Dysfunctional

The scene at the home was catastrophic. Mom and Dad were in different rooms. There was dead silence. It was coherent. Anish plonked his school bag down and went ahead to check in. The door of the main bedroom was half open. The silence didn't seem to be calming at all. Anish mustered all his courage that was in turmoil with the state of home, he went ahead and saw his mother down on the floor crying beside the bed. He opened the door to the other half of its dimension. The creaking sound alarmed the house with an entrance of an outsider. There were things, broken things on the floor. Mother wiped off  her tears without making a direct eye contact pretending to be strong. Nonetheless, she couldn't resist hugging his son without breaking down. Anish was terrified at the sight of her crying mother, so much so he himself uncontrollably broke down in tears along with her.

Father heard the mewling sound and came in a half conscious state and clutched the boy with his arm and pulled him out of his mother's arms.

It would exhausting heighten the confusion for the boy who would over think, trying and failing to make sense of things that would lead to such tormenting spaces that the home was stuck in. There were no conclusions to his lengths of perception.

"Don't spoil my boy with your stupid tears"

The frequent occurrence of sprawling fights had Anish believed that he was responsible for the quarrels that were ultimately about proving a point that one is right and the other is wrong. There were new visitors that were spectators to the same problem. For them it wasn't a matter of concern. A house falling apart is a dream idea of Indian daily soap scriptwriter but to get the privilege to watch it live with no actors or script involved, it was a different episode altogether. This continued silently for years within the walls, if at all it broke out in public, there wouldn't be much help to repair the damage.

Waking up everyday to the high level aggression and animosity felt like infliction of the highest degree. The mornings were dreadful. It celebrated the aftermath of evening's sadism. The tears on the pillow were dreary of emotions. The broken latch hung unrepaired on the door. Self berating was congenial. It brought contentment, when there was no where to be. It was the only consolation in the habitat that had no belongings.

This wasn't the hardest part. It was going out in the world and seeing other people. The morning faces, greetings, handshakes. What were people happy about. It seemed abnormal. These two worlds happened to coincide to a vortex that was too young to understand. The two sides were forceful and it never allowed the mayhem to settle. It just laid in a dark place as repressed                                                      memories. Living inside me, begging to be found, keeping things                                                          dysfunctional.