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broken constellation
"Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you secruity and friendship and didn't ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly." · 25 November 2011 · 27 November 2011 · 03 December 2011 · 05 December 2011 · 14 December 2011 · 23 December 2011 · 25 December 2011 · 25 January 2012 · 28 January 2012 · 03 February 2012 · 09 February 2012 · 19 February 2012 · 07 March 2012 · 13 March 2012 · 15 March 2012 · 21 March 2012 · 23 March 2012 · 05 April 2012 · 21 April 2012 · 02 June 2012 · 06 June 2012 · 05 July 2012 · 01 August 2012 · 08 September 2012 · 13 November 2012 · 06 December 2012 · 07 December 2012 · 11 December 2012 · 15 December 2012 · 17 December 2012 · 18 December 2012 · 23 December 2012 · 25 December 2012 · 26 December 2012 · 01 January 2013 · 13 February 2013 · 11 June 2013 · 27 November 2013 · 01 December 2013 · 02 December 2013 · 06 December 2013 · 10 January 2014 · 13 February 2014 · 23 February 2014 · 14 December 2015 · 02 January 2016 · 04 March 2016 · 04 June 2016 · 25 June 2016 · 29 June 2016 |
Rows
Sitting here in my cubicle, with heaps of unopened
letters and an overflow of parcels that has to be clambered over; with untidy
piles of documents flanking my narrow desk, toppling at a touch, and therefore
leaving a new surge of blue under my feet; with my colleagues making nasty
remarks about the crème blouse I’m wearing, with my boss demanding for a better
report, with the cry of deadlines ringing in my ears… I begin to see things – I
see rows. Rows of desks, running horizontal across a room. Their polished
wooden tops glinting in the faint morning light. Drawers filled with paper
planes and broken pencils. Now the desks are hinged, their tops a light shade
of yellow, scratched and scarred; they open to reveal textbooks, notebooks and
scraps of paper for doodling. Now I see desks of a different kind. Black,
sleek, shiny, made of hard plastic. The desk top is attached to the back of the
seat on your right and wraps around your body.
The scenes are all jumbled, mixed together – kindergarten
and primary school and secondary school – to form a plethora of rows. The desks
are always in rows.
After we stop depending on diapers and start walking
in shoes, we spend a lot of time learning to go from unruly to ruled. Learning
to sit in a row, learning to write on lined pages, learning to draw a square
with four equal sides, learning to obey. Even if the desks are not arranged in
rows, they must form some other pattern. Maybe a circle. Or a rectangle,
perhaps.
The next part of life is unpredictable. The habit of
sitting in perfectly neat rows doesn’t seem to leave you even when the rows are
gone. Having learned to obey rules, you look for them wherever you go – you
find your seat in the invisible rows. To avoid mistakes, accidents,
humiliation, and sometimes, to run away from yourself. But then, you tell
yourself it is time to step out of the box, to take a look at the world
outside. You begin to see real people with real emotions. You begin to realize
the world you’re in isn’t just a blue planet that orbits between Venus and
Mars. The lines and rows you’ve always known and respected begin to fade. You
feel a sudden rush; a peculiar urge to do the impossible, to jump off a rooftop
and reach for the stars. You take the risk, but...you fall. Crash. Break. Burn.
Therefore, you run back to your world of rows and lines, swear to never look
back.
But, when you’re in the last part of your life,
pretty much where I am right now, you have to stop seeking for rows and the
security it provides. Because you are no longer in a classroom. There is no
blackboard with algebra and equations on it, no teacher with her ruler pointing
to your forehead, no smell of chalk dust and freshly sharpened pencils, no
exams.
* *
* * *
* * *
*
The whir of the photocopy machine beside my desk
shakes me off my reverie. I’m back in my messy cubicle, back in the real world.
For a moment, I feel terrified, not knowing what to do, or where to go – I’m
lost in a dark, unfurnished void of…rows.
And that’s when I realize, all this time, it is fear
that forces us into rows, that pushes us into lines, that makes us stay within
the boundaries – fear of failing a test, fear of being different, fear of
judgment, fear of getting hurt. The desks and chairs are an escape from fear,
by giving us something definite, something we are sure of.
So I push myself up from my chair, grab my bag, and
walk out of the department without looking back. Not even once.
Labels: a remnant of my heart |
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