text: LOSS "i will be alright, Thank you. once again Thanks for coming" i exclaimed for the gazillionth time this week as i closed the door behind my Aunt maya. "you do let us know if there is anything we can do" she said in a semi-genuine tone as she grabbed her keys out of her purse. Hers was probably the most genuine eulogy i had hear this week because she at least cared to stay till everyone else had left. i walked back inside my house to the stench of incense and a hauntingly silent hall. it had been 8 days 4 hours and 37 minutes since i found the body in the bathroom. I went up the stairs to my room and grabbed the pack of cigarettes i hide behind the flushing cistern. For the first time, i lit one up and walked out of the bathroom in the balcony instead of sticking my face against the exhaust fan. The nosy lady next door kept staring at me when she saw it. She was loving that i could tell; it was probably all she was gonna talk about for a week. i didnt care about it now though. i mean what was she gonna do? tell my father who just killed himself with a razor while he was in his PJs with his face covered in shaving cream and blood; or tell my mom who one-upped him by dying of cancer even before him last summer. That thought made me chuckle a little as i took a long drag. i wondered if humor was an appropriate sentiment to have at that time. I was still feeling pretty proud of myself for having not cried in last 197 hours. i threw the bud on the street near the nosy ladys front door and went back inside. i cried for 8 hours straight that night. The next day i woke up at 10 in the morning. big whoop i missed the school. i thought about how my dad used to wake me up everyday for school and he didn't today. just like he didnt on his last day on earth when he was too busy not writing a suicide note for his only son. I knew i wasnt going to go to school anyway because my school stuff was in my dad's room and i still wasnt ready to go anywhere near that room. i barely had any other thought that whole day. i cried myself to sleep again. The next day i woke up thinking about how my dad always complained about the refrigerator being extra noisy in the morning. i didnt know how or why was that the first thing that came in my mind when i opened my eyes, but i guessed it must have had something to do with my dreams.i could never remember my dreams; Lucky me! i spent the coming week mindlessly staring at my bedroom ceiling. i couldn't use my phone because of all those annoying messages of sympathy. my dad always hated the people who made efforts to show their sympathies when mom died. he always thought they were just trying to get some novelty out of their mundane routines while also feeling good about themselves at expense of someones loss. i get it now. That whole week i woke up every morning thinking about my dad After a week more, i woke up in the morning because of sharp whirring noise coming from the kitchen. i got up and went to check and it was that damned refrigerator making ice at the wrong time like it does again. i got a bottle out of it, took a sip and i started going up the stairs again to continue my doomstaring. suddenly i stopped for a moment and i realized something. I realized how today the first thing on my mind wasnt my dad. the moment i passed by his room the pain resumed; but for the first 30 seconds of the day, i felt something other than a dreary numbness. It was far from a feeling of happiness, but perhaps the most comfortable i have been in weeks with my suffering. Sorrow is a funny thing. When you have everything taken away from you it swallows you whole but still keeps you alive. it occupies you every minute every second of the day untill one day when it doesnt. You learn to overcome it little by little one minute at a time. Everyday you wake up and its the first thing on your mind, except one day when its the second; but you got to fight it everyday. i reclaimed my first 30 seconds from that wretched scum today. "One day at a time" i told myself before i went back up to sleep again.