It’s ironic how emptiness can fill you up, a crazy oxymoron that nevertheless manages to sap your existence, your life, leaving you broken down and lost. Here I am now, broken and lost. Here I am now, alone and friendless. Here I am now, in a room full of nothing, white walls with peeling paint, straight backed chair with the smell of freshly-painted plywood, a laptop with a new document, waiting for my words. Life here never stands still, never allows you a moment to bleed away your pains and sorrows. And yet, despite all the millions of things on my mind, you permeate through it all, occupying every available inch of space in my consciousness.

The chords of a fitting song start in a lilting tune, and the words that emanate softly resonate powerfully with my own thoughts.

How I wish…
How I wish you were here…

I know heaven. It was there in every moment we spent together. Now I know hell…I ache for your voice, your words, your mere presence. The green fields are now in disarray, covered up by the hot ashes; my smile has been hidden behind a veil. The world was our fish bowl, it was all I needed as long as we had each other. And now it’s too small and suffocating. Now, I want out. I want it all to end, just like the song has ended, fading out with the whisper of winds…

* * *

But just as one song ends, another begins. A quivering string sets the air around me vibrating, sending the gentle hum of a tune to my welcoming ears. The guitar strings are plucked and bent, rising in a tune that flutters a change in me. The complexity of the notes increases gradually, stopping to give words to my thoughts.

Where were you, when I was burned and broken,
While the days slipped by from my window watching?
Where were you when I was hurt and helpless…?

The things you said, and the things you did surround me. Every memory of mine is stained by your presence, like silk dropped in dye quickly absorbs the colour. How am I to think of everything that has been my past without thinking of you? How am I to move on when thoughts of you keep me here, frozen and hanging on to you?

All of a sudden, with the rising beat and the rising tempo, an epiphany comes to me, as it sometimes does in moments of utmost despair.

I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

Something begins to stir within me. I unveil my smile, begin to sweep away the ashes that cover the green fields of my emancipation. I will never forget you, but I will try to forgive you, to push you into a corner of my past and leave you there. All the space I create will be filled with other things, things that make me happy—music, friends and love. I am no longer empty, for I have given wings to my soul and set it free. This room is no longer empty, for these white walls call out for posters, for a tinge of colour and life.

Life.

Lyrics from Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and “Coming Back to Life”

This is probably the last post from Mumbai. Something about eating so much junk food that I can smell the cheese in my sweat.

…whether I truly hate the “rat race”, or whether I’m just malicious to those who are constantly performing, constantly competing, constantly doing something productive just because I can’t be that way, and I label them as rats and scoff at them.

I’ve been struggling to come up with this metaphor for quite some time. I like thinking we’re all like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. We figure out others who complement us and stick together, we form groups. The purpose of a jigsaw puzzle is that it fits in, it belongs with others. That’s the problem I’ve been facing. I see myself as a particularly complicated piece that doesn’t quite belong anywhere, like it’s out of shape.

I’m quite sure that I may not be as mis-shapen a piece of jigsaw puzzle as I think I am. I have a cynical, pessimistic approach to life that I seem to be proud of. I see the world in all its black, white and grey glory, and I seem to find myself attracted to the blacks. People disappoint me, petty and squabbling as they are. And yet, my contradiction arises from the fact that I want to be accepted. I find that my ideals resonate with very few people; maybe that’s why I try so hard to find people I can be myself with and be accepted in my entirety.

My other problem is that I look for perfection in everything. I hype things up, because I like thinking that we’re all living storybook lives, that we all count for something, that there’s a big picture in life. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe life’s big picture is a collage of all the small things. Maybe there is no ‘maybe’.

Anyway. I’m digressing from what I wanted to write about.

There’s a girl. I like the way she thinks. I want to like her, but I don’t know her well enough. That’s about as much background information you’ll need.

What I’ve been thinking about is why I’ve been thinking about her so much, why I’ve been hyping her up. I think I’ve highlighted the answer in this post, hidden behind my incoherent sentences somewhere. (The incoherence wasn’t on purpose, by the way. I guess I’m just not very good at articulating the not very well formed thoughts in my over-active brain.)

~Fin~

What would you call it if you neither wanted to go to sleep, nor stay awake, because it wasn’t worth it to remain conscious, and sleep provided no haven either? In wakefulness, you frown and exist like a burden, and then when you think about it at night, sleep becomes the burden, weighed down by insipid dreams.

I am selfish, I’ll admit. I look for others to love me, appreciate me, and I miss it, because I left behind one who did. You don’t really realize what you’ve lost until you lose it.

Logic tells me that all I need is a little time. Things work out, like they always do, in one way or another. The first year of engineering wasn’t amazing either, was it? Somebody always comes along. All I need is a little time…a little time.

Until then, I admit…I’m homesick.