Two Girls

 The post below is written by a pen pal of mine and her friend Jenny. Kestrel van der Mark and I met on Omegle of all places from where we swapped email ID’s and have been in touch since. In this world of technological marvels, people like me sitting in India can connect with someone like Kestrel in America.

So please welcome Kestrel and Jenny to the blog everyone!

The Bilge Master

The Girl Everyone Hated

I was the girl that everyone hated. They were jealous of me, and I knew it. Perfect grades, loving family, nicer calculator, you name it. But I was untouchable, both in the caste system karma type of way and like a god. Maybe that's why they never showed how much they despised me to my face. I didn't give them a single reason to justify their hate, so they couldn't call me out on it. But I wish they had. I wish they had said hateful things like I never belonged, or I should kill myself. I wish I were the target of blatantly hateful comments. Because if I had been, I would laugh. I would see the confusion and fear on their face when their "victim" couldn't stop laughing like a full blown maniac at their insults, and they would just stand there wondering why. 

But I would have thought it was funny that THEY thought they were the most hateful ones. They gave it their best effort to be hateful and they still didn't come close to the person who hated me most. Myself. I would have thought it hilarious that while they were building themselves up by tearing me down, it would never come close to how each passing second, my mind tore itself apart bit by bit until all that was left was the shell everyone saw on the outside. I would have thought it ironic that while they saw the beautiful facade, I couldn't find a single redeemable quality about myself. But they didn't indulge me. Instead they gave their fake smiles and were friendly without being friends. That was way worse than any hurtful words. Because that allowed my mind to do what it does best. Twist reality. I could imagine what they were thinking as I walked away. I could almost hear their mental conversations. I knew what they thought about me, and that just fed the cycle of destruction ripping through my mind. I was the girl everyone hated. They were jealous of me, but they shouldn't have been.

******

The Girl Everyone Loved

I was the girl everyone loved. The looked up to me, and I knew it. Perfect grades, good advice, supportive parents, you name it. But I was untouchable, in the way people don't know if they're allowed to touch a ancient artifact or expensive painting. For fear they might mess it up...or worse, be yelled at. Maybe that's why no one ever was close to me. I presented myself as an open book, but so many of the pages were stuck together and therefore illegible, that no one bothered trying to read them. 

I wish they had touched, though. I wish they had messed me up. I wish they had pried the pages apart and tried to translate the language that floated in my words. Because maybe then they would have understood how imperfect everything I am was. Because if they had, I would not have been their leader, their role model. I would not have the one they turned to. I would have instead been looked at with pity and I would have smiled. Because had I been closed and replaced on my shelf, I would have become dusty. I would have become static. Had people understood the literature of my being, and been revolted as they would, reviling me in my disgusting thoughts and morbid curiosities and broken suicidal distortions, perhaps then I would not have been held to the same high expectations. I would have gleefully succumbed to the dark shroud that would accompany failure. 

I would have gracefully closed my eyes and relished the disgrace of mediocrity. I would thoroughly enjoy my stream of easy contentment and low achievement while others, those who strived to be like me, instead strived for their own low level dreams. 

But they didn't read me. While I climbed to the top of the stairway to heaven, I artfully used illusion to distract those around me from the pieces of myself that I tore from within and placed under my feet as steps. What they didn't know, but would have, was the way I bottled my tears and drank them instead of water, the way I forced my own blood into the ink of my pen, and the way I held my breath for fear of disturbing the universe. As I suffocated, my cheeks gleamed, and their words crashed in waves of delight at the porcelain statue in their presence. They smiled glittering shards of admiration and I drank it in as one does a poison, with knowledge enough that it would kill me, but with ignorance enough to proceed. And as they applauded me and my efforts and my elegance, I beatifically accepted their praise with open arms, silently begging someone to take my hand. I brushed mistakes under a mountain-like carpet and smiled with my mouth closed to avoid letting the secrets of my self-terrorism reveal the cipher that my pages depicted. I was the girl everyone loved. They looked up to me, but they shouldn't have

*****

 K (@Kestrel_LAOD) and J (@Jenny_LAOD) 

Eulogy

In Memory of my Grandmothers Nilima Mitra and Reba Dam, whom I miss.

There is a house somewhere in this town,

Where two ladies and a family used to live,

The family lives there now,

And the ladies are gone,

One of them was an exceptional cook,

The other had a wonderful collection of stories,

The cook also liked to read and had

A grandson who loved her,

The other lady ran out of stories in 2014,

Now, the family lives on,

And so does the grandson,

But,

The house isn’t the same

Without these two ladies of quality

To save it’s heart and soul

Of Friendships

I had a friend in high school, or what we call the XI-XII in this part of the world. This friend went on to get nineties and now studies his Masters in English at a reputed university in Kolkata.

