Air I Breathe

There’s something in the air I breathe. It’s almost perceptible. Almost tangible. Although I have jumped in surprise, time and again, each time its presence has become known, its ignorance has come just as naturally. Its acceptance as a part of life even more so. Now, it hangs over all of us like an invisible miasma, its stench unbearable and suffocating. If I were to stretch out my palm, I would be able to feel its greasy existence on my fingertips. See its vile presence soiling almost every aspect of my person. I wince at the horrid prospect and close my eyes, willing that somehow the act of doing so will make things better. Like they promised in the movies. Like they wrote about in those books Ritwick recommended. It’s a pity I never got around to reading them. But none of that.

I can witness it on the faces of the people around me. They used to be honest faces. A long time ago. But maybe it just seems that long. Time itself seems to be dilating in order to accommodate the worst of it. The façade that people seem to have assumed seems just that, a farce. They converse with each other about subjects they hate talking about. They pretend to feign nonchalance even when something is eating their innards, slowly but steadily. They smile for the benefit of others and put up a show of crying too. They try to look worried when gloating over their ill-gotten gains and cribbing over not so ill-gotten ones. They search for an identity that was never there in the first place and cry blood when someone shows them the mirror. All this while, the others have been staging a show too. Ritwick has been playing his part as well. Quite commendably too. It just keeps going around in an unending spiral.

Friends have now been compelled to don a moral obligation and look concerned. When did friendship entail that? A pretence even a child can see through? When left to their devices, they luxuriate in the bliss of the success they have managed to win in a contest. Humility has suddenly become an obsolete virtue. The sadness that devours each of us leaves a gaping hole, something we defend with fierce gumption. Nobody is allowed to touch or heal it for suspicion has become inherent to our thoughts. As a foregoing consequence, friends don’t speak their thoughts as easily as they used to. Even Akanksha seems to be hiding something. And Ritwick never managed to really open up anyway. I wish they shared their opinion so that each of us got a chance to improve. I wish their frankness didn’t seem that intimidating. Grudges, complaints, and grouses have now welled up within us to the point of causing an eruption. I wish for it to happen. So that the magma that seethes inside us burns everything in sight, necessitating a fresh start. A new beginning.

We spit spite at each other. Believe in rumors and shed the mantle of composure when calling each other names. Sometimes, when alone, we wish we had not done so. Wish we had been a bit more humane and yes, naive. Yet the disdain that we had despised with all our might seems to be gaining a foothold in each of our hearts. Trust seems conspicuous by its absence and it takes inebriation to reveal the vileness that plagues our souls. The unease seems so palpable that I can taste its bitter tang in my mouth. Feel the essence writhing its way down my gut, scarring it in its wake. Sometimes, the restlessness takes you by the scruff of your neck, jolts you into submission, and when you have accepted its ascendancy, leaves you in a deplorable state. It’s then you realize that things could not be worse. It’s then that the decision has to be made. You can either wallow in your plight or see this as a silver lining. Ritwick said so last night. He was mumbling something in his dreams. I never got around to paying the attention his incoherent muttering warranted. I was too busy telling my story to a nondescript writer and waltzing my way to glory through his words. I wished I had been a bit nobler.