FORBIDDEN HAPPINESS

New Year’s resolutions make me nostalgic because it forces me to use my brain cells to think about the past year first and also set expectations for the coming one. But eventually, we all fail to keep our New Year’s resolutions mainly because we’re human and humans tend to emotionally disappoint themselves pretty often.

Like this year, I was to complete a full novel but look at me, I’m pathetic and the only thing close to writing is probably reading a novel. Because of that it makes me feel like I have emotionally disappointed my soul. This would be another disappointment thrown into the emotional baggage that I carry all around me. Actually, because of this terrible addition, resting is now a problem for my soul is punishing me. It is not allowing me to engage in normal sleeping activity for months now.

This sets me on fire. This lack of sleep turns into an unknown rage that can’t be controlled. I wish I had a way to tame it like how a zookeeper usually tames the wild cats. I wish I could take all my rage, fit it in a bottle. I would then take this bottle up to the highest floor, using a lift of course. After all these years of suffering there is no way I would want to hurt my legs by climbing onwards using the stairs.

Anyway, once I get to the top floor, I would take this bottle and throw it out when nobody’s looking. Nobody will know about it for I am a coward. As the bottle falls to the ground, I would watch it, every second until I hear that loud shattering sound that would nearly deafen me.

But actually there are two huge holes in my plan. Firstly, there is no such thing as alone. There’s always a pair of eyes that is watching me. Even if a court decides that I am not guilty of raping a woman, in His eyes, He saw me. Eventually what I did came knocking on my door. He would know if I did this. He would know that I wanted to kill my rage. Killing one’s rage could be a crime for all I know. In here, everything I do seems to have a punishment. The second thing – hell has no buildings. There’s no way I can find a high storey or a lift for that matter and really it would kill me all over again to use the stairs.

Hell is no different from earth really (especially if you used to be a servant of money, feeling no love or joy. Just wanting to survive and climb higher up the corporate ladder). We just continue our lives where we left off. I was killed immediately after my verdict. Car crash. So there isn’t much I can pick up from really. That’s why I get to chose to be whatever I wanted to be. It seems like history is repeating itself. I’m still a failure. I still cannot write as much as I want to. I’ve been here forever and not once have I completed any of the novels I have started on.

Maybe I’m only good at killing people, or destroying the lives of innocent people. My best friend here is someone who couldn’t control his rage as well. He stabbed his wife while they were having an argument over whose turn it was to pay the bills. It’s stupid really the things rage can make us do. He did go to jail though. So going to jail doesn’t mean that one can escape hell. Either way we’re still punished all over again for the little wrongs that we did. Oh, my best friend here, he too died in a car crash.

We don’t know what heaven feels like or looks like for that matter. All I know is that hell isn’t what we thought it would be. Hell isn’t full of fire. Hell doesn’t burn us. Hell is exactly like Earth.

I try and try really hard to think about something in my life that was happy. I can’t recall anything. I know that on Earth there was such an emotion called love but I can’t recall being loved. I don’t think I had parents or any siblings. My childhood memories are gone. I wonder if I ever was a child. I know that on Earth we have zoos. I might have been to one; I can’t remember. I can’t remember how the zoo made me feel (that is if I went to one). I don’t know if I had a wife or a girlfriend. I can’t remember feeling happy or making anyone happy but I know that on Earth humans are supposed to make each other feel happy and we’re not supposed to feel alone. I can’t remember ever being successful.

All I remember is her screams as I slowly tore her apart. All I remember was being a failure. Guilt. The car crash was really painful. I remember hitting my head and bleeding to death. I remember the roof of the car crushing down on my legs; making them stuck. Because they were stuck the paramedics couldn’t remove me as quick as possible. When they could it was too late. I remember that pain. It still hurts. I remember my hands on her. I remember her tortured face. I remember my run down apartment. I remember drinking every night, all alone. I remember all that rage and sadness. I remember I was a failure.

Hell removes all the happy memories I had. Everyone here is exposed to everyone else’s pain. All I feel is my pain, guilt and emptiness multiplied by the millions of souls that are here with me.

Hell doesn’t have to burn me to make me die everyday. Hell is a form of self punishment; an amplification of all the sad, hurtful, painful and guilty acts one has ever done. Hell is an eternal self torture. I am in hell so a new year means nothing to me for I’m living in the past.