Death: A stone on the side of the road. The road which he takes every day to go to work. This stone just sits on the side of the road watching the cars go by every day. It’s just an ordinary looking stone. But he finds it fascinating. Although the emotion he felt at first was fascinating, the situation is different now. Now it’s gloomier than fascination. Day in and day out that stone just sits there. It has nowhere to go other than just ‘be’. Existence is the only thing that the stone is capable of. No one is moving it. It doesn’t move when there’s a storm. Its life is the same every day. It’s like that stone is immortal. It can’t erase its existence from this universe by itself. Whenever he sees that stone it reminds him of his own life. Day in and Day out he works at his office. He has the same 4-walled cubicle that everybody else has. There’s no individuality in this office. He is just another stone. Every morning he wakes up, washes his face, brushes his teeth, takes a bath and goes to the office by his car. During the weekends he just doesn’t wake up. Apart from that every day is exactly the same. Siting in that cubicle he thinks about all the things that could have been different in his life if only he had the ability to change. Death. A word that is feared by many of his age but not him. He thinks that there is only thing that can make him get out of this worthless loop, and that is death. Suicide to be precise. But to him every kind of death is ultimately death. The end of life. Nothingness followed by nothingness. Every day he thinks about the various ways in which he can kill himself. But even if he thinks that he should erase himself from existence because of grim and non-changing life, are there any other reasons that he wants to die? There are many reasons as to why he wants to kill himself. His Job maybe in the top 10. Every day he goes to the office where he sits in his cubicle, types the numbers he has been given in some document. That’s all his job entails. That’s all that is needed from him by the company. In the 5 years that he has been doing this job, never has anyone of his coworkers talked to him about anything apart from work. He has never gotten a promotion despite the fact that he does his job diligently. Anything and everything has become a routine for him. Starting from turning on his computer to shutting it off and turning his keys on the ignition, everything has become a muscle memory at this point. Even when he doesn’t want to turn on the computer, even when he doesn’t want to take the same exit towards his house, his hands won’t listen to him. It’s as if they have grown their own consciousness. It’s as if they have somehow figured out his inability to change his life on his own terms. He has given up on changing after a few times. Now he always looks to horizon while driving his car, knowing full well that he will still be at his home at exactly 6 pm even if he doesn’t pay any attention to the road. Or maybe he does this because of the slight chance of him being in an accident… His family is also one of the reasons he wants to die. One would think that a guy who wants to kill himself doesn’t have any family, but it’s not that situation in this case. He is one of 8 siblings. The 4th one to be exact. And because he was the middle one, he was neglected since child birth. It’s not like he hates his mother or father, he loves them. But he knows that nothing will be of a difference if he kills himself. He doesn’t know if his parents love him or not, they never showed it. But he doesn’t want to kill himself in the hopes they do. On the contrary, he doesn’t care about that. All he knows that they will cry probably, but will eventually forget about him. As ripples in time go, that might be the weakest one. There are many small incidents that happened during his childhood that he doesn’t want to go in detail in. He keeps remembering flashes of those memories. All of the memories and the fact that he thinks that his parents will forget about his death like it never happened is probably one of the reasons why he wants to kill himself. Family wise. To him there was never any significant connection that he had with his brothers and sisters, just like his parents. Ultimately, his family didn’t matter in this big change he was about to bring to his ever so predictable life. He never had any friends either. The reason? Simply because he couldn’t make one. His social skills were always a factor in him being alone. In this cruel and evil world there was never someone who wanted to start a conversation with him. And because he couldn’t himself, he was rendered alone. He started to talk to himself to amuse himself. Told himself jokes about how he wants to die. He convinced himself that he doesn’t need any friends. Love? He looked at women with eyes of lust since he never had the chance to talk to one. He feared that he might become a serial killer or a rapist if things went on like this. But his high morality and respect for women stopped him into turning into a criminal. He gave up on love during the last few years of high school. For him love was something out of his reach. He didn’t particularly think he was handsome enough to attract the attention of girls. To put it simply, he was afraid of love. If there was any kind of love, he can’t die. A reason for not dying scares him in the sense that it will bring about a change in his life. If he isn’t the guy who wants to kill himself anymore then, who is he? As far as reasons to not die go, love is a pretty big one. One that he has been afraid of since the beginning. There is also self-hate. It’s not hate per-say, it’s just that he doesn’t have any opinion about himself. His hate of narcissism and individuality is one of the key factors into his belief of non-existence. Lastly and the most important of them all, death. Death itself is one of the reasons he wants to die. He loves it. Ironic isn’t it, after all that fear of love, what does he end up loving? Death. so why does he love death so much? There are many reasons but the weirdest of them all maybe the nothingness. There is nothing after death and he knows that. He is not religious, rather a hardcore atheist. But this nothingness, this empty void filled with nothing where there are no offices, no roads, no stones is tempting for him. Another reason is the melancholia that comes before death. There’s always a smile on his face whenever he is feeling melancholic. It’s as if he likes the depression. The depression that makes him sad is also what