Body Map | Day 1

The room was spotless white – floors, walls, people. Three white tiled walls and the fourth one a mirror. As I sat there reclining on the chair testing its tolerance, I wondered endlessly if there is a mirror on the wall or it is a mirror wall.

“Hah!, that is what landed me here. My love for anything trivial.”

My first day at the rehab and I was resolute on planting the ‘harmless-girl’ image. Everywhere, it has to be the same. Walk under the radar. Slip under the radar. Jump over the radar. Shimmy in the radar. It’s just a line, anyway.

‘Show us your story’ it says on the body map page. They offered me a colour pencil set but I needed only one.

“Hey, where’re you lost?”, asked the girl sitting next to me.

“Sorry? Who ar…”

“I love colouring these! Don’t you?”

“It’s my first day here, I haven’t done this before”, I said as she looked away, filling the sheet enthusiastically. She had a cotton ball in one hand with which she mixed the colours occasionally, making sure it never went out of the outline. The look on her face was priceless, she could have been the happiest person on the planet at that moment, or for a while. Her eyes glowed like the dying white of the room, starkly contrasting the black gown she wore. 

I stared at my blank sheet. Making friends at such a place, is the last thing I want. I don’t want to be good to people. It creates a dilating circle of being good for the sake of meeting expectations, and that frustrates me. I hate it when someone worries for me, and all of that starts with one kind word, a soft smile, a friendly gesture…I want to be like the air in oxygen tanks –  someone who can be used at times of need and not cared for otherwise. 

Why is it bad that I don’t feel the need to be happy? I just want to stay where I am. 

What made me the way I am? When did everything in my head get so twisted. There’s never an answer for it. It just happens. On my way to where I am, I became who I am. 

‘Show us your story’ – The words flashed in my face. 

They want me to show my story in colours.

I wonder what is the colour of words.