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The Need: A Short Story

The need to be needed by others, isn’t that something? Deep down, each one of us wants to feel needed by someone, anyone, every one. But if not, what then?

At an early age she had known that nothing apart from Cartoon Network was pleasurable. She would rather watch the few words that can apparate humans into a parallel universe of dragons than the few words that broke a family on StarPlus. As far as I can recall, she wasn’t really upset by the altered family picture. It was the ‘happy ending no matter what’ that bothered her. Somewhere between the Dragon Tales and Ekta Kapoor’s soaps, she found herself drawing a distorted picture of who she will become.


She had believed that her father cannot wrong her. She had seen her mother cry day and night. The stories of her home that she was told were different. Now that I recall those moments of grief, I think her parents were trying to protect her. But could they? She tried to reason what she saw. Nobody told her the truth. She managed to make her own version of the reality around her. As far as she could perceive, her father was wrong. Her mother will have enough people to support her if she was right. But her father will be left alone to fight his battles. Unaware of the reality, in her mind she was prepared to give up everything to side with her father because she couldn’t bear the idea of him being alone. She was nine.

Her parents seem happy. They told her their versions of truth separately when she grew up. But did it matter to her? She knew their truths and did not find her place in them. Theirs was a truth devoid of her. Theirs was a truth about them. The truth that they didn’t know was hers. The truth they did not even try to find out. They assumed. After all, parents they were. The present of the truths is long gone. As a memory it remains. A memory that they have pushed into a Do Not Open corner of their lives.

Today she has to make a decision. She can walk away. She can stay. Walking away is an easier course. Staying will feed her need to be needed. She assumed that he could fix her damage. For some time, as I can recall, she did believe he can heal her wounds. She understood his need to need her. She did not understand his need to need others. The lesson learnt at nine crawled back to her. Happiness is a myth. Love is a delusion. One person is never enough for another. People had tried to make her believe in the idea of love, but she remained romantically atheist. At least, she tried to. To her, only the need is real.

At times, I wonder if I could have helped her. At times, I wonder if I could have made her feel any better at nine. At times I wonder, had I not locked myself in a room with my paintings and spent time with her then maybe things would have been different. At times I wonder had I not denied seeing the reality, I could have helped her. But what could I do, I was twelve. Puberty was changing me, or was it? 

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