CHAPTER 2-Humming of the brain

Empath-The Feeler

Patriotism is almost romantic. At least how it is deemed to be, in our part of the country. Patriotism is green and white here, crescent and star, on the cricket ground, against blue shirts, especially against blue shirts. Until recently that's pretty much all it was. But now things have seemed to change. Poverty, inflation and most of all what is famously a hoax government playing clown in the parliament, that is what has actually pushed the people of this country to understand and show actual patriotism. Coming out on the streets, chanting anti government slogans, that was taking us beyond the usual virtual slurs we threw on social media. This was uniting us, the people, against them, the corrupted, usurpers of the Land of the Pure (as what our country’s name is supposed to mean), the most undemocratic democracy in the world.

A twenty five-something year old woman cried on the prayer mat that night in early June, the start of summer vacation. She liked to think and call herself, Empath. This was a reason why she could feel so deeply the remorse and dismay of the underprivileged around her so empathetically. This is why this particular night she frivolously prayed for the lower middle and lower classes after the last of her five prayers of everyday.

The price hikes had been terrible since the last fifty days, there were heart wrenching posts on the social media about young fathers thinking about suicide as their means of income were insufficient to support their families and the deficit would kill them either literally, or only in intervals by pushing them below the poverty line. Patriotism curled itself up like a semi hard ball that she was trying to gulp down while sitting on the dinner table with her family listening to the nine o’clock news. It took a good two more hours to wind up the dishes and table and go to her room, make ablution and get time right before midnight to pour out her heart to her Creator while prostrating. It was only then finally that, that imaginary ball went from semi hard, to semi soft, to smaller and finally through her throat out her eyes, salty and hot, earnest and genuine, she felt the pain of the people, actually felt, not just to say, but actually to mean, as if it was her literally standing on the border of a bridge to jump to her death, as many young men weighed the possibility of that night. Patriotism took a new turn, it was no longer associated with the country’s victory, but it was now associated with the hope to remove the corrupted and the need of survival…survival of Empath from the pain that slices her every single time she really listens to anyone’s sob story. She knew she needed to learn how to cope with it, at this rate, she would only drain herself emotionally.

To top it, what would she explain to the world, or to any sane headed therapist too, who would not be able to believe even slightly when she would narrate that she can actually feel what others feel, if she concentrated hard enough. It was more natural and easier when it was pain. Happiness that others felt, she felt, but it wasn’t painful. However, if anyone underwent pain, that was a whole different story, she could feel, and the more she cared for someone, the more its presence was daunting. Which is why she secretly called herself the Empath; because superheroes exist only in Marvel or X Men movies or novels and she was no human-turned-into-vampire. Reality was much different, even stranger. People only fantasized super beings, they actually accepted normal, and Empath knew since long she was not normal, sometimes extraordinary, other times, just plainly abnormal but definitely NOT normal. Her sense to sense others' feelings and notions were not merely based on intuition, but also natural. She would have recordings playing in her head since as long as she could remember. It had such a long time now she could no longer distinguish whether they were merely sounds in her head or actual perceptions of those around her. She could sense fear, anger, jealousy, hate, lust very quickly. She sometimes hated her overthinking, the constant hum of thoughts in her mind, never silent, seldom dead, even when she'd be dead…asleep. Empath had over the years realized, unintentionally, that she was something of a telepath. She felt it was a gift from her Lord and Creator, for all the bad days she had been through, it was Their little secret, so she never confided to anyone about it blatantly. She would hint at the radical idea and then carefully laugh it off sounding humorous to never make anyone realize that she actually meant what she had said. That is what sophisticated girls in the subcontinent did, she smiled politely, served and were mostly trophy wives. But they never dared to be anything more.

Until recently Empath was coming to terms that she cocooned unnecessarily so far, she was not for taming, never had been and so the silk strands that bound her became stifling and throat choking. Empath knew she would try to break free soon.