We all pretend it didn’t happen yet. Disaster didn’t strike our world and tip us off the balance. We all turn to do the things, the usual things we always do. It’s as if we believe that if we pretend long enough we can convince ourselves we are still safe. That everything is the way it used to be. We sit down to dinner, turn the music up, pick up the novel placed face down on the table and start reading from the last page.
Then one of us says something ambiguous, as if slowly breaching the silence we had erected. We all know we can’t close our eyes forever. But a little but longer wouldn’t hurt, would it? We all opt to ignore it. Not yet. Let the normalcy rule for a bit more. We go our separate ways and try, as hard as we can, to show others we are busy, immersed in our own world. But the truth is, we aren’t really. All of us keep thinking back to what had already come to pass. We try to distract our mind for few more hours. Let tonight be peaceful. But then we carry our thoughts to bed and sleep on it. And wonder about it.
Next morning we gather and slowly bring up the topic we have been dreading. The Question. Hell, bring it out in the open. We hope, we pray, once we have stopped avoiding it would stop haunting us. But it never happens like that. Instead we are drowned as the barge is opened. We fight to stay alive, to keep breathing. We fight our pride and accept help from others, because surviving is all that’s important isn’t it? We don’t know how to swim, how to stay afloat. But we learn, we take support and sometimes support others to keep them from going down. Something, anything to get us through this. It goes on and on, until we are exhausted.
We keep thinking if only we somehow survive this, we can make it to the safe haven. The place where nothing goes wrong. And the lucky few, determined few of us do reach that. We think it’s The Plateau and we’ll be able to rest. There’s a breathing room, a tiny window to exhale our breath, to sigh. But then the Next Big thing happens. And once again we are going down, down.
Our fight for normalcy, for stability wages on, but it’s an oasis that doesn’t exist. We are fools for believing in it. But then again, without such foolish belief, there would be no hope and no reason to keep fighting at all, would there?
Amar Shobdo 