My relationship with stairs has never been a good one. I have many marks on my face. It's hard to tell if these scars were from a fall, especially since they were already close to fading away.
I was thinking: there aren't usually chairs in an elevator. But if there were, would someone actually try to sit down? And what would happen if they did, and the lift suddenly started to bolt upwards?
I was speeding toward the top floor. The mobile phone's jarring noise was piercing my ears. By now, I had grown accustomed to its incessant chatter. But no matter how many times you hear insults, they never transform into poetry; abuse remains abuse.
These insults were exactly like bitter gourd pudding (karela ka halwa). Even if someone were to cook it with plenty of sugar, it would still taste horrible. The abuse was just like that—no matter how often you heard it, it would always feel bitter.
I was jumping down the stairs when my foot slipped and I fell hard. The pain from the injury didn't hurt as much, but this was the third time today I had landed squarely on my head. Blood began to flow from the wound. It dripped onto the dusty steps, and now my forehead was smeared with a mixture of blood and grit.
As I ran, I found myself wondering who would care if just one chair disappeared from the world.
Then, I stopped on the step, panting.
"What is it, clever moron? Why did you stop?" the voice said in a rough, dry tone. "Don't you need to save that chair?"
"But how can I save it?" I asked. "It's already gone, and what's the benefit to me? It's just an inanimate object."
"See? You showed your true colors," it sneered. "Yes, you are human, after all. Why would I expect anything more from you?
But why did it make that decision?" I asked.
"We can worry about that later! First, you have to save it!"
"But I won't save it," I stated.
"Fine, don't save it. What do I care?" it snapped. "It's your chair. Your boss is going to ask you how it managed to fall from the top, and no one is going to believe a story about a chair suddenly deciding to run."
I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from my brow, and said, "Fine."
And with that, I braced myself to start conquering the stairs again.