Zero Phobia (With Audio) by Ishita Saha

Hello, everyone. The story that I’m performing today is called as the zero phobia. It’s a bit personal, you can judge, but with love. Can you see the big zero sitting in the middle of this room? No, really. However, I can see it right there with its red eyes staring at the sphygmomanometer. Fancy words, I know, showing my blood pressure dropping. I see it in almost all round things. Moon is not romanticized in my boy trees like every other.

It gives me a feeling of fear. I do not accept coins. People say I’m just too rich. All the clocks in my house are squares, but these are just too bizarre to measure. Moreover, I believe that Earth is a Geoid. I can’t be living in a horrifying spheroid. Too dramatic, I’ll tell you why, when I was in standard nine, I was physically and mentally ill for quite a long time. And when I returned back to the school after five months, my daughter handed me my old report card and informed me that I was promoted because of the special situation.

I opened my report card and this had five straight zeros waiting to be acknowledged. Trust me, I was a good student and this was the first. All the walls that I have been building for the last five months started crumbling down. It it it all shattered. The stress and anxiety are very deep down into my alveoli started seeping to my fingertips, wanting to cut and leave out. I started running out of the school, hitting the walls, hitting the trees, hitting the people, creating a fuss.

I fell and I fell again. But somehow I reached my home. I ran towards my room, and when I opened it, there sat a cream-colored telephone ringing ring ring. Hello? Are you there? Are you still there? Don’t you feel ashamed? Don’t you want to die? Ring, ring. Hello. You had a button on the set. You would have that big. You had a black bitch ring ring. Hello. You are mad.

Go to where your dad went and never come back. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. I was frustrated. I just wanted it all to end. I started running in my room towards the window, sitting straight in the center. It took a long jump, but I never landed. All I got was a taste of my own blood and it was a bit saline. But wait, why am I bleeding? But wait. I don’t have a window in my room.

But wait. I don’t have a telephone in my room. Wait, what is happening? Wait, I’m hallucinating. Wait, I’m depressed. Wait, it’s all coming back. Wait, this is schizophrenia. The song started playing in my head in a loop. The song I always went to when I wanted to cry when I wanted to cut myself when I was depressed.

When you were here before

Couldn’t look you in the eye

You’re just like an angel

Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather

In a beautiful world

And I wish I was special

You’re so fuckin’ special

But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong here.

Ring, ring, hello, I’m zero,

Years after the day I’ve extracted the zero out, but still not as phobia, I wish one day I would really press those little smiley stress balls, dressed in, the pretty polka dots with my bangles.

Thank you.

By 

Ishita Saha