When people run in circles

it's a very, very 

mad world

--
Gary Jules, Mad World

She ain't no angel,

but if she were one, she'd look like this.

Rohini

If she tried, she could remember frantic afternoons, pressing his hurting legs, and suppressing her own hurt, as he spoke of his imminent death. I do not wish to be nasal fed, he’d declared. And she’d thought of the ugliness, the futility of it, and fervently agreed.

And yet when she’d found herself by him in the hospital, the dietitian strongly recommending nasal feeding, she had tried to be something she wasn’t -- cheerful and giving him assurances she herself didn’t believe in, and playfully admonishing to agree. Everybody had decided to extend his life that way, and she had readily cast aside her own convictions to do what was asked of her. All because she was jealous of the dietitian’s easy confidence and good humour that could coax smiles off her father.

(She had been so quick to hurt, when he’d stopped letting her kiss his cheek, cuz it suffocated him to have anyone so near to his face.)

Everybody called her strong. They told her that they wouldn't have been half as strong as her, had they been in her place. But she hadn't been strong enough to support him, when he’d recoiled from the thought of having a pipe shoved down his nose and hadn't the strength to really protest.

She was supposed to do what she needed to do. And what her father had needed was not for her to join in those thoughtless entreaties for him to accept it for his own good. Her mother hadn't understood, but she had -- that fervent desire to be dead, rather than suffer through painful days holding off death. And it was unpardonable, that she had not stood up for what had been one of his last wishes, that she hadn't stood up for what she had believed in.

Drabble: Pieces of nothing

She’d never regretted that she hadn’t stayed, that evening before he’d died. It was not life, that count down to death, and she hadn’t wanted to be a part of it. He’d been asleep, and she didn’t think she could stand it, watching him struggle for breath, selfishly wanting it to be over, to put it all behind her.

Months later, she found that without the anger, the worry, the fear, the need to be of use -- all inextricably linked to him -- she was just an empty shell, of that he’d wanted her to be, but she wasn’t.

Drabble: Don't give up on yourself, love

What was he thinking, that she'd fall right into his arms, look up at him, and tell him she'd been miserable without him? Well, she had been miserable, enough that she had absolutely no intention of giving him that power over her again. She knew enough of him that he’d stay away, if she asked him to, but could she make him stay the hell out of her mind? She didn't quite know. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try. She bit back the sharp, bitter accusations, but her answer wouldn't change: No.


---
Ashi and Dhruv, in case you're wondering

Ze flatlanders. Or not.

When I entered the house, Ma'd just settled into Kaun Banega Crorepati, with all the anticipation of watching the guy win 5 crores. When are you going to cook dinner? she asked. Cuz I'd promised last night that I would. Aalu ka shorva. I replied non-committally, and later, when Mr Bachchan asked something about what had Bal Gangadhar Tilak accepted in dowry, besides some khadi, I burst out, 'two potatoes?'

Mother dear was all shocked, she was. 'Two potatoes?!' Meanwhile, Mr Bachchan was reeling out options for that 1 crore question, and only when she saw that none of them options was two potatoes, did she calm down. "Mm," I replied, "and three spoons of oil?" 'The potatoes are tiny,' ma considered aloud, 'use three. no, all four.' And I scurried into the kitchen to find them.

I tell you, if I believed in spirits and devils, and the like, the first place I'd go looking for them is in the just-sprouted eyes of them 'tatoes. Downright scary, they are. And ebil.

---
I beg yer pardon, if the title was more interesting than the post. But I shan't beg forgiveness, if said title is in need of elaboration.