His only lament.

A mind bogglingly congested array of buildings. People clamoring out, rubies on their necks and the diamonds on their cuffs sparkling in the golden sunlight. Enough distraction to confuse just about anyone. Just about, though. Not me. I could see my target, my salvation, clearly among them - jostling with the gem laden. His flamboyance brought that familiar hardness back to my eyes. He just didn't.....care.

How could he not care? Millions had perished at his will; wives, children, parents...MY wife, MY children, MY parents. He didn't care; his opulence continued, as did my destruction. The caring was left for me to do, wasn't it?

I had to carry the burden of my survival - he wore his on his sleeve. I had to deal with the guilt of still living while others ravaged - his exploitative expeditions were a cause for celebration. My vision fogged as my reminiscence continued. I'd returned home, joyous, only to find corpses strewn around. Shattered windows : the glass of my shattered dreams. How could he?
I vowed I would show him what he'd done. Torment him the way he had tormented me.What was my folly, after all? That I lived in a country whose leader was one he couldn't see eye to eye with? Or that I was of a religion he found contemptuous, and to uplift us [oh, what moral values] he would first have to control us, showing his might by killing us?

Did he have to climb through mountainous ruins, searching a pulse in his lifeless son's body?
Did his parents mouths get eternally parted, uttering their son's name with their last breath?

The wind brought a chilling shiver to my bones and broke through my thoughts.I shifted, readjusting my position.I cross checked everything, and whispered a silent prayer, as the bomb on my jacket ticked its last.

But what IS normal?

She knew what normal meant. But did her life?
Normal was having a perfectly....uh.....normal day.But her life said normal was being ticked off by the teachers at school everyday, hearing them make snide remarks about her and watching them smirk in the bubble of quiet satisfaction.
She knew she couldn't change all that.

But then, she knew of the things she could change.
Let that badgering tweet of a teacher drone on about how extremely appalled she was by her long nails.Let her rant on about her dirty uniform.Did she know how much time it had taken her to get it dirty in that exact way?But she wouldn't care would she?She was no human after all.The twittering idiot was a teacher.

She knew she could get everyone against her.Sure, they'd mutiny.
They'd bunk all her classes.They'd throw stuff at her.They'd do whatever she said.
And a slow, curling smirk spread its cunning claws on her face.

The shouting in the background stopped and jolted her to reality.Aww.She'd forgive the poor creature one last time.She still had the fracture on from last time's rendezvous.

So she thought she'd give her life a rest from screwing up everything for her, and thought about how considerate she'd become for a change.Life had a weird way of making her everything she didn't want to be.Wouldn't last long, she thought to herself.Let those zarking Boards get over and she'd show them.She'd show them all.

The recess bell rang and broke her out of her reverie.Those chit-chattering prissies hurried out of the prison they called 'class'.
So what else was new.
She took in the scene she was now accustomed to.

She'd go to school.
Go to the last seat in the row next to the wall.
The single one.
The teacher would come.
The teacher shout at her.
She'd put up a suitably remorseful face.
The teacher would go.
And so it would happen in the next 8 periods.
And her un-needed existence would go on.

She looked up.They were coming back in again.Rushing, more like.Suckers they were, to be so afraid of the class teacher, that they were shifting to their assigned places.Gawrdie.Such wimps.

One of their tribe came and sat in front of her.As if she cared.
The gal shouted halfway across the classroom for another girl to throw her bag over.
She was way too unconcerned to see what was happening.She didn't care, remember?

THWACK!!!!
The bag hit her squarely (or whatever shape the bag was) in the face.
She thought a person who was pretty good at throwball in PE would be able to throw a bag on target, at least.But no, this was HER life.
She brushed away the broken shards of her spectacle-lenses.The optician had assured her that the new-and-advanced (an oxymoron, she had noted at the time) plastic lenses would be completely fall-proof.She should've asked about their being High School-proof.
Curse Murphy.

[No, her life didn't suddenly turn all bright and rosy. She wasn't born off Hans Christian Anderson's pen.This is the twenty-first century.You can either have blogs or Anderson.Take your pick.Can't decide? Mwahaha.I get to choose.I choose blogs.]

And so she trudged back home.

While walking to the Optician's, she realised it wasn't such a curse after all.The less she saw her unnecessary existence, the better.But then, she had long become comfy in her coerced life.

*

Drat.It was a Monday.The market was closed.She should've known.

*

She walked ahead, the only speck of dismalness in the road caressed by the azure sky.
The bus came.
She got on, after fumbling a bit on the steps.

*

The same routine.
She reached school.
Walked up to her class.
Went and plonked her bag on the last seat in the row next to the wall, the single one.
Somehow, she felt, in an inexplicable way, her life might just turn out to be normal.The real normal.Not the way she thought.The way everyone else thought.

A girl came and sat in front of her.Someone she'd never noticed.
The girl turned around.
"You....you've got.........Your eyes are actually brown", the girl said.

She felt a wry smile creeping up her face.She looked down, certain that her life had missed out on some vital English classes.


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