“Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, fetal heartbeat. It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory; dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked. Unspeakable. Numb. And to an observer therefore, perhaps barely there. Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his past. Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it.”

- The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy

this is perhaps how i feel these days. or perhaps it was already there all along and only became more pronounced over the years. i dont understand why this anxiety grabs hold of me when the occasion for conversation comes around. it seems to victimize everyone. there comes a point in the conversation where the fear sets in and i work feverishly to find a topic.. just in case. like a score card i have to slot into memory banks to caution against the looming, awkward break.

it happens with everyone, even with people i'm very fond of and am pleased to run into. it goes something like this :

"HEY! LONG TIME NO SEE!"

"OMG HI!"

"how are you?!"

"oh i'm not doing much these days, army you know... what about you?"

"it feels like you've been in army forever! i'm blah blah blah"

i smile. a brittle smile. 

and i can't think of anything else to say. once the pleasantries are over there's a pause. a very pregnant pause. too audible to ignore. and once you try again, the cracks are obvious and a flimsy coat of effort just falls flat. i try very hard to keep that awkwardness at bay but the more i try the more it rears up.

i am genuinely pleased to see the person - the spark flares, incandescent initially but sputters and stutters its way into a slow, feeble death. the other person is perhaps left confused, memories of good times, jovial times swirl up but are dissipated by the faltering reception they've encountered. it's come to the point where i'm afraid to be left alone with most people. even in camp, i actively ensure that i do not end up doing my duty with another individual. i'll trade, barter, sweet talk others, angling it just so that i either end up alone or there's company. i hope no one notices. but inevitably, even the newcomers recede away from me and i know i'm the one building up the Impenetrable Zone, ever so steadily. three people's fine. just not two. 

even with writing i'm struggling. recently i had the opportunity to read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. and his writing was so alluring, executed with such precision, that i'm left in a stupor, as if i myself had been in love with the Lisbon sisters. perhaps i am trying to see if i can effect a semblance to his style but it is not even a pale shadow of Mr.Eugenides'. 

i just told nick that i don't think i even know how it feels like to be romantic anymore. it's being gnawed out of me, the bit that concocts the ingredients a heart needs to go on.

now i am so out of touch with something so pleasant and simple that i wonder what we had to talk about at all. i wonder if i can even fill up ten minutes worth of talk time now let alone five hours.

it has yet to abate. 

but my resolve is starting to.