makes him himself. He doesn’t want to lose it. After being with it for so many years, they have a familiar bond. A connection that resonates within him every time he thinks of death. Suicide is kind of like art for him. The ability that one has to take one’s own life is noble. That’s what he thinks. Why not end it all? Killing oneself is always an option. That option makes him feel safe. Having that option is what gave birth to his love of death. He knows that. Whenever he sees someone in pain, it takes all of this unsocial tendencies to not be able to shout out that option to him/her. He would probably love to see someone kill themselves. It might give him ‘pleasure’. So, the real question, why can’t he do it? The answer is within all of these reasons. The reasons he has to kill himself can also be thought of as reason to not kill himself. Fear, he has it. He still hasn’t crossed that threshold point of fear where he can kill himself. The thing is, Death is the biggest change that he wants to create in his life. Yet, as evident he not good with changes. The fear of doing something, of actually doing something that will disrupt his daily lifestyle is horrifying. Every day he goes to the terrace of his 30 story building and looks down while standing on the ledge. He does that every day. It’s embedded deep inside his muscle memory. But the small amount of step that he wants to take forward. That step…is far too wide. Will he be able to take that step? Can anyone stop him? What’s the ending to his story? Love: A calm sea shore. Waves coming and going. When they reach the shore they diminish. When they are forming on the ocean, they’re pretty lively. On that beach there is no one. No one apart from a woman walking parallel to the Earth’s horizon. As if in the hopes that this land that she walks on may end at some point in a faraway place where her seemingly narrow eyesight can’t reach. By the looks of it she is lonely. But she has her waves with her. These waves that remind her of her own misery and sorrow seem to continuously mock her every time they reach the shore. She doesn’t mind the mocking. It soothes her. It’s the only piece of melancholy remaining in this distant island far from humanity, inside her dream. Who is she? That doesn’t matter. Who she is, is not dictated by her mere identity but what she feels about herself and the world she lives in. She’s very beautiful. Her eyes, her nose, her ears, her neck, everything is in a perfect symmetry. Many may say that it’s like someone painted her. But others disagree, saying that a mere human cannot comprehend much less create her beauty out of thin air. Her beauty is much more than what she looks. Any man who as much looks at her will fall in love with her almost instantly. Love. That’s a funny word to this woman at this point in her life. What does it mean? She knows. She is aware of her beauty. How it attracts men. No human of the opposite sex has ever not confessed to her, apart from her father. This word, love. It amazes her. It is what she lives for. Seeing all those men, she wants to experience it as well. Though this fascination of her for love did not arise from the fact that men fall in love with her instantly. There were a lot of moments in her life that led to this fascination. This curiousness. This hunger. This desire to feel that word whatever it means, towards another human being. Regardless of such desires, and probably a bit irony is in this too, she can’t love anyone. To understand what this woman is going through we have to start at the beginning, right from the day she hit adolescence. Why should we start from there? Because from her perspective, that’s exactly when the world started to make sense to her. Her parents had an arrange marriage. When she was 13 years old she saw her parents fighting over something. As they were fighting she noticed different behaviors in both of them. After the fight was over, both her mother and father went to different rooms. Sneakily she went to each of the rooms to check on them. Her mother was crying while sitting on the bed. Head buried in the two palm of her hands. When she went to her father’s study, she saw him working on his computer. He looked at her and then back to work without a worry on his face. That was the time she came to the conclusion that even if her mother loved her father, the opposite may not be true. She didn’t have any siblings, nor did she have any distant relatives like cousins or nieces that were of her age. So, there was no one she could talk to about these things. This incident was the first step that lead to her curiousness for the word “love”. Over the years she noticed some changes in her father’s behavior. He was an alcoholic. At times she could hear her mother crying in the morning for no reason at all. Only later in her life did she knew that he used beat her up at night. At other times she noticed that both of them are laughing at lunch thinking about something they did back in the old days. But somehow she always had the feeling that those laughs were fake. That those laughs were only there because she was at the same table. Being an antisocial kid, she also brought that antisocial behavior in her home. She didn’t talk that much with her parents. By talk, we mean talking about life. Neither of her parents actually addressed the fact that she had no friends. In time she came to think that, that’s how the relationship between a parent and a child is. She didn’t talk to her parents a lot, but she used to watch them very closely. It gave her insight to what this love actually means. She used to notice that her mother waited up at night sitting at the dining table for her father. It was interesting for her since, usually the morning after nights like these is when her mother cried sitting on that same dining table. When she was 18, and not a virgin anymore she saw something that was both interesting and devastating for her. Her first experience was not that good. She didn’t quite feel the connection that was meant to be when two people had sex with consent and without paying each other any money. One day when she was returning home from school early she saw that her father’s study door was slightly open. Peeking inside she saw her father having sex with another woman who is considerably younger than her mother. That was the devastating part. But the interesting part was her father’s expression at that time and also that woman’s. Both of them seem to enjoy each other’s company. There was that connection, that connection she didn’t have. She immediately understood that this may be the happiest she has seen her father to be, in her entire lifetime. During her teenage years from the time she learned about the word love to the time she lost her virginity, she was all alone. She didn’t have any friends in school. She always kept to herself. Watching. Observing. Her classmates went out with a lot of boyfriends over the years. She used to envy them. It’s not like she didn’t have any chance. She was very beautiful, a lot of boy confessed to her. A lot of them just stared at her. A part of them were just being meta about her beauty as if that could swoon her. Whenever a boy confessed to her, she used to stare at them and say nothing. Then she walked away. During those years she became increasingly interested in movies. Romantic movies to be specific. The way she used to watch movies was different from anybody else. Alone in her room she used to comment “oh! Don’t do that” or “just tell her already!”