From under the Mask

When I was rushed to the hospital by my friends, I had already exhausted my breath, the energy to breathe and the willpower to not blackout. Its a haze to me how the nurse had strapped a mask over my mouth and started nebulization.I had a vague memory of her injecting medicines into my veins, but i was already beyond feeling the pain of the prick. As the medication seeped into my airways, my body was trying to recover from the panic attack I had a couple of hours earlier.

In that moment of breathlessness and anguish, my mind was moving away from me. I was floating into a different dimension of lucidity. I saw my life as if through a kaleadoscope. My Dad cracking my fingers when i was little, the yellow and black mickey mouse birthday frock, fearfully standing on stage facing the whole college, the green goblin remains in a laddu,smelling the scent of security and warmth while sleeping off in an autoriskshaw, the stiff body of my baby cat and so many more.

As my body slowly shuts down and I succumb to the fatigue, I feel empty yet happy at the same time.I felt no remorse,no pain, nothing.  All the "what ifs", all the bad memories, all the worries just fade away into a grey mist of emptiness.It had not vanished,it just did not matter anymore. People never realise that they are slaves of their past and future. That freedom is in the present. That precious timeframe that we call "now". Only if you live in the moment, dive into the ocean of spontaneity will you breath the fresh air of freedom.

I may be the one wearing an oxygen mask, struggling for air. But out there there are a lot of people who wear masks of emotions, hesitant to unmask, fearing to let go of their past, grudgingly following conventions they don't understand, carrying a burden that they don't realize  I don't want to be that person. So what if I'm  alone and lost. At least I don't have to drag along pain with me. My mind is as free as the wind not enclosed in a physical body, not corrupted by emotions and beyond my physical control.