The Chains I Once Wore…
A short story
“Yo, Good news.”
“What? What?”
“I quit!”
“No….”
“Yes!”
“No…”
“Yes!”
The conversation swiftly transitioned to the two of us squealing like school girls over the phone for 5 minutes. When the laughter and excited gossip died down, she said something that stuck with me.
“It’s all good and all. But I do sort of feel sorry for our supervisor.”
The conversation died at that moment and we shared a moment of silent contemplation, broken by an awkward goodbye a few seconds later.
“Anyway, let’s catch up later. Bye.”
“Yeah… Bye.”
Thinking about that conversation and how all the joy and excitement faded into silence made me think back to my short working experience at that organization. I think I hated it, or maybe I was incompetent and self-centered. It might not have been the perfect fit for me. But the more I think about it, the more confusing it gets. I get lost in a spiral of self-doubt and unanswered questions that drag me down to the bottom of a very dark and scary place. Then it spits me out just to do it all over again. So I do what helps me most: I write. I hope you enjoy it.
What was the crime I committed?
What did I steal? Whom did I murder?
Please… Just tell me what I did to be locked up in here?
I asked these questions from the void before me and it answered back with cold, cruel, and ceaseless… silence.
I turned away and stared back at the row of paintings that depicted my life in intricate paintings.
If the void before me could not answer, then maybe my memories held what I seek.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and ran, ran as fast as a slightly overweight introvert could. I ran back to the beginning, back to my mother, back to freedom, back to the moment I sat in my cot without a care in the world with my warm milk and books detailing the complexities of A, B, and C.
Where did it all go wrong?
I started walking back to the present observing every painting with a critical eye. I saw paintings of toys, cute bundles of joy, and temper tantrums on trolley rides.
I was such a baby back then, but then again, I literally was a baby back then.
A few more paintings passed me by and one exhibit framed in grey caught my eye. It was titled, “Destiny — the movie”.
“Who do you want to be when you grow up? Doctor, lawyer, or engineer?”
“I wanna be, a house husband.”
“Doctor, lawyer, or engineer?”
“I wanna be, a house husband…”
“Doctor, lawyer, or engineer?”
“Um… I wanna be… an engineer?”
“Yes, you were born to be one.”
I had answered the question with a question and the question became my answer. I remember that day well. I was wearing a well-ironed white shirt and royal blue shorts — the everyday uniform of any prospective Sri Lankan child with a bright future ahead of him. The question was asked and answered by a teacher that knew consistency and tradition were the only keys to success. She was a recruiter charmed by the system. A system that maintained its inner workings in pristine perpetuity from generations past to generations to come.
I stood there before the painting.
Was this my crime? Agreeing to an answer that was not mine.
Years passed by, every moment a painting encased in frames of oak, steel, and rubber — each material a preview of what was inside. Some were moments of strength, some were moments of resilience, and others of wayward decisions made with no backbone.
The next row of paintings depicted a series of events played out in a mundane sequence accompanied by a monotone soundtrack. Go to school, pass your exams, get into university, and once you complete your 4 years, everything will be made clear. Everything will fall into place.
Well, everything did fall, but not into place. I saw an empty frame made of clay — the painting in pieces scattered across the marble floor. It was all a puzzle with missing pieces adrift in the wind.
Was this my crime? To tear up the destiny prophesied by the system?
The next painting depicted the chains of financial dependence infused with peer pressure. These were the chains that dragged me kicking and screaming into my occupation.
I was arrested by the system, judged by society, sentenced by tradition, and chained to responsibility, all for a crime I didn’t know I committed.
I was thrust into the world of corporate speak and profit margins. My very own occupational prison.
We were placed in our cells from 9 to 5 to perform mind-numbing musicals on plastic piano keys that ranged from A to Z. We played the sheet music printed on memos to entertain the wardens in their A/C offices — buttocks firmly placed on cushioned seats. If they were satisfied with the show, we would get the monthly rations that helped us scrape by for 3 whole weeks. The words we had learned throughout our journey were distilled down to, “Yes sir, of course, madam, I’ll have it on your desk by Monday.”
When we were not inside the cells, we were in the prison yard, made to race on looping tracks. Deadlines after deadlines placed every 100m with no end in sight. We ran our laps but the counter always displayed, one more lap to go.
But there was one person there who made it feel alright. She was a mentor, a guide, a veteran that took me under her wing. She showed me how to squeeze through bars of rusted steel and loosened the cuffs around my wrists. I think I was happy or content with the sentence I had been given.
Maybe if I work harder? Maybe if I was on my best behavior I would be free?
That thought colored in the next painting in the gallery. Iron bars were fastened over the frames but inside the cell was a boy with no chains. I watched that boy work day in and day out. I watched him pour his heart and soul into the piano keys, going beyond the sheet music to create masterpieces that satisfied the highest authorities. There was a smile on his face as he ran to his mentor to show off this latest work of art.
“You did amazing.” was the reply, “You performed beyond my wildest expectations!”
Those words became heroin to the boy. He wanted to hear it again, and again, and again. He began to pour his heart and soul into his work and when that wasn’t enough, he cut his wrists and poured in his blood. He gave it everything he had. Day by day he dedicated more of his time, and when he didn’t have any time left in his pockets, he stole the time from his friends, his family, and even his lover. He became a shriveled husk — the perfect depiction of a dead man walking. He did it all with a smile on his face.
I felt my stomach twist, as I faced the boy that mirrored my image. I was in a prison, wasting away for a crime I had never committed.
That’s when the void finally answered my call. The voice of my mentor, a distant light in the unending darkness that lay before.
“You have so much potential.” her voice caressed my ear, “Don’t waste it here. Go out there and learn what life has to offer. Go out there and be free.”
And so I did. I ran forward into the void to see what more life had to offer — an escape from my occupational prison. But before I moved on to paint the next chapter on this gallery named life, I looked back at my mentor. She stood there, the warmest smile on her face, tears of joy in her eyes, and the chains I once wore around her wrists.