the ugly swan

✿Day 1

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

✿Day 1

You know when it feels like the world is weighing down on you, like the Universe has gifted you all the troubles in it. The pain in quadruples when such thoughts appear in the mind. Mira stared at the mirror. The universe, the stars, the brightness, the darkness everything was colliding and collapsing inside her eyes.

Humans are far more powerful than they realize.

Mira had embodied fear in her veins, it was soaring through her bloodstream, clinging to the inner lining of her lungs. Each breath was labored.

She had turned into a storm. A devastating storm. That eats itself in the process of destruction. She stripped down to nothing. To stranger's eyes, her body was a masterpiece. Every stroke, every flab of fat, the flush color in her cheeks, her thin wrists, the slight crook her nose, the marks under jaw, the scars adorning her back.

One who has seen death, would say, that Mira was full of life. The blood rushing through veins was proof of that. Her chest that rose and fell was evidence that she was alive. Her organs that were functioning in perfect harmony, every cell in her body was laboring to keep her alive, to keep her breaths running, to keep her senses sharp.

But Mira didn't feel alive. She wasn't thankful that she was alive. She didn't care.

All she saw was how one pair of eyes was far more beautiful than her own. How her smile could never be as gorgeous as another

A gardener would never call a rose more beautiful than sunflower. But for that one would need the sight of a gardener and Mira didn't have that.

✿✿✿

A man, with broad shoulders and a mellow smile, watered the okra plants set in the pots. Delicate, white flowers had sprouted at the tips of the green stems.

There are glasses covering his deep brown eyes. From years of studying after dawn, his vision had gone blurry. His fingers were thin, nibble, deft as of a well-trained artist. A smudged ink mark adorned his index finger.

Behind the man and the rooftop garden, the New York skyline glimmered in the broad morning sunlight. The city was rising even though, it had never fallen asleep. The taxis were rousing the streets, preparing for them for the endless strings of traffic about to arrive. Pedestrian walked along the sidewalk, all alert, with cups of coffee and briefcases tucked under their arms.

The man, unlike everyone who seemed to be in a rush to be somewhere, anywhere, flowed with tranquility. He poured water over the okra plant's leaves. The droplets of water sparkled in the sunlight.

"Yudishter," An old woman seated in the wheelchair sighed. "You treat those flowers as though they were roses."

"Amma," Yudishter slowly shook his head, smiling to himself. "A flower is a flower."

His mother scowled at him. "For God's sake, it's an okra plant."

He set the watering can on the floor and walked to her. "You're way too bitter, Amma. Sweet up a bit. It won't cost you a penny."

"Your pa left me alone for a cruise with his best buds and you're telling me to cheer up. What is a woman to do with insensitive men like you two? He could have taken me along but no, it was an all men's trip and a woman couldn't possibly go along. Of-course, we, women ruin the fun."