The Girl Who Forgot To Complain

By Anshul Purvia

Mira was the kind of girl who found a reason to frown at even the sunrise.

If the morning light touched her face, she’d groan that it was too bright.

If the rain fell, she’d whine that her shoes would get ruined.

If someone smiled at her, she’d call them fake.

Every day was a tragedy in her eyes— her life, the worst one anyone could live.

She complained about her parents not understanding her, about her friends being “boring,” about how nothing ever went her way.

Even happiness annoyed her because it never lasted long enough.

One night, she stood on her balcony, staring at the city lights, ranting to the stars about how unfair life was.

“If only people knew how hard my life is,” she said, half laughing, half crying. “God, I wish they could feel what I feel.”

Something strange happened then.

The wind paused. The air turned cold , not the kind of cold that makes you shiver, but the kind that makes your soul listen.

A whisper floated near her ear:

“Wish granted.”

The next morning, Mira woke up dizzy. Her head hurt , not like a normal headache. It was heavy, loaded with something that didn’t belong to her.

When she went downstairs, she saw her father reading the newspaper. She opened her mouth to complain about the food, but the moment she looked at him —

she felt it.

The ache in his chest.

The pressure of bills piling up.

The silent guilt of not being the father he promised to be.

Her breath caught. “Dad?” she whispered.

But he smiled like nothing was wrong, the way people do when they’ve learned to hide pain behind breakfast.

She ran out of the house, shaken. On the street, she passed her neighbor — the woman who always looked so put-together, always polite.

But the second their eyes met, Mira’s chest filled with a deep, suffocating sorrow. She saw flashes,the woman crying over her husband’s grave, whispering I’m still waiting for you to come home.

Mira stumbled back, gasping for air.

Every person she saw —the delivery guy, the school bus driver, even her teacher, carried oceans of pain. Regret, heartbreak, loneliness, loss.

And she felt every drop of it.

The world was louder now, not with sound, but with suffering.

By noon, she was trembling.

She couldn’t eat.

Couldn’t walk straight.

Every laugh she heard came wrapped in someone’s sadness.

Every “I’m fine” weighed like a stone on her chest.

By evening, Mira collapsed in her room, clutching her heart.

She screamed but not out of anger this time, but out of unbearable empathy.

“Please,” she cried into the silence, “I don’t want this. I can’t live like this. I understand now… I understand.”

The same cold wind from last night brushed her cheek.

And then silence again.

When she woke up, it was morning.

The pain was gone. Her room was still. The city buzzed softly outside.

Her father called her down for breakfast.

The same plate of toast waited on the table.

But this time, Mira didn’t complain.

She looked at him — really looked and smiled.

Because now she knew.

Everyone was fighting something.

And that morning, for the first time in her life,

the girl who always complained had nothing left to say.

By Anshul Purvia