Familial Dystopia

Image: Zauther, deviantart.com

The women around me whom I first met as girls. They were brave and full of positivity. They were so much into beauty and the future. I even envied them. My parents had strong ideologies and limited aspirations. These girls seemed to be free from such overpowering paradigms.

All these women, except a few, excelled in education. They got jobs and married. Their education and jobs ranked high in the marriage choices they were offered. During the first few years, the star-eyed couples went on vacations, built houses and had kids filling their homes with laughter. 

Then they settled down like coffee shreds in a pot. The clear coffee poured from the pot but they did not. 

The light went drab in their eyes. Their shoulders sagged and their gait changed. 

Somewhere on the road they took, they entered a contract to serve the dystopia, family.    

I see them withering away. They became obese, eating all the leftovers from the meals they served their husbands and kids. Their legs ached without sufficient calcium in their bodies. Their hair thinned without oiling and sleep. 

They neglect their health because self-care is the only thing they can postpone in the rush of everyday life. Jobs, domestic chores, caring for the parents of one’s own and the spouse’s, everything is a job done to perfection except what they really are. 

Indeed, they have flourishing families. The children are going abroad and getting good jobs. After retirement, these women even travel abroad with their spouses and post photos on Facebook. Yet, their bodies and eyes tell a different tale. There is a shadow lurking on their brows. One can see their other self, hating the dystopia. 

They would tell you how happy they are, having left their dreams that now seem to them impractical and unreal. Their voices merge with the background. They believe standing out is for others. 

They chose to be beasts of burden rather than the mighty, winged, white horses of heaven that they would have become. The angels of power. What they sacrificed was power; how all the power drifted to men like the river depositing its catch on the dunes about the coasts and going naked!   

The river continues to flow naked and merges with the sea of anonymity. 

Where are all these dreams, of half the people on Earth, like garbage, dumped? Where will we bury them when it stinks?