog decided that he liked her and tried to play around her legs, jumping up to her waist all the while wagging his tail. She didn’t worry much about how her t-shirt was getting dirty. It didn’t matter or as kids on Instagram, these days say: dogs >>> clean clothes.
She had copied a couple of pages word-to-word from Pride and Prejudice into her writing notebook a couple of weeks ago and in going with the theme of randomness, she really wanted to end this post with that piece of information and a bunch of pictures from snow-clad Germany where one of her friends stayed.
Have a good night. She will go to bed too. Try.
Pictures from somewhere in Germany taken sometime last week
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