Personal Cosmos

PART - I

So, one fine day (no sarcasm intended this time), I had to ask him again.

"Brother, what do you plan to do now?"

"Just stay with you for a few weeks. I'll go back to India after that." He said with a smile although I could tell he was lying through his teeth. But I decided not to push him.

I was just happy that I had one more person in my life. One genuine person. I thought this happiness would last but... turns out, it only lasted for a measly few days.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed those few days. We went everywhere I wanted to visit in New York since childhood. He helped me remember how to ride a bike and I taught him how to swim underwater. We tried our hands at various dishes together. We played chess together and composed songs together. It was fun.

However, one night, I just couldn't sleep. I pretended to be all happy and satisfied and in fact, so much so, that I even fooled myself. Now that I think about it, I would often not acknowledge my own feelings. Back then, I felt kind of suffocated and there was this emptiness or uneasiness that kind of pulled me into an abyss- a dark and depressing one at that too.

However, that's not even near the climax. This abyss had a black hole.

Next morning, it was raining pretty heavily. The streets were more or less water-logged, so I thought it would be unwise to step out. But I guess, the heavens were on my side. The downpour slowly reduced to a slight drizzle, though the streets still remained partially water-logged.

There was this movie I'd seen, in which three little black children were riding their bikes in the rain and laughing. You know those good-vibes scenes? It was one of those.

So, I decided to go on a bike tour right down the street and back. Though I was in my hoodie, I could feel chills running down my spine. Maybe because I was scared? I don't know. Anyways, right when I was starting to enjoy my little tour, this goddamned Mercedes van (I still wonder how I had the time to recognize it) popped out of the blue, heading towards me like a bullet train.

Naturally, my hands - no, my limbs - no, my whole body flailed. I lost the grip on my bike and the van, inspite of merely brushing past me, tossed me into a huge puddle like a classic rice cracker. Gosh! Only if it were as comfortable as it sounds.

I had to be taken to the hospital immediately, where I was told that I had hurt my left shoulder and head externally, with a fracture in my right pinky.

What's more? My bike tour was cut short and my beloved bike lay in two symmetrical pieces.

When I tried to move, my... Everything ached. At first, I had this unbearable stinging in my left shoulder, followed by dizziness and painful spasms in the head. When I would reflexively proceed to clutch my head, my pinky would scream in protest.

Well... This was my condition on the first day. I got my right arm plastered on the second day. I was in no serious condition. Physically, that is.

I think the doctors had noticed my change in behaviour. No. It must have been 'abnormal' behaviour for them. I wouldn't be able to focus on what the doctors would say or ask. I would eat only to live because I'd lost my appetite. I wouldn't be able to smile, forget laugh. I wouldn't be able to enjoy what I enjoyed earlier.

When I put it like that, you might think I was depressed. Even I thought I was. But now that I think about it, I'd only been looking at the glass half empty.

However, one thing I was sure of - I had totally and utterly fallen into a black hole. It was dark and cold inside. Not the comfortable kind. The stifling kind. I felt so fragile inside, that finding my will to survive became my top priority.

Why the sadness, you'd ask. Let me clarify. Cut off the hands of the working population of your country. Do you think it's only the GDP that will be affected? If I have to explain further, I'm sorry but I guess you're not even pitiful.

I was a poet. Writing was my passion. How could I write with a fractured pinky? Pity wasn't what I wanted. Who does anyway? So, writing was the only thing that could give me something else - appreciation.

That's at least what I thought till I finally managed to fill my glass completely. I might have really lost it, back then. But then again, what's life without you losing it at least once?

There was this neurologist, who came up to me and examined me. I don't remember what he did or rather, I was too uninterested to observe. He talked to me a little but I was too tired to comprehend. So, he merely prescribed me some stress-relieving pills and reassured my parents that 'its just a short-term depression'.

Short-term depression, my foot.

More than anything, finding a will to live required this one condition to be fulfilled - change. And both me and my brother knew it. So, I was more than ready when my brother asked me to come with him for a few months to India. Even while I was in the black hole, I knew it was for the better. And so, we set out.