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A moment of epiphany between two living beings that struggle everyday of their lives.
The insect in my room sits on the same spot of my window every day.
I look at it every day and wonder if it looks back at me.
It’s like we have created a wordless bond of doing the same thing- existing.
On certain days, I use two of my fingers to chase it up and down my window,
And on those days, I am surprised with how it is not afraid of me.
I am surprised with how it dodges me like a playmate.
I am surprised of how it looks at me like I am just one of his kind.
I am surprised of how it sits there, religiously, to treat me like an equal.
The insect in my room sits on the same spot of my window every day,
But on the inside,
In the delusion that the other side is beyond its reach.
It stares at the sky longingly.
It rubs one palm against the other; occasionally planning an escape.
It flutters desperately for a few more moments and then quietly sits back in his void.
I am not an insect. I am a human being.
And I still feel like I am doing the same things.
Isn't the insect being fair in treating me equally then?
Why can't human beings treat each other equally then?
The insect in my room sits on the same spot of my window every day, spending each twilight with me.
But we both spend our days battering our lives under the rough sun.
Yesterday I noticed it had a broken wing and I had a broken heart.
But neither of us was so broken.
We still dodged each other up and down the window.
Our efforts to survive were equal.
The insect in my room sits on the same spot of my window every day.
And so, on certain days, we fight.
Our egos clash but our fears don't nullify each other.
I angrily push it out of my window and still leave a little gap for it to come back in.
It quietly leaves but never flies away.
It furiously sits on the outer-window sill.
Both of us looking for an opening to the wordless conversation again.
Good news is,
We're friends now.
And the story ends with both of us dying.
My life is as mere as his,
And his existence is as essential to the universe as mine.
And so, I think it would be fair that my biography ended just with this one line:
"The insect and me were equal."
-HRITIKA AHUJA
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