By: Priyadarshini Dey
Days sometimes seem very stupid. Sometimes, days don’t even seem real. A thing which bothered me the most was the lively unfairness of the world. But what did it even do to me? Why was I questioning my sanity? I don’t remotely remember where I was, but wherever I was, I wasn’t at peace.
My mind was reminiscing a previous memory. Memories I didn’t quite remember, faded but surely were true.
It was raining heavily. I wasn’t in the mood to do anything at all. However, my fingers touched a sheet of paper and I soon had the impression how I could make paper boats. My fingers slipped onto the state of folding. At the end, I sighed. There stood 3 small paper boats on my desk.
My hand grabbed a pen and wrote my name onto those. At this point I would have written the names of my siblings in the rest as well, but I didn’t distinctly remember what their names were. After all, I was in a constant state of anguish and fear. I didn’t know why, rainy days like those always brought a gloomy impression to my mind.
My desk was scattered. A bunch of empty notebooks lay unorganized, homework undone and pens without ink lay unused. Loads of lipsticks, different shades, although my favorite, the light pink one was sliced into pieces. I didn’t know who did that. Probably one of my nieces. Rubber Bands were left there, unused for years to come. There were Books of fairytales to feed my mind which always craved fantasy. I don’t remember having a single useful object on that desk. All were unused, broken and useless, unless I actually found some use of it, unless I actually sat on my desk to do my homework on those empty notebooks, wore those lipsticks and tried to fix the broken one, used those rubber bands, put refills into the inkless pens and read those fairytales.
I slipped on my rubber boots and went down the street. A puddle of water, muddy, yet cold had been formed at the end of the lane. Surrounded by hundreds of leaves of various trees I didn’t know the name of. The clouds, the ginormous rain clouds frightened me a ton. They didn’t just seem to be clouds, but some sort of monster crying.
I touched the water slightly. It was as cold as it could be. My fingers felt numb. I felt childish. I was 19, probably, making paper boats wasn’t something I should do, but I did, and my heart said it was alright.
I released the small boat with the text “Aria” inscribed on it. It soon surfaced onto the center of the puddle, moving slowly, steadily.
I smiled for the first time in what happens to be two months. I didn’t know such a fragile and tiny thing as a paper boat could finally set me off my cocoon of weariness.
My eyes were becoming weary. I hadn’t slept for days I had lost count of. My feet were trembling and my arms were shaking. However, the little boat didn’t shake an inch. It went on, little by little.
I stood by the puddle for hours, watching the little boat as it went slowly. By the time my hands had frozen as the bitter winter had started to consume me. They felt very numb. I could see my breath as white clusters of air. My head was sore as well, almost as if I was suffering from a long term migraine. Soon, it started snowing. There weren’t much people around me, I was alone, with the little boat which was now struggling to stay on surface.
Bits of snow fell on it as it struggled even more. That was, when I finally noticed the other two boats that I had forgotten to release crumpled into regular sheets of paper. Somebody in the mean time had taken those boats, unfolded it and crumpled it up. The name “Aria” was barely visible, the ink seemed to have worn off.
I didn’t care, not at all. The only remaining boat still sailed. That was until a huge clump of snow fell on it, and it sank.
My heart sank with it. The thing that had brought me joy after months, finally sank to the end. My eyes were becoming even droopy. I couldn’t keep up with the tiredness anymore. I took out the little boat from the clump of snow that had hidden inside it. It was all crumpled up, torn and looked like it should be thrown away. My name was not visible anymore, only blurred lumps of ink remained on the paper, leaving an impression that there actually was something written in there once. My name had no worth, not anymore. I couldn’t see myself anymore, not even when I dreamt of a mirror. Was I myself anymore? Who even was I? Just a mere person named Aria, blending among the thousands of Arias that existed in our world.
I walked back home, hopelessly and the rest, I don’t quite remember.
Now that I look back to this little memory, I may say how much I related to those little boats, it was almost as if it was me. Such sorts of memory are those which I want to experience again. It was in a period of time when I was weary and tired of certain things. Certain things I can’t even tell you about. But now, I’m in much peace. A sense of importance has been shown to me, after all these years of being unacceptable and abused.
Perhaps, it was my weird yet close similarity towards those heartless, non living boats that made that little moment so heartwarming.
Author details:
Name: Priyadarshini Dey
Pen name: Annie
Age: 12 years old
School: St. Francis school
Class: VII (seven)