He held his head in his hands.
Battling against yourself is so difficult…
No, you can’t be so stupid. You have absolutely no earthly reason to get depressed.
I know, but I can’t help it.
What the hell do you mean by that??
Get lost, now, will you? I need peace.
STOP being a martyr. You’re fine. You’re being silly, and you know it.
Go away! For Christ’s sake.
Jack got up and walked across the room, lit only by a table-lamp in a corner. The lamp cast a dim light around it, as though reluctant to illuminate the room any further.
See, you’re even setting the ambience to get all the more depressed.
Oh, go away.
Go and suffer. You know what I have to say, anyway.
Oh, I hate you.
Yourself, you mean.
WILL YOU GO AWAY?
Everything was perfect. His entire life was planned. Everything set out neatly, like a pile of books stacked in a shelf. In perfect order- the bigger ones at the bottom and the smaller ones at the top. A book that disrupted the order was put away; an outcaste. All in all, it seemed like a perfect arrangement.
He walked up and down the room to clear his mind. He probed his mind in search of the reason for his crankiness. He found none. Just a state of emptiness. Like he hadn’t eaten for days. Brain battled the heart as it told him to be logical. Logic… everything doesn’t go by the rules of logic. Everything isn’t clearly defined. Sometimes the hazy outlines of things blend to form shapes you never knew existed…
With nothing else to do, he locked the door and stepped out into the street. A new shopping mall caught his eye.
Eww, shopping. I’ll only do that to myself if I’m in dire need of something.
Wandering around, he could find no interesting place to visit. The place held no newness for him. Newness never exists, you only create it. You choose to be interested. In things, in life. He knew it. Yet, his usual cheerful ideas didn’t help him today. They even mocked him, you could say. ‘Fine, let me go to the mall, anyway’, he decided.
The cold air from the AC hit his face as he walked in. Usually a keen observer of everything around him, he just walked in, shrugging off the sensation. Brightly coloured stuff stared at him through the shops. As if magnetically pulled by it, he walked in. He saw himself fingering the T-shirts hung tantalizingly. He found himself buying one. A strange sense of happiness grew in him. No, it wasn’t happiness. A temporary sense of achievement, it could be called. It waned as suddenly as it had risen but he felt slightly better. Jack widened his mouth in a smile and went out.
-------------------------------
Robert, his colleague and someone who’d known him for years walked upto Jack.
‘Wow, new clothes? And a new watch to go with it, I see? Found a girlfriend to take you shopping?’ he winked.
‘Nope. There’s this really cool mall near my house...’
Robert watched Jack describe his shopping spree in painful detail. ‘Something’s funny. I had to drag him to buy clothes so that he’d stop looking like a ruffian.’
Not voicing his doubts, he left, slightly uneasy but unable to detect anything abnormal.
As the days went buy, the shops in town got to know Jack better and better. They greeted him and made him comfortable; he was one of their best customers. Jack flitted from shop to shop, each buy giving him a high like a tequila shot. He couldn’t allow the high to go away so he shopped again, the time gaps between his shopping lessening.
-------------------------
Robert watched Jack walk into office, whistling away. 'That’s a new watch again. And new shoes as well, If I’m not wrong’, he guessed. A mental image of someone filling an empty box with things came to his mind. The person was filling it with determination writ on his face but the box was as empty as ever. ‘Yes, he’s filling his life with stuff. What is up with him? I hope he’s not into drugs or something…’ he shuddered, remembering his neighbour who’d succumbed to drugs and died a year ago. It had been just the matter of a girl. Nothing that common sense and a little counseling wouldn’t have eased out. ‘But he made the wrong choices’, Robert remembered. Making up his mind to talk to Jack, he walked into his cubicle.
‘Hey, Robert, what’s up?’
‘Um, I wanted to talk to you’, he said without any further beating around the bush.
‘About?’
For a whole hour Robert listened as Jack talked like he never had before. Robert watched, half-tensed, half-curious. Jack said every single thing, including his own wonder as to what was bothering him after all.
‘I’m glad you let it out. I hope you feel ok now’, Robert told him.
Robert walked out, convinced that Jack was finally alright and that the shopping sprees would cease. Jack had been spending most of his salary, he’d noticed. ‘Thankfully, that’s all over now.’ He exhaled.
Back in his cubicle, Jack switched on his computer. “Buy and sell at great prices! Visit www.buywhatyouwant.com”
Click.