. Yelling at the TV, investing in the relationship of TV couple, these were just the building blocks of her obsession with love. Watching those movies, she used to think that whenever the heroine looked at the hero, she had kind of different eyes. Not different eyes but, the way she looked at him was different from anyone looking at someone else. It’s as if her eyes have a brain of their own. It’s as if, she is doing this involuntarily. Looking at those eyes she thought that she had never looked at someone with those eyes. She wondered why is that. There were many good looking guys at school. She looked at them with the same eyes a hungry dog would look at chicken bone but, those were just hormones. What is it that sets apart love from attraction? The more she watched movies, the more her expectation of what love feels like increased. The butterflies in the stomach, the glowing of eyes, the singing in the rain, the blooming of flowers, the setting of the sun, all these may be physical things that are used as metaphor for love but still the feeling behind these things were etched into her mind. She also found that whenever a person falls in love, he/she can’t live without that person. That person always thinks about his/her love all day every day. All these things slowly built her expectations as to what love is. What it feels like. The more she knew about the word, the more she wanted to feel it. The thing is, that she never felt those things for anyone. It’s not like there were no men in her life for whom she would feel these things. She had had 2 to 3 boyfriends during grade 11 of her school life. Those were the anime and manga days. Those were the times when she was really into sex. Fascinated by it. She knew it was somehow associated with love. But she didn’t know how. She started to watch adult movies. She also watched porn. She was fascinated by this phenomenon that happens between two people. Anime and manga also played a major part in this fascination. Adult manga, adult anime, sex driven erotic movies all led to her taking it upon herself to try it out. It was easy when she knew how to use her beauty. This was also a part in her life when came to understand the effect she has on humans of the opposite sex. She randomly chose a boy from class which she thought would not harm her in anyway and asked to have sex with him. incidentally it was the boy’s first time too. When they had sex that night in a hotel, she knew that sex was pleasurable to some degree. But she didn’t quite get the feeling she thought she would get. It was over within minutes. The boy was scared too. That was the night she went home to find her father cheating on her mother. After that she had a couple of more boyfriends. But after the sex when she looked at them, holding a mirror to her face, she couldn’t she those eyes. She knew that it was her beauty that makes the boys fall in love with her instantly, she also knew that when they look at her with those same eyes she can’t respond to their feelings. Slowly she came to understand that this beauty of hers is also a curse put against her long journey to find love. Before that there wasn’t love or hate from her towards her but now, she started to hate herself. Maybe because of the self-hate or maybe she wanted to find love or maybe because she knew the kind of money she could make knowing that she wasn’t so fond of studying during the high school love stricken fanatic years, she never went to college and started doing a job as an escort. She usually had no reaction to whatever the clients did to her but, they didn’t complain as long as she remained beautiful. She had been raped many times. Many a times not paid. Somehow that was her way of giving up the search. But she didn’t give up on love. The environment was full of love. The top of trees. The empty roads. All of these reminded her of what her ultimate goal in life is. Why does she want to love so much? Why is she so obsessed about it? The only think she can think about is love. She thinks about it 24/7. It’s as if she is fallen in love with love itself. The concept it. What it means. The curiousness, the jealousy, the curse, the sorrow, the despair, the melancholy, everything that is associated with love is always in her mind. When she’s in bed with her clients. When she’s alone in her bed. And when she’s walking between the client’s house to her house. When she’s looking out the window of her car. When she’s looking at the couple sitting at the bench. When she’s sees a dog fucking another dog. Everything and anything that she sees she finds a little bit of love in. All this fascination has led to greater expectations. Expectations are good until they cross the threshold point leaving reality. Loving to much love has led to her thinking it as somewhat of a divine feeling that someone only has once in their lifetime. But she doesn’t want to stay in love with love always, she wants to fall in love with a real person. Just once she wants to look at someone with those eyes. The reasons why she can’t love? Maybe luck, maybe circumstances, maybe the fact that her expectations exceeded reality, maybe it’s the fact that her father cheated on her mother, maybe because her mother loved her father and yet they had to divorce while she wasn’t completely sure of her father’s feeling towards her mother. Who knows what the reason is. But the fact is that she thinks she can’t. She wants to love but can’t. What’s the end to her story? Will she ever find love? The one thing that will complete the meaning of her existence in this reality.