I See

About a girl who can see through your bullshit.

       She is the only child of a well to do parents. They named her Nethra because her eyes were the first thing they noticed. Big and brown, the eyes smiled at them before she could.

       Nethra grew up to be a well-mannered girl. She did everything the, supposedly, right way. Teachers loved her. Relatives wanted a kid like her. Her parents were prouder than ever. She, too, enjoyed the attention. She started doing things just to please other people. It bothered her, when someone didn’t praise her enough. She started acting out. She was self conscious, all the time. She lost confidence. That got her parents worried. They consulted a doctor , a mind doctor is what Nethra called him. The doctor couldn’t pin point her problem. But he gave her some pills, for namesake.

       Whether it was the pills or the fact that Nethra got busy growing up, she stopped caring about other people’s opinion. She wanted a purposeful life. She wanted to be happy for things that really matter. She started reading books, a lot of them. She loved her family, but she started feeling detached. She felt out of place with whomever she was. She felt like being stuck in someone else’s body.

      She needed a hobby to distract her from these bizarre thoughts. She started observing people. The way they converse, the way they move hands to convey something. Nethra could see how fast the faces changed when something happened. How people show, exactly, what they feel, before concealing it. She could see contempt, regret, anger, shame and pity, whatever the face showed, involuntarily, for that one second. She enjoyed knowing something that was not supposed to be known. Until, she started reading the people she loved.

      The first time she read her parents was when they were fighting. ‘Where have you been?’, her mother asked her father. He answered, ‘Business meeting’. His left eye started twitching, Nethra noticed. The fight went on for a long time. Nethra saw her father shrug, suppress a smile when her mother believed his lie and how his head was leaning left, she read in a book that we lean our head left when we are creating something up because left side of our brain is where is our cognitive imagination is, and most of all she saw contempt all over her mother’s face.

      She enjoyed reading white lies, they were harmless. Like the time when her friends lied to her about something to surprise her. Or when her mother tells her she paints good. But the lies that were told out of fear, shame and dishonesty were heart breaking to read.

      It didn’t took her much time to realize everybody lies. She wondered why people lie, when truth is what brings peace of mind. She never understood the reason behind people being ashamed of their own self. What is the need of wearing a mask when your true self is much beautiful? She wants people to see life for what it really is. She feels sad for those people, who think belittling someone will make them a superior person. She wishes, for the lack of no better alternate, that people can talk with each other, without judging them. She wishes that people can realize, what happened to someone could have easily happened to them too. Most of all, she wishes not to turn into one of them.

      She dreams of confronting the people who lie to her face and say, “I can tell, you know”.

Reviews

[ChristianM]

A sad truth. Everyone lies everyday, sometimes without realizing it. Sometimes someone tells a lie so often that eventually he/she believes the lie to be truth. Good story. I thought Nethra was going to tell her mother that her father was lying about where he had been. You should add more to the story if you ever get time. I liked it.
Cheers

[Keerthana]

I like letting things be. If I continue the story it will be a bit of a drag. Thanks for the review. :))