HANDLING WITH CARE

It was like I was split into two... I was the audience and I was the protagonist... It was oddly surreal....

I watched me struggle with the mere act of walking, placing one foot in front of the other seemed like a terrible ordeal.. I wanted to help myself, but I couldn't...one of the disadvantages of being a part of the audience, you can only watch, never participate...

So I watched myself sweating and hauling a big heavy box... I did not know what was inside it, but it looked very cumbersome even from a distance.. I got a bit closer and the the legendary phrase on top of it "FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE"... So, it was glass, lots and lots of it...

As I watched, she or rather me... I stumbled... I regained my balance, then I stumbled again, this time I could not stop myself and down I went....to the rhythm of a faint tinkling sound... The horror I felt was mirrored exactly on the face of the fallen me... I got up, without bothering to check my wounds, fumbled with the box...and extracted the splinters...

And I bled... The fragments of the glass broken tore through my skin, my flesh, my veins, and blood flowed...almost as much as my tears.... Then I saw a change in me, as I got up and re-examined the box... I took out the remaining glass and wrapped them all up...in layers and layers of cloth and paper... I wrapped them up so much that it was un recognizable, the shape the size, the essence of what it was, the original glass artifact... It wasnt glass anymore. it was over protected lumps, without any entity of its own...

I knew it would not work... As I thought that I saw me trip, yet again, my over burdened, stressed out, suffering self... I did not even try to regain my balance, just went down with a resigned sigh... then i brushed myself, opened the box, and emptied out the shards again...but I did not bleed as much this time... There was anything left of the glass much, it was all smothered under the layers I had stifled it with....

I could not stop myself from shrieking out, "Let it go... You will never ever manage to carry them all till the end.. They are gonna break, and more you be careful about them, more you will fall, and bleed over them... Let go..."

The me on the road looked around, searching with wild eyes for the unknown voice (strange how my own voice sounds like a stranger when it is tinged with reason or common sense). Finding no one, I picked up the box again, with a pondering expression... There were only some pieces left in the box, the ones that endured the falls, the shocks, the tremors.... I picked them all up, collected them in my two hands, hugged them to my chest and started walking.... And I watched her, my other self as she walked with confident steps, knowing that even if she falls, the glass wont break again....