And then everything went blank.
Clichéd beginning, did you say? Read on anyway.
Clichéd beginning, did you say? Read on anyway.
I wouldn’t have remembered what had happened if not for my audience-a few hundred people in the marketplace-one of whom recounted the entire story to me in stark detail. For the past few days, all I can see is darkness. No, I don’t have blackouts if that’s what you are thinking. This is dark in a totally different shade, like saying, “no this isn’t black, it’s a shade of grey.” Smoke fills my very tiny private space and the soot chokes me into nothingness. And then everything goes blank.
Like everyone else, I have felt pain-the pain of our little household accidents, the pain of a road trip’s messy consequences, the pain of someone’s wrath,
The pain of losing someone, the pain of losing many.
Or maybe not.
The thing is, in my case, no accident was exactly an accident. I let accidents happen to me. I opened myself to pain. When it hurt, I gave more of myself to it. Eventually, it consumed me so completely that I couldn’t live with pain, but I would surely die without it. All that is left now is my blood on everything around me, episodes of darkness and no memory of it later. What do you do when your addiction decides to kill you? Pain is a fatal thing to be addicted to.
But then again, what would the world be if we didn’t have our own little vices?
Note: When we think of addiction weed, alcohol and cocaine strike us first. We may name heroin and LSD later. There are several seemingly normal people in this world who suffer from their addiction to their own submissiveness to circumstances. Surprisingly, it never strikes us that prolonged depression, or the lack of it, is partly a personal choice.
I would like to thank this unnamed member at Sweekaar-Upkaar, whose story I hope I have recounted with as much detail as I would if it were my own.
