Spoken

The Beginning

                                                                                      EDITH:

Our family, or whatever we call it, doesn't really seem to have much in common.

My parents had had the routine arranged marriage, like their parents before them, few questions asked, fewer answered and no meetings unless sanctioned by both sets of parents.

If you ask me it seems like a very level headed idea- you don't just wait for the day that love falls from the sky or heaven or wherever it is supposed to fall from to meet this person who you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with, no , you choose a "suitable" partner based on economic and social status, and yes, a reasonable degree of looks.

Except that for all practical purposes this person is a total stranger.

You don't know the books he likes or the actors he hates, or the songs he dances to and the songs he sleeps to. You don't know if he likes his job or loves it. You don't know if he secretly wants to run away from all this, and one day, just might. No, you are not allowed to know all that.

You might have loved someone before him,and he would never be allowed to know any of that, not until wedding day, when a cheeky third cousin half mentions it as a joke, and retreats on receiving the intended glare. And so, you marry, not out of love, but out of necessity.

But yes there is one thing that we are all bloody good at.

The lying.

Me, I am a bit of a habitual. I lie when I am absolutely certain that it will cost me nothing and will simplify my getting what I want, which I can assure you, is not very often. Mostly though, for the sheer thrill of it. Lying, to me, is an art form, that is hated, only by the very dumb.If you are dumb, you hate liars, like ISIS hates humans, and if you're even reasonably smart, you know you just have to look like that.

My father lies about things for which men are often forgiven-porn on his phone. He's a  manager at Ibis Pharma, my grandpa's company, mostly travelling, far away from mom, and any realistic possibilities of the physical kind, so yes, cut him some slack,

but it's when he tries to tell me, a girl of 13, not to listen to a 50 Cent song that contains an obvious amount of frivolous vulgarity, that I can't help feeling, mixed. Happy because I know now that he too has his major flaws. Sad too, because of the same.

Just like murder, for instance. Sure, the loss of innocent lives is sad, or should be, but murder is when humans are most honest with themselves.

The fear of death, is the purest, most honest fear there is, it is built into our psyche to fear death, even if our living may have amounted to much less than nothing. We are taught to want to live, to fight to live, even before we teach ourselves anything else.

And the person murdering is also the most honest, for at that level of emotion, which we call madness, the person is giving in, to his most basic primal instinct, to kill, to defend, to end that which threatens or harms him. Or angers him.

For that, I believe, that Murder, when done well, is also an art form. Simply shorn, of the trappings of music and the spectacles of dance.

In any case, most human lives do amount to nothing. We must all search for our "purpose" in life, the "higher meanings" of our existence, but is there really such a thing ?

We all exist because a certain amount of sperm got sucked into a certain egg, at a certain time and place, which for most counts, is as random as can be.

That is it. We exist to reproduce and propagate our own kind.

That is the reason for the existence of everybody.

Of course, that is the reason for existence, you see existence is something whose existence is not controlled by us, but the life as a result of that existence, is defined by us, our thoughts, our actions, our deeds and ideas.

I wonder if I make any sense at all, sitting here, a thirteen year old, in my study, more comfortable with words than with her own body.

My brother is an example of a pointless creature.

Don't judge me, I do love him. We must all love our blood. I wonder why that is, but I do love him.

Perhaps love is a strong word. I have to now contend with his screaming and bawling when I work, and my parents admonishing when I refuse to hold him, or "look after" him, when I am free.

I like silences and I like being alone.

Which isn't the same as being lonely. For it is only in external silence, that my furious mind calms down, and I can trap my thoughts onto paper.

I overheard my father say, that a second, wasn't a mistake, merely proof that the first one wasn't.

That I alone, would have been an uncomfortable anomaly. That the pain, in my mother, when she birthed my brother, was a minimal pain, compared to the love we would now share.

Yes, a man gets to tell a woman, her pain doesn't matter. In the long run, you know.

And a woman, over years of civilization, must choose to believe it.

Why is childbirth so normal to us? Isn't the pain supposed to be insufferable? Deadly, even ? Why are we so happy about it then ?

Why do we assume that the pain we suffer is for good, that the child born out of that pain will definitely bring us happiness? It seems pretty risky to me, to assume that the person you bring into this world, won't be a psycho killer, or a rapist, or a criminal of some sort, simply because you and your husband weren't.

Looking at my brother I can say for sure, that he will be no killer.

He already looks way fatter and prettier than I did at that age, and if that is anything to go by, he will be a drinker, a smoker and a party maniac, like some boys in my class, and may eventually become, a serial flirt, with no great ambitions in life, save dating the most brain dead examples of the female species . There he is, drooling over his latest toy, a train set that

mummy and daddy bought him for his third birthday. At that age I had refused dolls, refused cars, and had started a liking for tan grams. I first fully arranged one at five. Not boasting, though.

My brother won't be a killer.

But what about me ?

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