You know you’re regretting it when it suddenly hits you that all you see in front of you is a blank. When all you want to do is to disappear somewhere and never be found, not because you’ve hidden too well, but because no one remembers.

And you ask yourself, “Why did I do it?” You wonder if you would have been better off elsewhere, but there’s no turning back because all other doors are closed and you can only go straight ahead. It doesn’t help that you constantly remind yourself you were the one who locked yourself out.

The problem with “what if” is that you don’t know anything about it. Either way you’ll spend a long long time thinking over it. Pick an option, the others collapse. Sometimes, it takes a while before you realize the extent of your mistake, when you thought that would be the best thing for yourself initially. Is it the irony of things that make us so bitter?

You sit in a corner watching them pretend not to play the popularity game. Contestant One raises his hand and gives a name. You laugh at how absurd this is, aren’t they all just vying for the same thing?

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