Slurp

I ruthlessly tortured the keyboard as I saw my Ford GT run at the speed of 92 miles/hour. Go for it, go for it, go for it, my brain perfectly synchronized my hands and my eyes. But I failed, yet again. I grabbed a bunch of crackers and gobbled them up, one of which silently fell on the ground. As I pushed the chair back and got up to leave, I crushed that tiny piece of cracker with my bare foot. Hastily, I tied my deteriorating hair in a bun and dragged my body into the kitchen. I hugged mom from behind and mumbled “what’s for dinner, mom?” “Chicken curry and rice” My stomach suddenly felt empty and let out a wild dinosaur-like sound. I just wanted to put those gravy coated leg pieces mixed with jeera rice inside my mouth, and allow every taste bud to touch the mingling juices of the chicken and rice. Dadimaji always emphasised on chicken being my favourite food for two weird reasons- “All Punjabis are hardcore chicken lovers”, she would say that it’s in the blood. She’d also say “When you were in your mother’s womb, she’d only eat chicken, and so much that she delivered the same cravings to you”. I would innocently suffice myself with her answers and the chicken while sitting by her side. Each time, I would lick the plate clear, not even worrying about the traces of vim bar in the carelessly washed dishes. “How long before it’s prepared, mom?” “An hour, at least” The greed was making me restless, and I lost my way into the kitchen every five minutes to check up on the dinner. Yes, I was a big foodie. However, I soon realized that it was going to take longer than I expected. Dragging my slender body back into my den, I fell with a thud on my bed and stared up at the computer screen. I hit play and focused my eyes on my Ford GT. In my head, the fear persisted stronger than ever, I knew I was killing too much time, and fat was building up in the wrong places. I was playing NFS, yet my brain was concentrating on how my body was rusting with every passing day. My brain was very little consumed, my body had started aching, and my back could barely stay straight for 10 seconds. Reflexively, I would bring it back to relax in the leaning position. I was going nowhere with my musical dream, I was growing shallow with each passing day. It was the easiest to just let things happen automatically without any stress and burden, or perhaps, it was the easiest to let events take over my life. My thighs were beefing up noticeably, and the only closest thing to my heart was my laptop, it had swiftly replaced my previous lover, music. It was disgusting but I hadn’t combed my hair properly for the past 6 months. I was terrified seeing my first grey hair, I knew something was wrong, and I knew what it was. I also had prominent love handles and my once flat tummy looked like a soon-to-be-potbelly. I scrawled a few to-do notes on a parchment and left it fluttering under a deodorant bottle. The guilt was killing me, I’d wasted years corroding my brain and building castles in the air with some exquisite shining blue magical powder. There was no powder that would miraculously fit things perfectly into the puzzle.