I amble around slowly, inconspicuous of my closest surroundings. It has been quite a while, I remember, since I sat down to do something I really liked; or should I dare to say, my heart really liked. It aches for the pleasures of being one with its wants; yearns for the joy in uniting with its dreams. It's been a long time.
I walk along, through dingy corridors, artificially lit to look alive; onto the dreary ends, where automatons sit and waste their lives away. It is a battle for the dough, I sense, and for why else a million kids would give up on their dreams, to idle away doing what a machine could do three times better. Alright, I agree, the cognitive process is absent in the machine, but isn’t it fading away with what is being done right now anyway? I mean, I can't remember the last time I burned up some gray cells work-wise.
I avoid all forms of human contact, primarily the eyes. That pain, which flows from one human to another through the mere look into each other's eyes, is earth shattering. Only the mighty would have the courage to face such wrath, leave alone a soulless worker without a dream.
There goes the lady I had promised to help last week and had conveniently forgotten; I had another task I couldn't say No to. Duck before she meets my eye. Now, there is the guy who has been trying to get my attention everyday for the last month, so that we could make a final word draft of our newsletter. Got too much on my mind for that now, quickly slip behind the column. Missed him.
Is it me, or are the walls really closing in on me? Room to breathe is subsiding by the minute and the gases breathed out from the human machines seeps into my lungs, eeking strange bile to every physical corner of my body. Freshness is missing, green is unknown, as the greys and the blacks of this world engulf me, the blanket getting impenetrable by the minute. I cough out and breathe heavily, a desperate attempt to revive the life slowly fading away.
As I swipe myself out of the dungeon, some part of reality slips back in. The windows dazzle and shine bright in the brilliance of the festivities outside. With each bursting thunder, soaring up from the world celebrating the festival of lights, my vision lightens up with the myriad colors it has to offer. For the fraction of second that each explosion lives, it engulfs the world around it in light, in the angelic hope that it has to offer. All this only to be eaten back by all the darkness, my frustrated mind thinks. No, I need positivity, my heart decides. Time for decision is here.
Enough, I conclude, of the monotony; living each moment for its worth is the key, I realize. I remember some great man say; never live a life where you are praying for the weekend every passing minute. I think back to days of innocence, childhood memories of bliss at trivial matters; down to earth experiences that brought with it heavenly pleasures. That first ride down the Giant wheel; the first time I watched the fire cracker sit there, quietly letting me light it; The horror movie watched between fingers clasping the face shut; The first extra size ice cream that I enjoyed; The first time I had the complete candy bar for myself, no sisters to share it with; The first time I scared all my cousins in a game of Dark room. A smile slowly creeps in at the silent corners of the face.
I had turned myself into a slave and no one could buy me freedom from this but me. So my mind is made, I shall turn around; walk back to the confines of my desk; shut down (off) anything that has to be; walk back to life and live it for the moment.
This moment makes me want to go down there where all the action is and become one with the lights and sounds of the night. And that is exactly what I will do right now, my mind reinstates, as I walk back to my seat. Imagine the bliss of throwing it all away and walking back to life, my heart flirts with the thought. I was finally going to do something that would make me a hero amongst equals, I infer, the one who dared to give all the goodies up for at least a minute of purity.
Here I am amidst things that shackle me...There lies the switch that will turn it all off...Yes.! Here I stretch to hit it off; Slowly..Let me enjoy this moment..And.. PING..!! What..?? A bug..?? In my code..?? Impossible...What the hell do you know..!! {type...type...into the night...}
