Yeah, we play music. All of that’s there to play. We play drums and guitars, piano and violins. But, I am a spectator. I don’t know how to play a single instrument. But does it matter? I enjoy the music.

Yeah, maybe it actually matters. How do you feel the depth of anything without measuring some part of it? You see it’s the same with humans and sex.

When she pulled me towards her lips, I could smell her so perfectly. Her smell was like that of warm soil, which had just got to kiss the first rain of the season. The sweat from both of our bodies had begun knowing each other. I pulled her closer and kissed her entire body. I didn’t look into her eyes nor did she try to look into mine. She was there to do her job. Even though this desire was for a short period time, I was there to make myself feel less lonesome and less miserable. That moment of pleasure made me actually feel confronted after a long, long time.

We choose to lie in the cold bed for a long time just doing what we needed to do. When that moment passed, the feeling of guilt and anxiety took over me. I couldn’t talk to her or even face her. She was still lying there, trying to start a conversation. But I lit up the pot and started smoking. Sometimes thoughts about her and that togetherness of ours always plunged into my mind like some virus infesting a tissue recreating itself thousands of times.

Those momentarily pleasure given to me made me feel like I was part of this world, which was again just temporarily. I could never understand why I was incapable of loving somebody. Maybe I did love but was scared by the consequences that it would bring into my life, responsibility and boundaries. I don’t understand how people just surrender to these boundaries of love. Listen to the same person entirely for day and night; laugh at every joke the other person makes, unnecessarily try to hold on to each other when there’s no need of it. I think they just pretend to love their partners because they want to be a part of this infinite chain of modern civilization or maybe they have been brainwashed about the whole concept of love.

All these thoughts, they frequently haunted me. They made me realize that I was also part of the same species. There was nothing I could do but rather surrender to the dramatic rules that originated deep within in every society. Maybe I was the one who didn’t get it. Maybe all the other people were right and why wouldn’t they be? They enjoyed this concept of love and were happy, while I was here just trying to make myself less lonely and at the same time my thoughts were driving me further and further away from the general conscience.

When these thoughts became irresistible, I silently walk out into the balcony and sat in the complete silence. The city would still be shining like a bunch of fireflies in a warm dark night, always fulfilling a purpose without actually understanding the outcome.

Burning swords of thoughts pierced my skull all day and all night. When it was almost dawn one day, it was the time when I decided I wouldn’t give up myself for this so called civilization. I think one gets to know the truth about everything after you’re gone, gone far away from these worlds of men, gods and devils.

The last thing I’m feeling now is the moistness of the morning air, finally putting myself into this deepest sleep until I wake up again free, with my soul no more tethered to this sickening body.

Aashish Khanal is a student currently studying in DWIT