It was only when M asked me this question that I realised how desperate my situation was: 'do you have anyone to talk to about this?'

As I waited for the comp to boot, I saw my own reflection in a glistening monitor screen. A portrait of failure. In fact, an embodiment of failure looked into the mirror basically. I asked myself 'how did it all come to this?' The crumbling of the establishment that was conjured and embraced as if it were a dream. The crumbling of meritocracy, and the rape of the ideal of fairness that while remains a wild possibility in the world, continues almost stubbornly to live in many minds that wish for it to be realised, but do not desire to work towards it.

I felt almost exasperated toward the end of our lunch. It was a good and candid talk, and I really loved M for that, but the candour impelled me to see the ugly face of truth, of failure as certain as the idealism that fairness is. The road is long and arduous, and my very existence closing the void of meaninglessness and plain inane barking. She was willing to listen and invited me to email or call her if I had to talk to someone. I can’t believe my life has to wither away after 24 years of roaming on this earth. It’s not like my life expectancy is coming to its end.

I felt that there was this huge machine that was trampling all over me, leaving ugly marks on a most vulnerable bit of me, imprints almost that would never go away. I need to turn somewhere. Somewhere that can grow the miserable whimper of light that flickers in an otherwise dark room. I am groping in the dark. I am just slouching into a desperate darkness, wasting away, waiting for death that does not come, but chooses to hover outside the shell that is my body, lurking, creeping, slithering all over. The bite does not come, the bite that will relieve me of the misery of miseries. I throw my head back, stretching the soft skin under my bristled chin, tempting it with life if it sinks its teeth into me, as it tempts me with a final conclusion, a beautiful release.