Category : Stories

Sub Category : YoungAdult

Mia, looks so happy that day that weekend, even she stays back when her whole family going out for the day. Her plan is to make friends at her new college, her new mates planned to go out for the day, and she seems to be invited to join them, that made her happy as ever. I must say about Mia, she’s a good hearted and obviously vulnerable, people hardly get along with her, and she believed that the college life will feed some wonderful friends to her.

And it was sunny, Mia came out of her flat that was in the fourth floor, and there were two other apartments nearby, shading the direct sun to hit her delicate skin. Around 8.30 am, Mia took her bike keys…
‘Hey Mia, take care and keep the house safe’ its Mia’s mom.
‘Sure mom’ she smiled with excitement.
‘And have a good day dear’
She took the keys and ran out of the house, the sun welcomed her very entry, She stood at the center square facing the road and the three tall apartments behind looked like a stage with sun above acts as a limelight, she felt like an Artist and this day should be an artwork. She took her phone and messaged one of the friends and started her bike. Before moving, thinking something, she turned her head and looked at the nearby apartment, she was looking at the flat on the third floor, and the door was still closed. Her face frowned, she felt little puzzled and worried as usual with a hesitant sigh she started to move. 

She was both happy and little disturbed, but the excitement caught her, gliding through the roads in the concrete jungle like a charming princess roaring on the streets on a horse, moving closer to closer, her ecstasy doubled, tripled and finally reached the destination, It was her college. She picked her phone and glanced the chat, no reply, she tried calling them one by one, by no one picked up the call. She drove all the roads around the college but unfortunately, they weren’t there. She began to realize that they might cut her loose, but why? She asked herself. I was good to them, indeed very good, why it’s me, that everyone never wanted to get along?

Got angry on herself, controlling all the emotions, biting her own teeth hard like a dam trying to control the millions of emotions rather than water, she started her bike, with heavy breaths up and down. While driving 100 meters from there, the dam collapsed, the summer sun with a humid air, helped the emotions to break the barrier. Tears overflowed from her eyes, she whimpered on the streets. The feeling of rejected again and again broke her esteem completely, she felt worthless. And this incident reinforced her belief that she’s not deserved to be loved.

‘Why do everyone do avoid me? I was so true to them, I treated them very nice’ she cried to herself. ‘Why nobody wants to spend time with me? Am I worthless to live?’ questioning herself again and again. She just couldn’t understand and literally hate herself to the core of the earth. It was indeed a long cry, lasted for 40 minutes with bullet questions and her heart shattered at every passing bullet. With a trembling body and shaky voice, she drove back to her neighborhood. 

She came back to the stage surrounded by apartments and lit by sun, she’s never normal, she checked her phone again for a reply, it was 10.10 am, but no reply. She sat on a nearby bench and looked at the nearby apartment, the third floor flat, the door’s still closed. She closed her eyes and whined, very hard, yelling ‘I never found my home and I will never going to find it’ and that anger made her to remember the time when she was first broken more like the same now, but was 3 years before. 

It was the time, when Mia was at her higher secondary schooling. On a summer weekend, she hold the same place where she’s now. The bench under the sun, surrounded by three apartments, and she remembers that she was crying on that day too, same like now happening. Nothing much changed in her life, but the only thing that was different on the memory was a helping hand, a woman. Mia still remembers her face completely. Naomi looked like an angel to her, and she was the only friend Mia ever got.

She was crying that day, for more than an hour, and even that too her whole family went off. Mia was so heartbroken that desperately needed some care. A woman watching from her flat on the third floor realized that this girl needs something, and after five minutes…
‘Hey, are you okay?’ that woman asked the wailing Mia. Mia was so hesitant to see her face, continue wailing, soon it was becoming hard for the woman.
‘Look girl’ she touched Mia’s chin and rose up, ‘I don’t know what you’re going through, but see people are there for you to help you’ tried to pacify her, but it stimulates the anger.
‘Who the hell are peoples? Nobody wants me, nobody even consider me, and nobody understand that I have a heart? I just can’t feel myself’ Mia yelled out.
‘Is that a heartbreak dear?’
‘Ugh, what’s your problem? I can’t even make friends here, how I can love with this pathetic self’ tigress roared again.
That woman giggled instantly thus fueled Mia’s anger more, ‘sorry dear, you know what? You’re the nicest one’ woman replied. After hearing that, Mia’s anger turned to confusion, ‘yes, I feel like that and I hate myself for that, how do you guess?’ she asked. 
‘Tell me your name, girl?’
‘Name? Okay, am Mia’
‘Mia, Tell me what happened?’
‘I am bad at making friends, and whenever I try, they tease me. I feel less confident and less certain of myself. It feels like they don’t want a girl who talks soft and always treat them good. Is being good that bad?’
‘Remember Mia, good peoples are vulnerable. Being good is not bad, it’s hard, and so they chose to be bad’
‘You know, yesterday my classmates, two girls, who used to tease me, locked the toilet door when am in and I was shouting for help. And someone opened the door two hours after’ Mia cried hard, and that woman let her to cry, Mia then continued ‘And they draw faces and name it my name, and the whole class laughed when I returned back from the toilet, isn’t it embarrassing? Even I haven’t done anything to them, I can’t really hate them, I feel pity about myself, and they’re gifted’
‘I don’t think, you need their friendship Mia’
‘But I don’t have anyone on my side’
‘Can you answer me a question Mia?’
Mia’s face frowned, but she managed to nod her head. 
‘What you see in them that you not see in you?’
‘Obviously, that’s happiness’ 
The woman chuckled again and wanted to make her realize things, she asked again,
‘How they’re happy and why you’re unhappy?’

