Something Made of Glass

The fan beside the mattress is trying hard to blow the hot air out of the room, sounding like a beehive. The books lying around the mattress are carelessly left open, with their pages turning rapidly and randomly, like the time that is passing by. Rapid days. Random Thoughts. Shirts and trousers are hanging at a corner of that room, which is filled with the smell of deodorant and room freshener.

It was six on that dawn when he woke up with a feeling of something made of glass broken within in him. He could feel those broken glass pieces getting pumped all over his body through his veins, broken glass in the tub filled with water, broken mirror in the bathroom, glass bits in his morning dose of caffeine and he knew he had twenty four hours to live. Human brain at times does things like love, which go beyond reasoning.

He worked harder than usual throughout the day, though the world around him started growing distant and he forgot about that morning’s feeling altogether. He came into the room the crumpled white cotton shirt sticking to his body sweat. The helmet dropped dead onto a chair from his hand, followed by his wallet, keys, phone – and few other things which were once valuable, but now seemed worthless.

He dropped down on the mattress, picked up a book – a random pick whose last words read ' ... races condemned to a hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.'

Broken mirror and tub filled with glass pieces brought back some memory which slid through his throat like a green, bitter liquid. He sat down on the mattress, trying to gulp down that memory which hurt as it slid passing the cuts the broken pieces have made. As he entered that room filled with the smell of deodorant and room spray, clothes hanging in a corner, where the fan was buzzing like fly in the ear and books fluttering around and picking up a book about a hundred years of solitude, the thought came back that he had less than twenty four hours to live and that the glass bits never stopped cruising through his body.

He felt he was born as a 25 years old person, though the photo frames hanging on the wall showed him as a child playing on a beach. He barely remembered his childhood now. The weight of twenty-five years of thoughts and memories suddenly came onto him. There were sparkles in his eyes one moment and tears in the other, smile on his face one moment and heavy sadness the next.

Seconds ticked away to minutes and minutes to hours. He sat still with his body covered with filmy sweat. Not a muscle twitched nor a vein throbbed and on his face a void expression appeared. He suddenly felt as light as air. A thin transparent yet obstructing film appeared between his vision and the rest of the world around him. He moved away from a body on whose face was a void expression, away from the mattress, the fan, broken mirror and tub with water which still had broken glass pieces.

As the painfully throbbing stars began to disappear from the sky one by one, a bright star appeared at the horizon just for a moment and disappeared. A lone bird sang a soulful tune as the Sun rose.  Somewhere, sometime, in another realm he was born again with something made of glass within him. May be the strength of his past life will give him strength to bear if it breaks again.

[Or]

Somewhere, sometime, in another realm he might have born with something made of glass within him, only to have it broken after twenty five years.

…

Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,

And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.

To Hope, Keats