Broken Codes

The ex boyfriend I smile at her. I think it's been 2 years since we had last met. She seems to be more comfortable than I am. Why had we decided on this meeting. I stand up and pull out her chair. I'd been here half an hour early. My palms are slightly sweaty, I quickly wipe them on my jeans and shake her hand quickly. We have a few minutes of small talk, I ask her how the weather is at her new city.  I ask her how her new job is. Then I ask her the question most people would evade. "How's the new boyfriend?" She had left me for him. I still remember the day. How arguments turned into the ending. He may have been better for her. But I felt a pang of jealousy even now. It was her turn to smile. "He's doing good. Busier than ever. We've been traveling a lot too. Life is really good." I could feel the jealousy turn into a ravenous hunger, my ego growing wild. What did I want? Wasn't I extremely happy without her? My phone rings, it is m...

Hers   When we go on our first date, I would feel shy, I would smile tenderly and make sure he asks me why I am so quiet. When we go on our first date, we would go somewhere nice, by the beachside at sunset and he would hold my hand. Our first date would have dinner, and maybe he would drop me back home. Outside my house, after dinner, so that we could discuss things at length.   After our first date, when he calls me just to chat, I would open up a little more, and yet, I would pull myself back. It would be perfect, and he would make me smile. I know because I know him well, and I know how he can be nice. I know it would be perfect because I know we are friends, and I know him so well that I can read him better than anyone else can.   When we go on our second date, I would be a little nicer, I would smile a lot broader and would tell him a few secrets. But here is the truth, maybe I really shouldn’t, maybe some secrets are more of a fifth date revelati...

She said Can you remember the exact moment when your friend became an acquaintance. Because I can't. I have spend years trying to figure it out. Trying to keep in touch with someone who so obviously didn't care enough. Of course, self doubt always crept in, not understanding where and when this happened. Or what precise incident made this happen. You keep going back to that moment where you might have done something wrong, but really, maybe you haven't.  I don't know if I have.  All I remember was that she was my best friend. I used to believe that friends can be your soulmates too, and she was mine. I defended her with a vigour, when loyalty was only given to those friends you truly trust. High school days, and friendships that barely scratched the surface, she was the only person I couldn't abandon and the only place where my loyalties were. She was family.  I knew when her ambitions changed, I knew her when she dated the guy I had a crush on and laughed i...

The mind I'm going to smile and pretend and tell you this story.  I am okay. I have been okay. I will be okay. I have been saying this to everyone, I don't see a reason to speak the truth now.  I am fine. It wasn't me who stood at that ledge that one time. It might have been my body standing there waiting for the right moment, for the winds to shift, for my feet to slip, but it wasn't me. This mind is fine.  Do you mind if I light up a smoke? I picked up this habit a while back, existential crisis, I like to call it. A mid life, scratch that, a quarter life crisis. But I am going to quit. I will, the moment, my life decides it has meaning. I am not dependent on it. I mean, I used to smoke when I used to feel sad but nowadays I don't feel sad anymore. I mean I hardly feel anything. I am really happy. Ecstatic. Nothing brings me down anymore.  What's that? Am I lying? I don't lie. I never lie. I wouldn't say never because every body lies right? Y...

The Sight I stare up at the office window, blank. Thoughts were no longer racing in my mind. Questions were halted, my train of thoughts forcefully stopped in its tracks. I could get hit by a bus right now, but I doubt I would feel it. I was numb. It was a struggle to forget, a fight to let go. I could not, but I had to. I dragged my feet slowly away from his office. My eyes never wavering from the doors, hoping he would walk out, a smile in place. But he wasn’t there. He didn’t know I was here. My stomach cramped, my heart felt like it couldn’t pump any blood because the truth is, that he never cared. He never loved me the way that I loved him. He never understood me the way that I understood him. He did not know me, and he never wanted to. My whole world had fallen apart in an hour. The world stopped spinning for a fraction of minute, just enough for the words “it’s over,” I smiled to myself. It was over, because it was never real. I had fought constantly to fix som...

Daddy's Little Girl I could hear my dad grinding his teeth. Getting ready to shout at me for something I did not do. I pretend to ignore it. My dad had started to self-destruct a little while after my mother's death. I never understood why. It was not as if he had loved her, or respected her. They had gotten married as a business deal, like most marriages in India, a convenience, an unavoidable contract that had to be signed before a certain age had lapsed. But there my dad had been at the funeral; miserable, drunk and angry. So he had been for the days that followed. I was angry at the prospect of having to take care of this person who never saw love, who never felt love, but grieved at the loss of someone else's love. My mother had loved him; that had been her weakness. I remember the slaps that followed every time he ground his teeth. My mother had taken it, and stayed with him. Domestic abuse was not a term that was well echoed in society. Mental abuse was...

The Death I  was tired. I had given everything. I had given up everything. I had trusted and failed. I had fallen and gotten up. I had forgiven but never forgotten. I was hurt and butchered in my mind. My mind was dead. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I could not handle what little it was that life threw at me. Maybe it was that I made the same mistake a 100 times. But I could not do it anymore. I did not want to make a mistake again, I did not want to give up things I wanted for something that broke my heart. I could not let me be, not this way that I am. So I opened the door of the car and ran; away from the person in the driver's seat, away from the world and away from my life. I stood at the edge of 20 feet drop into the sea at high tide. Twenty feet was nothing but the sea below was ravenous with hunger for something it can pull away into its depths. I closed my eyes and I inched forward. I did not go to work the next day, my body was somewhere in the sea. I did not se...