It was one of those rare days when the sky shone yellow instead of grey. The four of them had not stepped out to fill their lungs with fresh air, for three days in a row. Too many things to take care of ! The dancer, D has been quite satisfied since her recent performance which was well received. Well received by the audience was one thing, and indeed this one had been so. But most importantly, it had to be well-received by herself. All those times when she had stepped out of a stage and felt inadequate : there was always something that could have been better. In this case, it had been well-received even to herself. So she was content. The caregiver, Ma, has been busy. There was always something in the house that needed to be put in the right place. She was mostly furious at the others for not having enough discipline to be on board with having a sparkling clean home all the time. The astronomer in the house, has been sulking for many days in a row now. Her codes have been throwing tantrums beyond her tolerance and she wanted to smash her head against the wall for missing out in details in advance. And the writer, Wu, well she has just been quiet, hidden in her room.
Most days its hard to be together – one or sometimes two of them are having a breakdown and there needs adequate attention to bring them back up on their feet. The other day Ma had to summon up a meeting to remind everyone of the need to keep the apartment orderly for their own good. Growing up they had lived in a messy house which was tidied mostly when someone was visiting, this had ingrained in their minds that they inherently did not deserve a decluttered space. Of late, Ma is trying to make everyone unlearn that idea and make everyone think that they need a well maintained space for their own sake. A space where eveything has a default location and state into which it returns after use, as a side note, there should not be too many things that overwhelms the available space, things that doesn’t serve a purpose goes outside preferably to people who might still find a use for it. When a minimum order is maintained in the apartment every inhabitant seems to be in a better mood. And Ma is working towards this goal.
D is in general happy with the fact that they live in an apartment that is in the ground floor of a building now. In principle this lets her practice without the concern that she is being a menace to any of her neighbours in the process. But she knows only too well that she cannot be expected to practice everyday just because there is space available to do it. She knows its only a matter of time before she goes back into her shell of not dancing for a long while, because when she dances she can only dance, everything else suffers, the astronomer suffers and that is problematic. Because D has to be perfect or nothing. She simply cannot be anything less, it is another deeply ingrained lesson. There were always only criticisms and judgements as if saying a nice thing would make her slack off on it, so she had to give in everything she had into it. And D has faced acute disappointments and knows she doesn’t want it.
The astronomer is not only the most prominent member of the apartment, she is also the breadwinner. But that is not a very key factor to remember, these people don’t need a lot of materialistic things for some reason. The key factor is that, if the astronomer is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. She has that power over them. She is the main stressor, she is also the main and at time the sole Endorphin earner. It is a bit sad to think about it, but the mechanism of this world has been wired in such a way by some reason. So they try to do everything to keep her happy.
Alleys 