Mia thought about it for a while, ‘what’s their happiness? Mia was confused, thought of saying ‘I can’t figure it out’ but she thought of their actions, what do they do? And the answer flashed,
‘They bully, they hurt others and they happy. They’re not evil, but it’s bad to hurt someone’
‘Yes, correct. And what’s your happiness?’

Again Mia was perplexed, ‘I don’t know what makes me happy.’
‘Think about it, I have to go now’
‘Go where? Answer me?’ Mia sadness turned in to confusion and that woman, with a smile said, 
‘Don’t worry, you have the answers within yourself. Tell me the answers when we meet again, I have to go the hospital now’

Mia nodded her head in confusion, she walked to her flat and laid on her bed asking the same question again and again.

………………

And in the present, Mia smiled at the confusion that stumbled her in the past. She’s such a wonderful woman, always like to play with my brain. But the pain in her heart still craving for the answer for the question. I found the answer before in my past, I know what makes me happy. She again looked at the door of the flat. It was closed for almost 3 years, and she knew it’ll never open again. And it was already 11.00am, there’s no reply from anyone. The meet supposed to be happened at 8.30am. She tried to convince herself, but it’s still the same. She’s still the same like once she was 3 years before. 

………………

And the question, what’s happiness? Haunted her that day. Laying on her bed, 16 year old girl, what she can do. She thought that she needs help, she went to her grandpa’s room. He’s sick, so he’s staying back with Mia that day.
‘Grandpa, can I ask you a question about life?’ she felt bad asking this to a man in her final days, but she asked it with a hesitation, after his nod. 
‘Tell me, what’s happiness?’
‘Satisfaction dear’
‘I thought it was laughing, that’s happiness’
‘No, child. Laughing usually never reach heart much, it only reach brain. Only satisfaction reaches heart’
‘Oh’ Mia wondered his thoughts.

Again someone confused the young lady, ‘what makes me satisfied, makes me happy’ said to herself. OK then, what’s the satisfying thing for me. She crushing her mind, and thought ‘I love to see people smiling and helping others satisfy me’ Yes, that’s my happiness, yahoo, I found my happiness’. She was happy that moment and kissed her grandpa on the head and rushed outside to the bench to meet the woman. But then she realized that she went to the hospital, she felt a great connection between themselves. She waited for the whole morning, afternoon. She froze her eyes from her room. She sat near the window and kept watching the path. And in the evening, the woman came down the path, Mia was excited and ran toward her.

‘Hey, thank god you came’ Mia was excited.
‘Relax, Mia’ Mia nodded her head.

Then they took a seat at the bench, ‘Tell me Mia’
‘First, tell me your name and your flat. I can’t wait for you here every time’
‘Sorry, am Naomi. I stay on that yonder apartment’ she pointed her finger towards the building.
‘What’s with the hospital? Are you okay?’
‘That’s no big deal, just went to cement my tooth’ 
‘Okay, actually I have been waiting for you since afternoon. I found my happiness, it’s seeing others happy and helping them’
‘Hmm, you’re right. And am right too. You’re the nicest. Then do you need their friendship?’
‘I don’t know, but I will be happy from tomorrow’
‘Ok Mia, but remember don’t lose hope on yourself, once you fail to be happy with your own self, then you will become stranger to your own soul’

While the conversation happening, people cross by them, stare at both of them. Mia doesn’t feel comfortable, but Naomi managed to turn her thoughts towards her.

‘Yes, I will start to love myself’
‘So, with those hard thinking, have you find you home’?
‘Home?’ she pointed her apartment, bewildered with the question.
‘What’s your home Mia?’
‘What’s my home? I don’t understand! Is it family?’

