By Subah Anbar Ali
All my life I’ve been stuck in the labyrinth of life. I’ve always imagined how I’d escape and finally breathe for the first time. It’s ironic really, I’ve been so busy fantasising about it that reality slipped from my hands and came crashing down, shattering into a million pieces, each being a distasteful memoir of my pathetic existence
The boy next door: every girl’s dream but my very own nightmare in disguise. Growing up in a wealthy suburban neighborhood, every aspect of my life was described as “grand.” The houses were grand, the cars, the people- oh, so grand. Even the daily trash could not escape the description. The suffocation made the walls feel like they were closing in all the time. Yet, somehow, they wouldn’t close in completely and smash me to death. No, they’d rather taunt me for twenty six years, which in my eyes were a far worse fate than instant death.
The only thing worth looking forward to in my pre-pubescent days was my knight in Armani, Toby. He was the only and truly grand thing around me that didn’t make me want to choke on my own spit, like everyone else made me feel. Why on earth he had chosen to return the adoration I felt for him, I’ll never know. Whatever the reason was, I savored it. If Toby’s attention for me was a physical gift and not the metaphysical type, it would’ve flattened under the pressure of my skinny vaccinated arms. I never wanted to let it go. And in the end, that is what happened- it never let me escape.
Toby’s reluctance to leave the world our parents lived in was an itch for me. The problem was, the itch was on that one tiny place on my back that I could never reach. So it remained ignored, the discomfort merely an inconvenience, in the greater scheme of things. And the itch was fed well over the years, by the sheer comfort of it all. It grew into a rash, and proceeded to transform into a venomous infection. And it no longer stayed still, reaching its tendrils out and into my heart, the red blood turning into black tar.
The first beating, I blamed myself and made excuses for him. He was drunk, I agitated him, SATs were coming up, and on it went. The second time, however, I hit back; which resulted into the third one. The chill of it all made the lines grow foggy after that. I no longer distinguished the occurrences separately anymore; all the same, at least the pain was the same.
The night I graduated seized to be remembered by that event; and in my later years I’d remorsefully recall it as the night I finally surrendered. When he got down on one knee, my life flashed before my eyes. “Say no.” groaned the heart. However, the infectious life had turned it frail; and so the greedy brain took control instead, eyeing the financial security of the future and gasped out a “Yes!”
And so it was, the heart succumbed with a sigh. Since then, the pain of regret has been greater than the aches of beatings.