Life is strange, but humans are stranger. What people say or show about themselves is totally different from who they really are. We all live a lie that we hide from others. Every one of us. But despite playing this game of hide-and-seek for eons, we’re yet to master our character. We’re yet to get rid of the evil within us.

 Humanity has suffered a sea change, but depravity still lingers in our heart. And in our blood. The black dogs of evil raise their heads at every given opportunity, take over our beings, gratify our soul and remind us how they’ve been the handmaiden to our very existence since its inception. Had we had all the love we pretentiously display, the world would’ve been a totally different place by now.

It’s sad that we are cold in nature and poor in humanity; it’s sorrowful that we have life but no knowledge of the value associated with it; and it’s miserable that our society is degenerating, but we lack the wisdom and knowledge to turn it around.

Monstrosity is something that’s so deeply, almost atavistically, embedded in us. And it is something that will ultimately bring about our end. It’s our nemesis.

Maybe a new life will take its roots on this planet after we are gone. After all humans are dispensable and transient, but life is tenacious. It will start another game of creation after we are gone. Maybe the species that comes after us suffers from the same problem; the same defect. Or maybe it won’t?  

Dahal is a grade 11 student at SOSHGS Bharatpur, Chitwan