Story: The Man With Bottles! (Part 2)

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Here's the part two, I hope you would enjoy reading!

PART TWO - DISCOVERY


I loved the calm environment around me as I opened one of many story books I had piled up in front of me. I was not feeling too much sleepy and I couldn’t stop myself from starting with anyone of them. Books I had with me, consisted of short stories. I started reading stories from one of the books and complete within half-an-hour. When I was flipping through pages, something fell down from the book. It was an old envelope. I opened it and saw there were some pages with something written on it. It was handwritten. Looking at the pages, I couldn’t predict anything so I started reading it:

I don’t know why I feel like writing today or maybe my mental health is disturbing me too much. Today was my 65th birthday, and I should be the happiest man on this planet. I have a nice family with my partner still alive with me. One would die to live my life but I am dying every day I’m living. I don’t know if I want to live this life. My life is not so beautiful, though it seems so from outside. People who look beautiful from outside, actually are the ones broken from inside. No, I am being sentimental. I am just thinking about myself, maybe for the first time, no, second time. Yes, second time.
To be honest, I have a great life. I cannot demand for anything more. A man who was once a healthy working honest banker, turned into a bottle collector, in which he only stores water. There are some rumours in our family that I have gone mad. Yes, anyone would say a person mad if he or she is so obsessed with bottles. Not only bottles. I. . . I also fill water in those empty bottles. When I took voluntary retirement, people in my house were angry on me because I had 5 years of service left. I told them, my pension was enough for our needs and I proved out to be right.
Before retirement, particularly, I was the busiest man in my family, and after retirement it was the other way around. My wife kept on taunting me about this and I don’t blame her. She was right I shouldn’t have taken retirement before it was due. I should’ve worked more and I also had a chance for promotion.  My days went listening to her slightly abusive taunts and ended on bed with the same woman. Still, I pretended to be happy. There was one incident when she said something about me in front of her rel. . . . I should skip that part, I guess.
During my free time, I concentrated on household work. I failed, miserably. When it came to making tea for me, I was very comfortable but, my condition would get worse when I was instructed to cook a meal because my wife sometimes wouldn’t work or housemaid was on a holiday. She told me, I was good for nothing. I accepted it. I should have learnt to cook a meal while I was working day-night for their future. Many such incidents took place during the initial years of my retirement. I used to lie down on my bed thinking about what I should do to utilize my free hours and I can say free day. If my wife used to see me lying down, she would again say something sharp and bitter as rum.
So, for the betterment of everyone I decided to help my child with his studies. I had a son who was in 12th standard and I desperately wanted to help him secure good marks. It was back then, my second year after retirement.  I tried helping him out but he ignored me sometimes or he would go out to his friend’s place to study. Whenever I used to ask him about his studies, he would say, he was way ahead of his syllabus. I wondered how? One day, I got angry on him and slapped him because he was watching idiot box whole day and was not ready to study at night. I didn’t want to slap him but his board exams were less than a month away! Earlier the scenario was different. After working for whole day, I never looked up to his academics but now it was completely different. So, coming back to slapping, I slapped him after which he went up to his mother and said, “Earlier when Papa (Dad) used to work, everything was fine and now he is so dominating. I don’t like him staying home all day.” His comment was followed by his mother’s acidic words. I apologised and vowed I would never come between his matters. He got a decent percentage in his 12th class but not a good percentage for which I was preparing him. Still, I pretended to be extremely happy but things didn’t go well.         

 

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