By Meghna Manglani
Image Credits: Pinterest
I was standing on my balcony under a roof surrounded by tall, strong, beautiful big trees moving vigorously around, both of us trying to enjoy the heavy rain that was filled with lightning and thunderstorms. I was confused. Should I enjoy this “beautiful” rain of April or be worried?
At first, I was enjoying my filter coffee, sipping it with Nankhatai biscuits, with the wind gushing through my ears and the sound of the interaction between the trees and the rain. It was almost as if they were talking to each other and I was the third party sneakily trying to listen to their conversation.
Their conversation helped me stay connected to myself and experience each moment that I was living with them. As I walked up to the edge of the balcony trying to listen to their conversation more intensely, it hit me that they weren’t enjoying what was happening. They were tired of us. They were tired of working their asses off saving us.
Saving you and me. Saving themselves. Saving themselves from us.
Who is us, you ask? Us is the human being that has been on this planet using every single piece of them from the day we are born, shamelessly, that is theirs. Now you ask, who are they? Them is the planet. Nature. The air you breathe. The water you drink. The trees that shelter you. The fellow beings that coexist with you.
Standing closer to the conversation, my enjoyment started turning into fear. Fear that this is the first of many lasts that I will enjoy them, not with them. I can right now point out how selfish, self-centred, greedy creatures we are. Because as you see, for me, the fear is that I will not be able to “enjoy them” and not the fact that I will not be able to “enjoy with them” anymore. Can you point out the difference? It is almost as if I am entitled to enjoy them.
Well, I am not. None of us are. You see, they existed way before we did. They in reality created us. It was their home and we hijacked it. They still were happy to welcome us with open arms. They helped us evolve and reach where we are today. And to date, we still keep using them for our selfish reasons like a toxic person feeding off from the other in a relationship.
Everything has an expiry date. You, me, them, and this toxic relationship that we have created with them. Since they are now realizing who we are and how toxic we are, they are ready to leave us piece by piece. They already have started. Forest fires, landslides, tornados, tsunamis, floods, and earthquakes. They are breaking down because of us; because we left them no choice.
What you don’t realize is that we are breaking down too with them.
Human deaths that occurred during floods, earthquakes, forest fires, tornados, tsunamis, landslides, and the very current global pandemic that we are trying to survive in. Even though I am one of you, I am on their side. We very much had it coming. We really truly deserve it. A toxic relationship has to end someday. The toxicity of the relationship that we very much created is now eating both of us, slowly, but the impact it is creating is much deeper than we can comprehend with us our selfish, self-absorbed, entitled minds right now.
It is too late. We are at the start of the end. We don’t deserve them simply because we don’trespect them, we never have. This cry for help is not for them but for us. A cry for help that we are in denial of right now. A help from them. An apology from us and probably if we are luckyeven though we don’t deserve it, a forgiveness from them.
A truce. A friendship. One last chance. To survive. To live. To help and to enjoy with them. But why should they agree to any of this? What do we have to offer them?
Winter is coming.
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