This Too Shall Pass

His eyes fly open.


Slowly his vision adjusts to the darkness, and the room is filled with a light blue hue from his digital clock. He glances at it. 3am.


Matchbox Twenty starts playing in his head. He silently curses his mental jukebox.

He slowly drops his legs over the bed and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. He isn't used to having 4 hours of sleep under his belt at 3am. Oh how times have changed.


Next he notices the heat; the stifling heat that is easily winning the war with his ancient wall fan. He takes of his shirt as the sweat trickles down his spine.


Suddenly he is reminded of a time long ago, when he was back in college. He had returned after failing yet again, only this time he was alone; no batchmates, no friends. Just an unwanted room on the top floor of the hostel, a real furnace during the summer heat, surrounded by strangers who looked at him with a questioning glance. He remembers returning to his room late at night, after hours of aimless wandering, only to be welcomed by a blast of pent up hot air as he swings the door open. He remembers trying every trick of cooling the room, including dumping water on the floor and sprinkling his mattress with water. He remembers his frustration at sleeping in a bed that was now not only soaked in sweat but with water as well.


He smiles in the darkness. Six months. He survived six months of that torture, studying alone, struggling to sleep in the early hours of the morning, ordering food at ridiculous hours of the night simply to keep himself occupied. Six months of screaming at the walls and wondering when he would finally lose his mind.



He thinks to himself, 'compared to that, this is nothing'. And he's not just talking about the heat.


This too shall pass.


He notices a spider crawling across the floor in front of him. He looks for something to swat it with, and unthinkingly, apologises to Makuluwo in advance.


Again, he smiles in the pale blue light of those digital digits.



The Darkside is back.