Sort of Dead

6 - Hating What You Love

Okay, so this one day was terrible.

This is the day the real thing began.
I almost don’t want to tell you, but they say venting your anguish makes you less prone to rage and depression. Plus, I have to help you catch up. Till how I got here.

Mum had been terribly sick these last few months, she was almost always locked up in her bedroom. So I spent much of my time at my Uncle's.

So I was going there, alright, like I do near-about every single day. As I said, I’m a lonely guy. It's a fairly short enough tootle. Barely over a kilometer, so to say. Dad offered me a ride in his “love” – the antique brand-less car he owns which he says once belonged to Abe Lincoln (cough, I don’t believe a mite of it; I know he has a knack for exaggerating – maybe he brought it from a neighbor named A. Lincoln, but not the President, the Great Vampire Hunter himself, nope, nah, nata), but of course I refused. As I always do.

Two reasons.

One, I’m not riding in that thing even if God himself owned it once upon a heavenly time. The thing is ancient. It could might as well be from my great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s time, for all I know. Yes, Dad's kept it posh and maintained and all, but guess what? No one else shares his sentiment. Everywhere we go on that – that well-maintained bin with four wheels – people stare. They goggle, they ogle, they point, they whisper, they guffaw – with more excitement than people display even in zoos these days. And not in a good way. More in a way that screams: Taking it to the museum?

Secondly, for a person with nothing productive to do all day long, everyday, walking is not a bad outlet.

As it turned out, taking the car would've been the better option.

Okay, so I’m going to my Uncle's, right?

Es was with me, she almost always accompanies me (apparently, spirits don’t have a lot to do either). She was hissing and hovering in the air and having the time of her life, and I was listening to her (superficially) as she rambled on about how she could swear she could touch butterflies for some reason despite the fact spirits can't interact with anything physical and whatnot – when I interrupted her.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

'What's what?’ she hissed (said).

'That,' I said.

‘What?’ she hissed (said).

She can be pretty pesky sometimes. Be honest, I don’t know why I like her so much. Probably because she's the only one who knows me, who's willing to understand.

I pointed the object of my fascination out to her even as I moved towards it. She followed. There was this huge white traveler-van – you know, the six-wheeled kind – standing there at the roadside, and people were flocking around it, some with their sleeves folded and some in white coats. I couldn’t really see clearly, but that ought to have hinted me off. For better vintage, I “excused” past the throng, while Es just passed through them quite literally.

And what do I see? Come on, you can do it. Just take into account my rotten luck.

Yup. You guessed it.

It was a blood-donation camp.

The people milled around the van were waiting, mostly, for their turn to donate their blood to those who need it. Some were already lying in stretchers, doctors filling up drips and drips of delicious, sanguine blood and carrying it over to the van. Which was a nice gesture and all, on the donors' behalf.

But consider this for a moment. What those people didn’t realize was that while they are helping others out, they were tormenting people like me.

Although, I suppose, there is only one person like me, and that's me.

Es clapped her illusory hands together and swirled joyfully in the air. She doesn’t really need a reason to be happy. She waved at other people, who obviously couldn’t see her. I don’t even know why she bothers. One guy she extended her hand to legitimately yawned his garlicky breath into her face. She didn’t heed care, of course, because spirits cannot smell.

Lucky them.

I can, though, oh yes. I have a pretty acute sense of smell, which I’m very proud of. Ever since I was three, I could tell what Mum was preparing in the kitchen, all the way from my bedroom. No small feat.

Although at that moment, I wasn’t as proud. Because then, all my amazing skill did for me was torture me further. By enticing me toward those claret bags of the appetizing fluid connective tissue of the human body. (Yup. I am a nerd, head and foot.)

And there was so much of it. Bags and bags full of it. No one will care if you steal a bag for yourself, Mar, my thirsty, greedy brain told me. Just one bag and your tummy will be filled to the brim and you will attain a godly level of complacent and everything about this world will make sense again and . . .

It takes a lot of courage to walk from the thing you are deeply, and madly, in love with. Especially when there’s a mound of abundance of that thing right in front of your eyes.

I know that for a fact. Because I walked away from the crowd. At least I tried. With my selfish feet resisting and pulling me back two steps for every one I took. Es wasn’t helping either; she was, in fact, levitating right over where the blood extraction was taking place.

Let me tell you: not a good idea to have a spirit as a best friend.

Still, ultimately, I did manage to walk away. But you can imagine how harrowing an incident it was.
And if you're thinking: O poor Marra. But at least you went to your Uncle’s place afterwards, which you absolutely adore. So at least you got to cope up with the exhaustion of that brave resistance –

Then you are so very wrong. Things only got so much worse.

Votes and comments don't harm, people.