After waging all those bloody wars in the name of freedom, those who imagined attaining it have now finally put it up for sale. It’s sitting right there – in a small jewellery box which contains nothing but velvet padding, next to some old clothes and torn out comic books – in the front yard. A small sign hurriedly scribbled next to it enumerates its rate per hour.

Just one of those yard sales for things that are not used any more.

As long as it can be traded for three square meals a day, they don’t mind following others’ advices and enforcing others’ decisions blindly. Well, not quite. It’s like a salesman who sells sunglasses to gullible passer-bys, convincing them of their protective qualities against the sun. And those people who are in such a hurry and such a fear of sunlight that they buy it impulsively, never caring to realize that those glasses are completely opaque.

They now live fearing life itself. Having been convinced that perfect happiness is a make-believe, and can be experienced only in poetry or fantasies where people live happily every after, they have started pretending that it doesn’t really matter. They label this as reality, as ‘the way it is’. And themselves as grown ups; and humorously enough, even pride themselves in getting enchained by such a state.

When one is directly transferred from the womb to a wheelchair, it is understandable that one labels someone who comes along proclaiming their ability to stand and walk as a hallucinating lunatic. What is not understandable, however, is that only a few get inspired with a curiosity to actually try to stand up, and see for themselves if the lunatic was wrong. They are so afraid to even investigate the proposition that the things and values which they have stood for all their life could be illusory, that they prefer to spend the rest of their life, too, remaining caught up within them.

The prospect of earning three sqaure meals a day with some added bonuses seems a fair deal; after all, without having to think afresh for themselves, it allows them to earn three more square meals tomorrow. And three more the day after, and the day after that, and,