Self-Centralism: It is Only to Punish Me

The day is a cheerful one. The sky is clear blue, so much so that your eyes hurt when you look into it. That blueness extends on to infinity, shedding and shedding, becoming bluer and bluer.

As you rise from the mess of sheets and blankets that is your bed, rubbing the sleep off your eyes raw from crying, you remember last night.

When you told your father that it had been a busy while, and for a few days, you wouldn’t be able to do work.

When he told you that there was not a chance in the world that is happening, that what you do, what you love, like doing that stupid writing every week, is worthless, and should be cut.

You grimaced, he sneered.

He asked you what there is to grimace about, he asked you in that taunting voice:

“What’s wrong?”

You grimaced further.

When your father decided to shout, his voice booming like thunder in your ears, shocking you, hurting you, smashing you to the ground.

He told you that no one will pity you in the future, that you should cherish what criticism your parents had to give.

He must have seen you cowering, for he told you that you have to be strong of heart, or else you will be eliminated in the world.

You cried like an animal; the howls echoed off the bathroom walls.

“There is no place for the weak, like you.”

You remember, and the sky sheds. It keeps shedding and shedding, the layers drifting like mist, they are peaceful, and they tell you that maybe, today will be peaceful.

You want to walk to the adjacent room and tell your father how pained you feel, tell him that those words, that the shouting voice hurts.

You look into the depthless sky, you want to tell him.

You dress yourself in that perfectly abstract shirt from Zara, take a swig of Listerine, and grab the aluminium door knob to the room.

You hold it, contemplating, the metal cooling your hands.

You open the door. There sits your dad, typing on his computer ever so calmly. He turns around, the muscles on his face contorting into a cheerful expression with not a morsel of remorse from yesterday, or any day for that matter.

You lose it.

You tell him of your cries, echoing in the bathroom walls like that of a wounded beast, you tell him how an invisible hand squeezed and squeezed your chest, sending out guttural sounds, how the waves of darkness crashed against your consciousness, how you, for one moment, wanted a gleaming dagger in your chest.

At least that way, your blood flows quietly.

...

Then silence.

His face contorts.

You see only darkness, you tell him that sometimes, you lock yourself inside because you know what’s in the kitchen.

You say, weakly:

“Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t locked it, because I had the courage to end it, once and for all.”

His annoyance turned to fury.

“Those are the actions of the weak, they deserve to be eliminated. You are weak, and for you to hurt yourself, admit it, all you are trying to do is to punish me. Whether you think so or not, you don’t understand, I do. Get out.”

Then silence, as you shut the door, lock your bedroom, and tears well in your eyes.

As you become a weakling, as you are eliminated.

As your heart and soul tear to pieces.

. . .

The man dismisses his son’s words because he fears them, he fears that the son may be right, that he is hurting him. He stops seeing, he stops listening, because he says his son is naïve.

Perhaps, as the marble stains red, he will see.

---

This story illustrates the common trait of self-centralism, where relationships between people are tarnished by one person’s inability to accept the other and their emotions. This one person is blinded by his/her own emotions and his/her own beliefs to see the damage it causes to the other person. The number of parent-child relationships as well as romantic relationships that are torn apart by this devilish trait is saddening, for if that one person could realise that he/she isn’t the only person in the world, and that the emotions of the other person matter too, then together they could sort out their issues and come out with a stronger bond.

~ Bryan Carmichael

[ink.] Deputy Editor-in-Chief

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