A Confession of Sorts

 I'll tell you something that happened tonight, that taught me a short and sharp lesson - on how to be a better person. It all began when I went for a walk up Mt Eden while grumpy and out of sorts. When I reached the summit - a beautiful, young couple - asked me to take their photo. 

I chose not to. I didn't want to. I was under no obligation to do so, and in fact, I was a bit rude, when I said, no. The young man asked me politely, almost divinely willing an act of generosity out of me. I bluntly refused, saying unceremoniously: 'I'm good' - in a low and menacing voice (well, that's what I thought I sounded like). Despite my spanner in the works, the couple managed to get their pretty, little photo taken. 

All was not lost in the stakes of romance and love, which disappointed me. 

Another far more amiable, young man snapped a photo of the couple. I bitterly watched the photographer, my fill-in, move about, up and down, trying to find the best lighting and angle, as the sun rapidly set behind the Bombay hills. I despised him - for capturing the sickly sweet moment of the young lovers. His act of accepting caused my act of rejecting to weigh heavily on me. 

As soon as I had acted, I knew I had done wrong. Somewhere, something had fallen out of alignment, I could hear God groaning with dismay as I acted with menacing selfishness. 

Usually. I’m happy to take photos of others and even enjoy doing so. But, I couldn't stand this couple, to be close to them, to enter into their bubble of love would be like willingly exposing myself to Chernobyl like levels of radiation. I didn’t feel like being a ‘boyfriend of Instagram’. I didn’t feel like being humbled - so naturally, I was brought to my knees by a power far greater than me. 

After the ordeal, I was overwhelmed with sadness. In trying to avoid my suffering, I had unwittingly doubled it, and how the interest compounded.  I felt like going back to the young couple and apologizing, groveling for forgiveness. It was from my finest hour. Sure, there was a part of me that didn't want to take the photos, and that's fine. It's just how I said no, nay, it was more than that, I felt inconsolable, a monster, about the fact - that I couldn't be happy for them. 

It was as if I had devolved from a human into a living slug. 

For my sins, I was engulfed in a haze of negative thoughts. I descended the mountain crestfallen and sullen. My actions had not pleased God, the universe, or even myself. What profound stupidity, and for my folly, the faintest self-inflicted scar was grazed upon my battered heart. With God's grace, thoughts of atonement surged like a river through my mind, only then was I released from the vice-like torture of my own making.