What childhood illusions have you had shattered as you were growing up?

I was very fortunate that I was born to an erudite family. There are many such children’s in Nepal who do not get proper parental care and love. Many of the parents are such that they cannot give full time to their children so in turn the children feel they are isolated and they start protesting concerned with self-protection and take the help of violence to fulfil their needs. They think that we can get our needs fulfilled from the demands and the illusions start developing in their mind. Such childish illusions are general among many of us. Their view may be distorted but it is pragmatic.
My first illusion in life was that god was the central power of the world and no matter what we get in our life was because of the god’s wish. One who prays a lot to god gets everything and the one who ignores remains barehanded. I remember my physics test when I was in junior high school at 8th standard. Every time before the exam I used to pray the god for getting simple questions in test. Coincidently all the other subjects were easy and I got better grades on them. But in case of my physics test I prayed god for getting an A*. My every longing was being fulfilled so my gluttony made me lazy and I deserted physics thinking that I shall easily get good grade. But the result was just opposite. I got E on my transcript and that was the most startling moment in my life. I got the lowest grade I had ever got. I realised that whatever we get in our life, it is just because of our hard work and determination. Lazy ones are always going to lose.
Correspondingly I always had a belief that death is a pre-defined process. If one dies co-incidentally I used to take it as natural. My quote used to be “his time of death had come so he died!” It was pertinent in every case almost. Even during September 11 incident when I knew about the loss of thousands of lives, I reacted normally with the same feeling that I used to apply as always. I used to think that a person dies because of his bad deeds. But after the Tsunami in Indian Ocean and in many areas of the Asia, when many naive lost their life I finally realised that death don’t occur in a pre-defined manner. If a problem occurs we can even lose our life within seconds even though we are free from bad deeds and diseases. This incident became the cause of my change in approach.
Life is a complete cycle so we get through different aspects of it. From our childhood to the old age we do have different types of illusions embedded inside us which though seems crazy to the outer world but is very important for us as we can gain something new from them.

Night Blood Nightmare

There was an awkward silence in the corridor. The moon was lit up and the
outskirts were seen clearly. The front - yard and the trees swaying in the
midst of the view were touchy and chilly was the weather. Some stars were
sparkling and Jane was standing in her balcony. She was staring at the dark
purple roses. She saw her black roses and the left roses to be painted black.
Suddenly, the black and red roses led her to her past life. They led her back
to her memory and back to her past life which she longed to forget.

It was the year 1985. The month was October and slowly day was turning to night.
She could feel the cold weather running across the streets and the swirling
noises made by fallen leaves and the harsh winds. Amazingly, the streets were
empty and nothing was roaming around except for a few leaves. Jane decided to
take a walk. She locked the front door and made for the streets. As she walked
she could see most of the shops closed and in some shops which were half open
she could see blood shed and warm smell of blood. "Surely, crimes have been
increased lately" she said to herself. But to her amusement no person, no traffic
, no children and no police cars were to be seen around. It's a quite recent attack
she thought and tried to call the police from her mobile. But shit always happens
when there is trouble. She had forgotten to charge its battery and the mobile had
no battery left. Also she found out that the mobile had no connection in it.

Jane's tears kept rolling down and neither did she wipe off it nor did the memory
fade away. Jane, at that time worked for a coffee shop and was resting at her own
house because of the chilly weather. At about dusk time, she had started to walk.
After she fouind out the connection was loose and she had no tower to connect to
the main central line. As she was heading to town, a harsh wind blew towards Jane
and in a moments' time her whole body started shaking and her legs quivered with
horror. A chill ran down the spine of her body and she could feel that her blood
was unable to reach the ground." I should have wore more clothes "thought Jane
and she held herself tightly forcing her legs to move ahead. All the sudden Jane
saw a small boy lying on the cold floor of the streets with blood running like
water all over the place. She slowly tried to turn over the face of the child and
when she did her mouth startled in amusement, her veins felt no blood and her mind
filled with terror. She could clearly see that the boy had been slained brutally
and had deep marking of cuts in his neck. Jane also could see that the neck had been
bitten and it seemed as if blood was sucked out of the child's neck. Terrified and
frightened she went back to the pavement to continue her way back to town. She wondered
why the police were not there and why no one was caring the dead child. She had a strange
thought of going back and making her way to town through her vehicle. However, she managed
to get to town but she saw the same scene all around her and all had marks around their necks.
The entire corpse was laid there with no one caring them. It seemed that the whole town had been
flooded with blood and rubbed her eyes to know if she was dreaming or not? But unfortunately, she
was not dreaming and neither was her eyes lying to her. What she had seen was true and she quickly
headed to the police station. The cases were similar in the police station and she called the central
government and the FBI. They had already got a hunch of the scenario and they were heading for that
town. What she told added fuel to the fire and army were even hired to take control over that situation.

But when they reached the place, no one was alive and they met Jane standing alone in the corner.
All the militants went to search the town but they never returned. The chief officer also never returned
and neither did the police officers. Jane waited in the department for days and weeks but no one returned.
The most amazing scene was that whenever Jane walked over town she only saw the dead corpse and never had
seen any one of them. It seemed that she came from another town. Then one night, a soft knock waked
Jane from her sleep. She had been sleeping there in the department for many hours, days and even for weeks.
She saw out from the window and whispered "My god!!" Yes it is true. The police officer was back. A great
thought of being saved rushed through her mind. She slowly opened the door and let the officer in.

Jane's tears rolled down her cheeks. She could feel the pain in her eyes. But her memory kept on dazzling back
and reminded of her own past life. The officer had been hurrying and without any emotion in his eyes he said"
Its amazing your still alive and they haven't got you. All other officers are dead and I have managed ...." His
eyes were red and it reflected pain in his eyes. Jane already knew the trouble. She could see through his eyes.
She now was able to feel how far the trouble had gone and now a feeling of death already had accumulated her mind. She could not utter a single word and her voice went pale and dull just as her face. Her hope of living had come to an end.

Jane's memory had now been again faded and brought her back to the real world. Her tears were rolling and her face suddenly lost the charm which it had. "The same silence is here" thought Jane "what if history repeats itself??"

Again her memory became alive. But this time it was good for nothing.

By:Mohit Paudel,TIC