Friday 31st January 2025

I want to say the scenary of unconscious, cut open bodies, laid back flat on the operation theatre has given me the chills, and instilled in me a feeling I will never be able to shake off.
But no.
I am unphased and nonchalant; brain frozen; nerves slackened. Utter stagnation.
Not a defensive mechanism, I believe.
It seems I’ve been at this profession for 40 years now.

My conspiracy is this:
I am a fierce individual. A 10 gallon one.
I am either covered in an inner and outer aura of flames, or nothing. And the latter is not a choice because it would be a betrayal of the contract I created and signed when I was 7 years old, as I was sitting on my late grandmother’s metal bed at approximately 8 ish pm, sipping and swallowing indulgently the details of the real world, and of mine. But mostly, of mine.

But to unveil and render myself raw in this era, is a barbaric crime.
And so I remain composed, watching all that requires dilated pupils with somewhat lazy eyes.

But it wears me out with time.
It’s painful.
It takes effort.

My fellow writers figured it was more decent, perhaps, to use a pen on a blank page instead of sobbing insanely on an aquaintance’s shoulder.

I think my instructor drowns himself in his works because he cannot begin to fathom lifting his head up and facing a world where his wife no longer exists.

My previous physics tutor smiles warmly and jokes a lot; his face evokes the term ‘apricity‘. And you would not guess, not in a million years, the kind of pain that lies beneath. The cost to be paid for such a warm smile being the death of a dear daughter.

Our somewhat distant relative decided it was more acceptable to cocoon himself up in his own house following the passing of his other half, because to leave the house undraped, all wounds visible, is disgraceful. The cultural parameter told him so, and even kept knocking on his door with the index finger, and snapping fingers every now and then, to remind him of it.

The true trespass is not the undressing, but the dressing.
We are made of flesh and blood. Why not embrace and embody our creation.

I’d be lying to you if I said that I’m emboldening the act of going out to the nearest street this very moment, and screaming your heart out.
I’m merely emboldening not judging such a scene when you witness it.

After all, it’d just be a human embracing their creation.

Tenderly,

SE.