Inktober 2017 – Day Eleven Entry – Emptiness of Silence

Today I was re-reading some of my earlier writings. For example, the one I am about to share with you was written in November 2016. And before you end finding similarity between this and, “A Love Story?” Let me save you some trouble. There are lot of similarities. After all, first novels are always auto-biographical. I wanted to write my own story and I did started with this short story (Though there are heavily fictionalized scenes). Somewhere in-between writing this, I gave up on it and simply stopped writing prose altogether.

In that particular period, I only focused on poetry. Now, when I stared, “A Love Story?” it was a random experiment and I ended up using this as a framework for certain scenes. So bear with me if you think I am a horrible writer. Other than that, enjoy.

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Emptiness of Silence

Part One

It’s an old saying, “It’s the darkest before dawn.” Well I’m still waiting for that first ray of sunshine. It’s my story and I’ll tell it exactly the way I want to. If you’re asking why so gloomy, well it’s because my little adventure on this little shitsville has been anything but a gloomy Sunday.

That is the ringing which comes out of one of those ventilator things, those fancy machines which apparently save your life. Well it did no good to my brother, or my mother or my father. Yeah, it’s been a shitstorm.

Behind all the cursing, one thing is pretty clear, as it should be, I’m scared, I’m angry and I’m confused. I’m confused why my life never turned out to be worth living. Had I done something so wrong to someone that I deserved to be punished like this? I don’t understand, why does god hates me so much.

Strangely thinking this does makes me a hypocrite, because I’m not a great believer in god. Never had been. But I guess that’s why we have the concept of god, so we can blame someone when everything goes south.

For the first time in a long while it seemed that I’ll have a good day. It was a nice morning, the sun was shining just enough to not make it a hot day. The wind was blowing steadily, the birds were chirping and best of all, no traffic jam in reaching the café. Oh yeah, the café, it’s not something very fancy, just an old coffee-house in part of New Delhi no one cares about, but hey, it pays the bill so who am I to complain.

See, mom and dad died almost three years ago now. Dad was a chronic alcoholic, had his own shit episodes, vomiting, shouting and cursing all the time. Always blamed bad luck for his incompetence. So as you must have figured by now, the solution to these sort of problems is always alcohol and my dad finally found his perfect partner. No, silly, not my mom, scotch or I think it was. I never really paid any attention to what brand of spirit he drank, to be honest. I was just disgusted by him. Angry at the idea that I’m part of something like him.

My mom was just another one of those Indian housewives we all are proud of. You know, the one we judge based on how long their veil is, how round their chapatis are. But man, was she brilliant? I still believe I got all my brain form her, well as much as I have, because my father couldn’t possibly be smart.

So, for as long as I remember, I only knew one life…waking up in the morning, my dad asleep in one corner of the house with an empty bottle and a glass. My mom making breakfast while her face still showing some redness from the bruises. Oh yeah, one of his favourite past-times. They are so fucking full of pride that violence is the only form in which they can show it. Fucking retards. Still don’t know what I’m talking about? You idiot, he liked beating her up.

Fucking asshole, a bad day and the only person he could possibly release his anger on. Luckily he never beat me, my mom would never let that be. Come to think of it, would that had been any less traumatic that watching him beat my mother every fucking evening? No, I don’t think so.

So many times, I asked her, why the hell she just doesn’t leaves him? She used to say, “and where do you think we would go?” she had a point and that’s why I hate society so much. One point of origin for all my recluseness.

In case you are wondering, why she couldn’t leave him, well in that case…all hail the Indian mentality of 1970s. and before you go all patriotic on me, look around you…look at your mother and then fucking tell me, she couldn’t had been anything better than a housewife. Truth is always bitter, my silent friend.

So, I was fourteen when I first started raising voices…against him. How the hell did that happen? Did I became a man? I don’t think so, there wasn’t anything manly in raising a voice if someone is beating a women. Fuck, we should be ashamed if for a second we think we can put our hands on someone who is the sole reason humanity survives.

You know, I could write all about happy families, happy stories. Boy meets a girl, they get married, blah blah blah. I just don’t feel like it, because all I had ever seen is domestic violence, something being wrong with world. Something which seriously needs fixing.

Am I digressing? Don’t worry, I didn’t forgot about my brother, how could I? He is my brother and for last three years, I’ve been both a brother and a father to him. He is the sole reason why I still feel like getting up in the morning and live another day in shitsville.

To be continued

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Inktober 2017 Day Eleven Entry

After a very long time, I simply stared at a blank page for hours. It was a strange feeling to be honest. I shuffled through hundreds of reference images and I still couldn’t decide what I wanted to draw. So, today I drew something with an half asses effort. I’m sorry about that. But drawing a bad sketch was better than not drawing at all. Once again, sorry for a terrible sketch.

As an after thought, drawing over an ink wash wasn’t such a good idea after all. Well, I learned something new today.

See other entries into Inktober here: Inktober 2017 Entries

via Daily Prompt: Exceptional