By Md. Abu Syed Swadhen

It all comes down to awareness, to consciousness. I currently inhabit two realities. In one, I’m conscious like Sisyphus, a fragile carbon-based body with strings attached to every atom, devoid of free will. Every labor is futile and fruitless, existence a punishment, waiting for the end or the benediction of ceasing. I’m at someone’s fingertips, waiting to be crushed, yet wandering around to give some meaning, some appeasement, something – anything – because all this suffering cannot be for nothing. Praying and knowing how futile the prayer is is my punishment, a being who knows nothing yet cursed for carrying everything like Atlas holding the weight of the world on his shoulders.

In the other reality, I’m invincible stardust, speeding through infinite space-time, with no limitations but to seek the wonders of the cosmos. I am who I believe to be, whoever I want to be; a fountain of mellifluous voices, a traveler on the path to greatness, a knight in shining armor looking for jolly co-operation. I am the embodiment of ignorance, a facetious child playing the role of God’s proudest creation. Here, my suffering has meaning because I choose to believe it does. 

Here, I wake up in the morning to live forever. Here, I am every bit of the contradiction that I am in the first reality. It’s really difficult to have both realities in me simultaneously, constantly traveling from one to the other, colliding like two galaxies with different trajectories, trying to merge but tearing each other apart in the process.  I’m just glad I haven’t turned into a monster myself. Fingers crossed, maybe someday I’ll be the best version of all of this; a madman destined to be agonized, with a few drops of solace in the eyes of my creator.