Centuries ago Charles Darwin predicted the survival of the fittest. I still see it, still feel it around me. The strong ones, the heartless ones are living, thriving and ruling over people like us- the weak ones. The ones stuck in a chaos of feelings. There is difference between living and surviving and we are hardly surviving. Expected to perish in our own pains, shrivel up and desiccate, die in a desert of our own losses and longings.
I am slightly stronger than surviving. I have that false lamp of hope still burning in me and I hope for a miracle. I’ve been waiting for a miracle all my life. Waiting for the delicate butterfly of miracle to poke it’s head out of its cocoon but it is still a hibernating caterpillar, never growing, never moving and never fluttering it’s soft wings to sprinkle me with some miracle.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know this miracle is forever dormant. There are no worms willing to weave silk threads of happiness around me. But as she stands in front of me a few of those rays of hope still pierce through me and the shell of the butterfly starts to rattle ever so slightly.
My dad tells me I cried a river to somehow coax her to me, to beg her to stay. But she is among the strongest and tears matter all but dust to the strong, neither does a weak infant’s need crumple their plans into powder. She had to move, she had to flourish and grow into an artist of renown. Most of what I do to fill my shallow pockets comes from her flair for colours. It makes me cringe that if I am surviving then it is due to a trait from my strong mother and nothing from my weak father. My weak father who was a trusting fool who held the crown of love the highest and therefore, named my mother the queen of most of his property.
And her I stand, her son, just in front of her in the backyard of her huge art gallery. Silently fighting a war in my soul- thinking if smiling to this witch for a mother is worth the shot or not. Fate might have brought us together but she doesn’t deserve my attention. The wind blows her short, platinum blonde hair and dark shades cover those deep green eyes I stare into, to date, in a photograph of hers under my pillow. Still the same shining skin I wish I could touch.
We have our eyes locked for what feels like eternity. Hope bubbles and boils in the core of my stomach. I ignore it. I want her to make a move, to come back to me. Hold me like she should have all those years ago. With fading time she might have realized that there is some void in her, meant to be filled only by the small child of hers she abandoned ages ago. She sighs then and her tensed jaw muscles confirm that maybe she has missed me.
And just as that caterpillar is about to burst free and glow into a miracle, she turns sideways and walks away; leaving me staring at her back. Survival of the fittest, she survive and thrives, whereas, I melt into an isolated puddle of neglect, longing and guilt. Most of all guilt, guilt to have felt the tremors of that cocoon and to have let hope shimmer in the belly of my soul.
-Masooma Memon
