Dignity

The room was dim, lit only by the flickering glow of an old-fashioned desk lamp. Sari sat hunched over his journal, the pen trembling in his hand as he wrestled with thoughts that had haunted him for a quarter of a century. His writing was sharp and deliberate.

"Happiness has been illusory to me since I was a kid," he wrote, the pen carving the words into the thick, textured paper. His gaze wandered to the cracked mirror on the far wall. In it, a ghost stared back—gaunt cheeks, weary eyes, and a hollow expression that seemed foreign even to himself.

He remembered being a boy, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his grandmother's living room. The air was heavy with the scent of jasmine and the faint aroma of pastries, mingling with the earthy smell of the potted plants she doted on. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the lace curtains, casting intricate patterns on the walls. It was a place where time slowed, and the chaos outside their walls could not touch them.

She sat in her favorite armchair, its fabric faded from years of use. Her hands moved steadily as she embroidered a scene onto a piece of pale cloth. It was there he understood the meaning of the word "home."

"Remember, Sari," her voice was warm and steady, "you can't pour from an empty cup. Tend to yourself first, child, or you'll find you've nothing left to give anyone else."

But happiness did not grow with age, as he had imagined it would.

As a child, he'd longed for simplicity, yet simplicity eluded him. When he was in the fourth grade, he'd thought happiness would arrive once he was "tall like those tall dudes." That thought turned bitter as his mind darted to another memory—the plate smashing against the wall.

It had been one of her bad days, the kind where her moods swung violently. One moment, she was singing softly as she flipped eggs; the next, she hurled a plate across the room.

"You don't think what I'm doing is ever enough, you spoiled, ungrateful brat?" she spat, the words biting. Before he could answer, the plate shattered against the wall, breakfast soaring through the air. Blood-red tomato slices slid down, mingling with yellow smears of yolk.

Stunned, Sari sat frozen, his chest tight, his heart heavy. The anger in her eyes burned briefly before collapsing into something softer, something broken. She muttered under her breath and retreated to her room, shutting the door against the world—and against him.

Even as he scrubbed the wall clean, tears blurring his vision, he couldn't stop himself from loving her. He loved her on the good days, when she danced in the kitchen, and on the bad days, when the storm inside her drowned out the light, leaving them both adrift.

Now, two decades later, he sat at the desk, replaying these moments. His eyes drifted to the window, where the city lay cloaked in twilight. He had lived among the wealthy and the poor, the devout and the faithless, but happiness had eluded him like a shadow in the corner of his eye.

He resumed writing, his hand steady now, fueled by the bitter clarity of his memories. The ink smudged slightly as his hand brushed the page. His writing became faster, sentences tumbling out as if they might somehow free him from their weight.

A conversation with a colleague resurfaced in his mind—one he hadn't thought about in years. Over lukewarm coffee, they'd remarked casually, "It's impossible to find happiness alone." The words had lingered, sparking a fragile hope. He'd devoured books, essays, and studies, searching for answers. But the knowledge brought no solace—only more questions.

"After that, I only experienced a slow and painful death," he wrote, pressing the pen harder against the paper, "all while the Earth kept rotating carelessly."

His breath hitched. He looked again at the mirror, his reflection fragmented by the cracks, like the shattered pieces of his soul. Knowledge had brought him obsession, an unrelenting curiosity about life that offered no reprieve, only further despair.

The truth—the one he could no longer deny—was that his time was running out. A rare disease had crept through his body over the past few years, cutting him down day by day. The doctors called it Huntington's disease, an inherited condition attacking his mind and body with merciless precision. They had given him a cruel ultimatum: he most probably wouldn't live past twenty-eight. The disease had stolen his strength, his energy, his future. Now, it loomed over him like a guillotine, its blade poised to fall.

"How pathetic it is," he murmured, scrawling the words across the page, "to master the game of life but be innately incapable of playing."

He placed the pen down, ink pooling at the tip, and closed the journal. For a moment, silence enveloped the room, heavy and suffocating. His gaze lingered on the window, where the city's lights continued their indifferent dance.

Walking to the center of the room, he glanced once more at the cracked mirror. His reflection—a shadow of despair and defiance—stared back. "The least I could do is die on my own terms." he murmured, steady now. From the drawer beneath his journal, he retrieved a revolver. 

He then sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at the cracks in the mirror one last time. Memories—both painful and beautiful—flooded through him, each one carving its place into the quiet rhythm of his thoughts. With trembling hands, he raised the gun to his temple, his breaths shallow yet calm.

"Dignity, huh?" he whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger. A single, deafening crack split the silence, and the room fell still, the mirror's reflection fracturing further with the finality of his choice.

His body sank to the floor as the city lights outside began to blur, their cold indifference giving way to darkness. A faint smile touched his lips; he would leave this world on his own terms, his dignity intact.

Then Sari felt was warmth. But this was not sunlight or fire—it was a soft embrace, surrounding him entirely, muffled yet protective. The world outside was a blur, soundless and weightless.

He tried to move, but his limbs were unresponsive—tiny, fragile, and alien to him. Shapes and colors swirled in incomprehensible patterns. Yet within this cocoon of warmth, he felt an overwhelming sense of vulnerability he had come to know all to well.

Light filtered through something translucent, and faint, muffled sounds echoed. A voice, soothing and rhythmic, hummed close by. He felt a soft vibration through the fluid surrounding him. Realization began to dawn.

"I… I'm still alive?" The thought formed, not in words but in a vague, weird sensation. Memories of his former life flickered like static in the corners of his consciousness—fractured and fragmented.

A sudden rush of sensation overwhelmed him. He was moving, or more accurately being moved. The warmth dissipated, replaced by a cold so sharp it was like being born into ice. His lungs burned as he drew his first breath, a wail escaping him before he could comprehend its purpose. The air felt harsh, raw, and alive.

Through blurred vision, he caught glimpses of shadows and light. A face loomed above him, smiling with a tenderness he couldn't place. The voice spoke again, its melody soothing the fear within him. He couldn't understand the words, but they filled him with fleeting comfort.

He was a baby.

The realization struck with both absurdity and clarity. The years of searching, the pain, the disease—all of it was gone.

And in its place was a single, simple truth: life was his to begin again.