The attribute that I thought was only mine

By Nikita Ashok Menon, X – A

“Hey you!” a voice called out as I got out of my morning blues.”Down here look at me, your bed, don’t you think you ought to thank me for bearing your weight all night?“

I raised an eyebrow, shook my head and just took it as a part of my wildest imagination.

“Oh! Don’t just raise your eyebrow and walk away. What do I get in return – nothing! N-O-T-H-I-N-G!!”

“Hey, don’t get on the wrong side of the bed. At least she didn’t leave you naked, unlike most children of her age. They scatter your sheets and never bother about your diginity,” said the pillow.I suddenly realised that everything around me has started to speak. Previously I had thought that this attribute was bestowed to human beings only.

“But her weight…” wailed the bed.I just rolled my eyes and walked briskly towards the washroom as nature was calling me urgently.Things started getting more unearthly when I overheard a heated conversation between my toothbrush and the toilet paper in the washroom.

“I got the worst job in this world,” said the toothbrush.

The toilet paper scoffed and said, “Look who is talking!!! You are put inside a foul mouth to make it clean and then you are cleaned too!! Well, people exploit me and just throw me away without any sense of gratitude to my Papa, Mr. Joseph C Gayette. There is no place in the world where I have not been used to clean.Who has thought of a world without me?!”

I guessed it was a strange day and just hoped things would get back to normal as soon as possible.

As I washed my face the tap groaned, “What is the point in just one girl trying to save water? Her entire family,friends,schools and all her contacts have to work towards a lesser water footprint. Has she ever spread this message? No.Has she ever told anybody that by putting a small plastic bottle in the closet we can save up to 50 % of water? No, she hasn’t. Tiny drops make a mighty ocean and each drop wasted is contributing to the loss of this ocean.”

“Relax, she is trying her best, she should be the change that she wants to see, and slowly everyone will follow,” said the sink.

Anyway, moving on…I finished my morning chores hearing a lot of debates of both pessimists and optimists. I rushed to school as I had to write a test in the first period. I saw the questions and sat perplexed at the question, ‘When was World War I?’ I wiped the sweat off my forehead, my heart was beating very fast and I cursed myself for not paying attention to the minute details. I played with my pen not knowing what to do with the question, when I heard my pen say,

“Oh! No! She worked so hard for this test. She underlined the answer with me. I can’t believe she doesn’t remember.” The pen then whispered, “It was in page 3, right hand side corner – 1914.”

“Well she studied hard but not smart enough to learn the important points. She should have gone through the details also, ‘’ said my paper.

“If only she could hear me out,” said the pen, and my paper said, “I think she should write her test ethically.” My happiness knew no bounds when I knew the answer. As I returned home listening to the feelings of many things around me and their suggestions, I felt I can be a better citizen of this world by doing little things which can create a big impact.

The walls around me said, “It is vital for both optimists and pessimists to live together because an optimist invented an airplane but a pessimist invented the parachute. Do remember this.“