We were at one point of time, inseparable and it used to be me spending half  of the week at his house and him spending half of  the week at mine. Mom always cooked dinner for him whenever he’d come irrespective of whether he ate it or not. I was extended the same courtesy when I went to his house.

Yet somehow by the time both of us went to college our   friendship broke off. It took it’s time. Three years of it in fact, but it broke, with an audible snap. The last time we talked on the phone, we spoke like strangers and this is a month ago. I’d called him after maybe over six or eight months.

On the other hand, the other day I met up with a girl I had last seen in class IV. I’m talking about the year 2005. Ten years. It was as if those ten years had just not happened. Sure, I was a little taller and she was prettier than I remembered her, but she was still the same old girl I knew in school.

So, I have one friend whom I used to hang out with daily, who became a stranger. I have another friend who should be a stranger but is in fact still a very close and very dear friend.

Hmm. Life thou art most puzzling and thy mood swings doth leave me a-wonderin’

But then again as Poets of the Fall say

“Life doesn't run a clear course
It flows through from within
It's supposed to take you places and leave markings on your skin"

The Bilge Master

Blank Pages

I always feel refreshed at the sight of a blank page. It doesn’t smell. It has no lines. It’s just blank, and it’s waiting patiently for someone to do something and fill it up with words.  It can’t read the words either. They are all ones and zeros to it. But, nevertheless, there it is. A blank page that is waiting.

Waiting for what? Is this the blank page that will see a new work of art unfold? Is it the blank page that will see a short story written? 

Will this blank page be the start of a legal document? Can some words scribbled on a blank page be enough to spark an international incident?

I wonder.

Or, will the page remain forever blank, forever waiting for someone to come and etch some meaningful words into it?

I wonder how many such pages are written on, torn out, re-written on and left to gather dust in corners of drawers or the linings of dustbins. I wonder how many blank pages shed their blankness and become that love letter she wrote to you. I wonder how blank pages came together and told a writer to write on them, so you now have a book in front of you.

And I wonder, is the pen mightier than the sword, because like the sword has its hilt, the pen has its blank page?

The Bilge Master

Bad Dreams

My mind is confused and in pain. I am seeing things in my dreams that I know to be untrue. I am seeing myself die. I am waking up from these dreams with screams on my lips.

Sometimes, the dreams are worse, and more vivid. I see myself shove a dagger into my friend or strangle my cousin with my bare hands.

What these dreams are, where they have come from I do not know. 

I am told they will haunt me for a while.

I hope I can exorcise the demon that causes these dreams, for in his realm even the Dream King bows low.

The Bilge Master

The Little Things Give You A Way

Sometimes, the little things matter.

Sometimes, all you need is a tweet to change your entire day.

Sometimes, it’s that old blues singer your mom listened to when you were in diapers.

Other times, it can be a new pair of glasses, or a drink with your father.

The little things that give us a way out from the blues are so often overlooked; that I sometimes feel sorry for them. I’m dog tired, after having spent fourteen hours on the road, but then again, it’s been a good day.

The little thing that made my day today was having a coffee flavoured candy purchased from a highway side ramshackle shop.

After all, a lot does happen over coffee, isn’t it?

PS after seeing this, how can you not agree?

The Bilge Master

The Tunnel

I’m in a tunnel, somewhere in between the entry and the exit.  I forget which is which. That’s why, I’ve spent a long time in this tunnel. Almost a year infact.

In that time here, I’ve not been idle. On some days, I’ve explored it. Inside the tunnel there is an underground pool. I swim there sometimes, lost in my thoughts, which float above me like charged electron pi-clouds.

You can tell, by an odd noise when it’s day time in here, though most of the time it’s dark. I don’t have very good vision, which is why I have trouble seeing sometimes.

One thing is very clear though. I will have to find a way out of this tunnel. But, the thing is, I like the tunnel too. It’s interiors appeal to me, though I wouldn’t call them safe. Aside from the pool, there are creatures here- huge spiders and bats and some sort of carnivore that even these animals fear.

The stalagmites and stalactites are sharp, and fall continuously. I suspect them to be made of acid, because when I took one and dropped it in water, the water started to fizz and bubble.

The tunnel is scary. It is not friendly. I get the feeling it has tricked me into being in it, by its appealing interior.

But, no matter what, I shall leave this tunnel, and hopefully I shall leave it soon.

The Bilge Master