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There is loss in the way you choose to save yourself. by Nethrah
31/08/2026

There is loss in the way you choose to save yourself.

by Nethrah

Nayak was the youngest son of the head priest whose cough once silenced the temple courtyard.Devotees gathered at dawn, ...
07/06/2026

Nayak was the youngest son of the head priest whose cough once silenced the temple courtyard.
Devotees gathered at dawn, offerings rising like small hills, faith flowing like milk. After his death,
faith thinned but gold did not. One night the remaining priests locked themselves inside, claiming
divine meditation to choose the next head.

No one knew what happened that night. Only a beggar sleeping by the temple steps spoke later of a
reddish-orange streak splitting the sky and falling into the courtyard. The wind howled, dust spiralled,
yet not a single bell rang. From within came cries of stunned wonder as if the priests had witnessed
something beyond their scriptures.

By morning, the doors creaked open. A white monkey stepped out.

Its fur caught the pale light; its dark face seemed carefully painted. Its tail arched like a question. It
scratched its ear, glanced at the crowd, and began to walk. The village followed.

It leapt onto a hawker’s cart of mirrors, lifted one, and stared at its reflection as though meeting a
twin. It shrieked, pressed the mirror to its chest, and vanished into the trees.

“God had descended.”

The villagers declared, and hidden Himself in reflection. The monkey was His messenger. The
hawker, owner of the mirrors, had been chosen.

Mirrors replaced idols. People queued not to see a statue, but to see themselves lit with something
sacred.

Nayak watched with clenched fists. He had memorized chants, secured patrons, rehearsed humility.When the priests locked themselves inside, he sealed their meditation with fire that rose bright red.And a monkey ruined everything.

Terrified of permanent holiness, the hawker planned to shatter the mirrors and claim God had ascended elsewhere. Before he could act, Nayak stepped into the dark and shot him.

By morning, villagers whispered of this divine punishment. As Nayak moved to claim authority, a
child pointed upward. Monkeys descended, each clutching a mirror

They sat along the temple walls, gazing at their reflections in solemn concentration. It became clear:
whoever held a mirror held God.

continued in the comments

The Giant Ferris wheel moved slowly. It was brushing against the dark pitch-black. The nothingness. Each cabin looked li...
12/03/2026

The Giant Ferris wheel moved slowly. It was brushing against the dark pitch-black. The nothingness. Each cabin looked like an entire world in itself. I could see people inside, holding a brief, borrowed joy. It felt like a loan, taken against the inevitable dejection and despondency waiting below. A high price, just for a few smiles. Yet people laughed. The lights glimmered and for a moment it felt like the world had forgotten how easily things fall apart, how transient joy can be.

I watched it turn and that’s when I realized happiness was never about the height. It was about the motion. The inevitable rise, and the gentle fall that always follows.

We ascend, we descend, and in that motion, we learn that even the brightest heights are meant to be surrendered. Happiness is not a crown worn, a robe that would always adorn your ephemeral cage of flesh and thought. It is fragile because it must be. Were it endless, it would be hollow. The pitch-black nothingness teaches that; what shines must fade, and what fades gives meaning to the shine.

Perhaps that is heaven’s way of humbling us, to remind us that circles are the truest shape of existence. We revolve through laughter and ache, through light and the long stretch of dark, never escaping the cycle, only learning to find grace within it.

And so, I look at the wheel, its live glow cutting through the dead night, and think; maybe heaven is not stillness at all. Maybe it is motion, endless and merciful, where we fall and rise, fall and rise, until we realize that we return to the same places, only a little more aware each time, of what we had, what we lost and what we still dare to hope for.

Caption:
Pic: .life_

Those days were filled with laughter, half-narrated and nonsensical talks. Every one of us had a peculiar incident to sh...
12/12/2025

Those days were filled with laughter, half-narrated and nonsensical talks. Every one of us had a peculiar incident to share with each other, and for each one of it, we had a different reaction. The
chubby faces gleamed with emotions. We cared less for the severity of a tale than for the telling. On a cold evening, while we were in the midst of our important session, Aftab’s emotions were static. After we prodded him, he finally spoke.

“I was coming back from school. It was a sunny afternoon and I was crossing the fields. The stream glittered; the water bent around my feet like a shy thing. I was searching for my lost glass marbles, when I saw a grasshopper, hovering over the green blades. I crept closer, it spread its transparent wings in the warm air. A rustling spooked it away. Annoyed, I turned and saw the headmaster’s daughter running. I hid behind the bushes, to see what scared her.

Amidst the gentle, dying chimes of her anklets, a hoarse voice called. A man came stumbling through the grass; his shirt half-buttoned and his belt loose. The man stood perplexed. It was the peon.”

We had a hearty laugh. The forbidden love story of peon became famous; he was shunned, the headmaster was transferred, and the girl was married soon after. Aftab missed her; she had helped him with his studies. Our group was more ignorant than the blind. Slowly, our meetings thinned out.

One afternoon, the two of us were alone, when Aftab said,

“She was not running away from him – I was”.

He looked at the ground. “The peon tried to touch me. I was so scared and so angry. I wanted him to
die. I didn’t know how, so I made him suffer. I didn’t want her punished. I thought if people heard
what a poor girl had suffered because of a pervert, they’d support her. Why was she punished too?”

The words hung between us. The sound of the stream outside came back to me, faint and cold. For the first time, I didn’t believe his story. I opened my mouth to laugh again, but nothing came out. I did not know what to feel.

Pic: .chicken
Caption:

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