While Mai was so in to the conversation with both curiosity and excitement along with confusion, someone called Mia,
‘Hey Mia, come here’ It’s her mom, they all came back, the whole family. But Mia was reluctant to leave Naomi now. ‘Wait mom, I will come in half an hour’ she yelled. Then after a minute, her mom came to her and without saying a single word, she slapped Mia hard on her cheeks,
‘What’s your problem? Am calling you like hell, what you’re doing with woman. I should never see you with her again’ she said and pulled her hands away from Naomi. Mia’s mom kept squint her eyes on Naomi, Mia was irritated but nothing to do at the stage. Naomi felt unreacted, she smiled at Mia and walked back to the apartment.

………………

And that happened three years before, Mia now again in the same condition, still wondering every day for that answer. ‘What’s my home?’ Maybe am not ready for the answer, maybe she has the answer. Mia was at the bench, stood up, ‘I should find her, I know only she can give me the answers to my life, I should find her’. It was 12.00, noon time, she ignited the engine and started to fly through the known streets. Her eyes gazing everywhere, trying to find the single face that can solve the mysteries, like a pup search for its mother’s bud. After several tries, she recognized that the world is too big and lost all the confidence, and at 3.00pm, she drove back to her neighborhood. 

With the grave sadness, she lifted her head to see the door, it was open, Wow, and she was exclaimed. She dropped her bike and ran toward the flat and the door was little open. She went inside to meet Naomi, she heard the sound of a cat, she was little afraid, oh my god, Mia shocked to see Naomi was on the floor, near the window and the cat jumped from the window toward her.

She opened her bleary eyes when the cat, all seven pounds of squirming flesh, climbed onto her belly. Squinting into the sunlight streaming in from the open window, she discovered that she was now the weary possessor of a pounding headache, and at some point, had managed to lose both a tooth and a spouse.

Mia thought that she was hurt, and she noticed that Naomi was holding something in her hand. Naomi then wake up to see someone standing beside, was shocked. And with the partial conscious, she did identified Mia, but she couldn’t reply, constantly shaking her head.

‘Can I help you’ Mia asked in a light tone.
‘Yes, dear thanks. Can you please buy me something to drink, preferably hot’ Mia doesn’t know what she’s going through but brought her hot coffee and some snacks. After 10 minutes, Naomi gathered her senses to reply,
‘Sorry dear, I was little drunk lately’
‘That’s alright, tell me what happened to you, where were you all these years?’
‘I was kind of married and, me and my spouse stayed somewhere on the sub urbs’ Naomi still looked tired.
‘But, the neighborhood talk bad about you Naomi’
‘Yes Mia, I was a prostitute, from my 22nd age. And now am 26, I met him a year after I indulged in to prostitution, I have had no choice, but he saw me differently, he gave me life, he loved me. We kind of married these three years’
‘Oh, what happened now?’
‘You know, I can’t give birth. He’s two years younger than me, he has dreams. He wants me to be with me all his life, but I don’t think I deserve or give him what he deserves. His family want me to move away from him, so that they can make him marry some other women’. Naomi started to weep, ‘so I left him, this is my home, prostitute is my home, it is what that defines me. It’s what I am’
Naomi started to wail harder, throwing the tooth in her hand on the wall and was really depressed. Mia was stunned to hear her, ‘It’s what home mean. Home mean my core, core that defines me, core that defines my purpose of life, you really are a angel to me Naomi’ Mia talked to herself.
‘See Naomi, your home is not prostitution, your home is love. Mine too. My home is love too. But you left him, why? He wants to live with you. I can’t advise you, you are the angel of my life, but this time, you should never give up on your home’
‘Everyone speaks of equality, but the world needs only equal opportunity, I never had opportunity, to live my life’
‘This is your life Naomi, the opportunity’ Mia hugged Naomi from back and pulled her hands. 
‘Come on Naomi, let me drop you at your home’
‘No Mia, he deserves more, am not born for her’
‘I thought about like that once I was in school, that I don’t deserve their friendship, but my angel told me that love doesn’t deserve anything, it’s beyond those expectations, am not going to leave you here’. She pulled her strongly and made her to sit on her bike.
On the way to their suburbs, Naomi kept on saying ‘Oh my god, I shouldn’t have left him, how can I see him now?’ But Mia never heard to her voices. After an hour journey, they reached his home and he opened the door.

It was the pure love which Mia can ever witness in her whole life. He rushed to hug Naomi saying ‘Please don’t leave me again’ and she replied ‘I will never’. Mia was so happy, she left them with bye and started her ride back to her home.
On the way, she was so happy and said to herself ‘My home is beautiful, I wonder how I missed all these years. Mia, welcome home’ greeted herself.

The only thing that keeps the world running is Love, love of good peoples. However the world is to you, just find some love, just find your home.
ARID ROSES.