By Vaibhav Uttam
The constant humming of the fan and honks from down the street filled the room. It was better than the jittering vibrations of the air conditioners at night, Ravi thought. The room had one fluorescent light bulb, a small rectangle no more significant than his shoe which passed as windows these days. It was rare getting windows in an apartment these days, much less a one that did not face a slum or a dank alley. The window provided little natural light, although it did not face the sun. The room was always a bit chilly, thanks to the absence of solar energy. It had a bed big enough for one person, with brown, dirty sheets. A work desk with a computer, a chair that looked like it had a sturdy design, and a small rusty cupboard in one corner. The floor seemed to be made of some material that looked like wood since real wood was almost impossible to get hands-on.
The walls were a dull shade of white, plain and naked. They did not have any decorations or art of any kind. It only had a mirror that hung, a small one, the kind which only lets you see your face. It had a rather peculiar shape. It was round but not quite, it had imperfections in its curves, the only object in the room that did not have perfect proportions. This gave it a rather outlandish look. As if it belonged to an ancient time where things were things had imperfections, something only a human could make.
Kavi sat on the chair still. He sat in a stiff and awkward, almost hunching posture. If it weren't for the movement of his eyes and his right hand on the mouse, one would swear that he was a statue scrolling past an endless feed of media. He scrolled through the news which seems to be getting worse with each passing day. Some parts of the country always seemed to be flooded others were in a state of drought. The recent war on the mainland had created a new immigration crisis on which every one of his friends or rather people he followed has some opinion. Some did not want more people flooding into an already overpopulated and overexploited country. Others welcomed the refugees with open arms and called out the other group for forgetting human values and the audacity to refuse someone refuge who had lost everything. Others were sharing the memes some of which were funny. Which of these groups was right or wrong he did not know. The idea of giving such opinions while sitting in a safe and secure place was repulsive to him. If only they knew what these people have lost he thought to himself. The irony of his thought was not lost on him.
He skipped the news section. It always made him miserable and annoyed. He started looking at what his friends and family were up to. Some were posting pictures of family they just started, others preaching positivity with their travel blogs and insightful captions which always made him repulsed. The idea of telling people to look after themselves, care for themselves, find themselves through traveling, and practice positivity felt wrong to him. Life always had seemed too bleak to him to preach positivity. Others posted their new milestones at work and the new extravagant things they had bought. Everyone seemed to have their life in order, everyone seemed to have made it or were in the process.
His feeling of annoyance and misery were now replaced by jealousy and incompetence. Incompetence on the part that in his 30 years of existence he had done nothing worthwhile except for that gold medal he won in swimming in his school days, which he threw away a month later. He now worked in a government office. His job description was that of compliance officer but what he was exactly doing he did not know, there was nothing much to do except for signing documents. When he had first joined the office he was somewhat excited to do something which, according to him mattered. At least he did back then. Previously he worked at a multinational corporation. He worked as a content manager which involved finding content that would make the audience click on it. He did not hate the job, he just hated the idea of it. He was good at it but left it because he wanted to find some meaning and depth to his job, which now felt like a dream.
He felt like watching some animal videos so that he would feel better. But after the recent demise of his dog, these things were too painful to watch. His eyes fell on the on-screen clock it was already six he had been scrolling social media for the past three hours. He got up from his chair which made a screeching sound, and a wave of sharp pain pulsed in his spine. He decided to walk around for a while but caught his gaze in the mirror. The reflection was that of a man who looked like he was in his late thirties, with a long face thick lips, and sunken eyes. There was a small scar near the left part of the eye, a fading hairline, and a forehead filled with wrinkles. Kavi did not like this reflection, he had hated it since he was young. He had always considered himself ugly even tho he looked fine.
He felt his heart sink, all of a sudden he was filled with resentment and despair. He had not made anything significant of his life, what he thought was worse than he had ever even tried. He had only cared about swimming when he was young but that was a distant memory, a painful one because he never made it, he knew that back then that he would never make it. After that, he had not cared about much what he did in life. He cared about his family and friends or so he thought. He considered himself lucky to have the friends he did but had lost all of them from the act of growing up. As for his family, he loved them he rarely talked to anyone of them. His father and his brother would occasionally call to check on him but other than that there was no one to care for. He was now filled with guilt, for what he did not exactly know. Was it because of never trying? for pretending at times to be someone he was not? or for disappointing his father ? he did not know.
He broke eye contact with this reflection he had come to hate. He started it looking at the mirror itself with all its odd curves and imperfections. He had always liked it, it used to belong to his mother. The earliest memory he had of this mirror was when he was five and his mother used it to wear her gold ornaments, her bindi, and her necklace which she used to adore so much.
His mother had died two years ago. He always had a broken relationship with her. They never saw things eye to eye but he always admired her for her courage and stubbornness which he had hated when he was young. But now he saw her for who she was. It was not that she did not love him or cared about him, it was just that he could never talk to her without the conversation spiraling into an argument. Now he adored her because unlike him she was not afraid to live the way she had wanted in life, she was never afraid of the things she did even tho he hated when he was young and the family often resented it. Why did he hate it he did not know for she never hurt anyone.
At her funeral, he did not cry the tears won’t come but they often did now. He would often find her staring at her own reflection, lost in some deep thought or admiring her own reflection for she was beautiful.
Although now he knew that she looked at her own reflection and despised what she saw. A mother, who according to her family, had failed her children even tho his brother and Kavi took care of themselves and were well off. A wife who was a disgrace although if it weren't for her strength, her father would have killed himself. A person who was a nobody and had never lived for herself. It was not her fault, her parents and her family never gave her a chance.
He understood her now, he had understood her from the day he returned from his first year in college. His first year in college was the first time when he felt like no one, he despised himself for his mediocrity. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her and how much he had adored her but even tho he had a decade, he never could say it. He understood she just wanted to be more than a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a reflection who had resented itself, for what it was.
By Vaibhav Uttam
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