END OF DAYS, IT’S JUST THE BEGINNING!

A weekday is a weekday, and a weekend is a weekend. Monday comes after Sunday and Friday after Thursday. Sunday is not every day and weekend is not every weekday, night is meant for sleeping and day for working. Sunrise is when a day begins and sunset when it ends. Breakfast is in morning and dinner every evening. 

Dear Lord, what has the world come to…These must be the end of days!

Looking at himself in the mirror, wearing a well ironed grey shirt and a black trouser with a black tie in his hand, he wonders. He wonders how long it has been since he tied a tie, since he polished a shoe, since he ironed a shirt, since he double checked his wallet, since he kept alarms on his clocks. It has been so long since he had a daily routine, a schedule…a purpose to his life other than enjoying every single day as if it were his last.

He used to live in an illusion of freedom and a perfect universe of unending happiness and joy. The freedom to do whatever he wishes whenever he wishes without any limits or restrictions. Any out of the world idea was reasonable and anything unreal was possible. A limitless world that submitted as he desired. A world without laws and restrictions, where he might have even challenged the laws of Physics itself. He lived in a carefree world of hypothetical realities where he could be the God himself creating his own rules as he went through each semester of college.

Staring deep into the mirror, he still has the tie in his hand. He hasn’t tied a tie since he left school some years ago, his cell phone starts ringing and he is late for his job interview. He looks up once more in the mirror and it hits him, a sudden realization that the time has come. The time to leave his nest and come crashing down to the real world of harsh realities. His happy carefree face frowns for the first time as he looks up one last time to see a fading smile.

Face in the mirror, is he a boy or a man?

By the time he processes his thoughts and gets time to bid goodbye to the life he lived in college, it’s already too late for his first job interview at a major company. His life is now no longer his, it’s controlled by expectations. Expectations of his parents to earn his livelihood, expectations of his colleagues to work extra time to prove his worth, expectations of his teachers at college to achieve success, expectations of his own ambitions to reach for the top. He is no longer a master of his universe, now the universe controls him and dictates what he can or cannot do. The responsibilities keep piling on his young shoulders as he keeps crashing down into the real world and sees his nest disappearing from his eyes far into the clouds.

Unsure of how he will fulfill all the expectations that life demands from him, he wishes to could go back to his safe and happy place where all that was expected from him was to smile and laugh and enjoy all the happiness that life had to offer. By the time he is done crying over what he has left behind, he is already too late to board the next bus. He is no longer sure of himself or what he wants from his life and doubts how he will manage to fill that empty belly of his.

He boasts of his past glories to his juniors at college and yet he is the most insignificant and unaccomplished man at office. He does not know what life has in store for him or what turn his life will take. Not yet prepared to go out there and work for his livelihood, he tries to find solace in hope of someone coming through for him, maybe once again as always a call from his mother to hide him in her arms from the hardships of life. Yet, he knows such hopes are not real and it is time to go out and face the world by himself.

It is all moving too fast, he wishes he could rewind the time and go back to the days when he used to fancy about working somewhere with a white collar shirt and well ironed trouser. Now, all that he fancies is his old denim jeans and animated t-shirts. He loathes every part of his new life which has taken a toll on his carefree youthful spirit and instilled in him a mature and careful adult with responsibilities and weight of expectations on his shoulders. Life is winning this battle against his spirit, he never thought he would be bowing down to rules of life and yet he sees himself becoming a part of this crowd as each day passes.

He has become what he feared the most, another face in the crowd. The challenge is to distinguish himself and live up to expectations, life has just begun yet when he thought it had ended looking back at his nest disappearing into clouds far far away…

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He opens his eyes realizing he overslept on his first day at college. Thinking about the strange dream, he decides to skip the morning lectures and tell his friends how precious these four years will be.