We Waste Time.

"How long could she continue to not talk to you?” a friend asks me with sarcasm in his voice.
"A really long time", I reply, simply.

It's true. My mother can go for long periods of time giving me nothing but furtive glances and silence.
This is how she expresses anger, disapproval of my disobedient actions, and distaste for the way I live my life.
She's not particularly easy to please, but then neither am I.
And she interprets my refusal to agree and comply with her many inflexible notions of right and wrong as disregard for her value system and disrespect to her.
These days she is upset because I came home an hour late two nights ago.


I would think that I should be used to this sort of a situation by now, since I find it difficult to stick to curfews and every time I don't come home at the ridiculously early curfew set for me, the series of events that follow is the same.
Angry silence.


I watch her intently as she does everything in her power to ignore my presence.
She avoids being in the same room with me if there is no one else. I live in a small house; there are just two rooms, so I would like to impress upon you her skill in shuffling in and out of rooms without reason in order to ensure this.
She stares at things that would normally not hold her attention for more than a few seconds with intense concentration. Anything to distract herself.
I watch her hurting herself in the hope that seeing her hurt will hurt me enough to do what she wants me to.
Yes, this may seem like black-mail, and yes, it is.
But in her world, this is how things should be. And she will not have them any other way.


My mother is very easy to fall in love with. And very difficult to love.
Yes, she is old now. I was a late child and the indefinite time she has left with me, she spends in silence.
One night, during a previous spell of silent treatment, I woke up at an ungodly hour and crept closer to her in bed. Close enough to feel like I'm sleeping next to her, far enough for her to not notice me.
I had been awoken by a nightmare and suddenly felt the need to be with her.
She didn't speak to me, but at least I could blame it on the fact that she was fast asleep.


These days, on an average, the two of us waste at least three days a week in silence.
She, angry at my disobedience and me angry about how unreasonable I think her anger is.
Both thinking our own reason for anger to be more justified than the other’s.
So both of us don't try.
We avoid looking into the other's eyes.
If we bump into each other, we move two steps back each, incase our bodies make any contact at all and we are forced to acknowledge the other's presence.

We waste time. Precious, precious time.
And for what?