July should have had nice weather this year. The heat would start to go down. More rain here and there. Nature tends to be more appealing, exposing its green, which shines brighter than the rays of the sun. I should have planned a tour in my leisure time.

Rangamati could have been the best destination. The waterfalls would be prettier than ever with their strongest flow. I don’t want to mourn.

Why should I feel sad?

I thought I had made my heart completely out of stone. I thought that it could deflect every violent storm. But here my heart is getting heavier with every day as it folds with the calendar. Perhaps, I am not ready. I am weak. My windowless rooms suffocate me with pain, and they get flooded with water from unknown sources. My umbrella is broken, and I cannot seek shelter. July has arrived with rainfall, but some are beyond human eyes, only to sing songs in the unexplored corner of my heart.

I was having a regular morning, the same teacup beside unfolded newspapers. The busy schedule hanging on the wall of my room always reminds me of the tasks that remain. I promised myself that I would become a machine, one that functions but cannot feel. However, the more the day passes, the more impatient I become.

Impatience leads to frustration. Maybe I could never truly become a machine. Rather, I have to remain human. Isn’t that an ironic curse? Machines that become human are never truly human, and humans who try to become machines are never truly machines. What we remain, perhaps, are puppets wearing masks of responsibility and false promises. So I know the pain will stay. The pain will remain today, tomorrow, and perhaps every July.

All my attempts to become a machine will fail miserably. With each sip of my morning tea, I will embrace pain, sorrow, and grief. I will grow closer to pain and farther from peace. But July offered us peace, didn’t it? It promised the eternity of happiness. Yet what truly remains is a meadow filled with the graves of hopes and dreams, with no funeral and no one left to remember them. Somehow, I became the only soul that stays, not by choice, but by unseen manacles. So I hear the sounds, sounds that pierce my heart through and through. But I don’t want to. Then why? Am I cursed?

Why am I hearing the tune of bullets piercing souls? Why am I having flashbacks of streams of blood? There was the story of monsters, but the light of a million hearts has driven it away. There was the noise of self-created manacles, but people have overcome it with a stronger will. Now the monsters are gone, right?

But the cry still remains. Hadn’t July promised us there wouldn’t be any more tears? The suffering would end, and peace would prevail. Thousands of souls turn into pigeons to appeal to the celestial to grant their wish. Is it all lies? Why has July arrived echoing more pain? Are the wings of the pigeons cut down? Can’t they fly anymore? I hear someone laughing outside my room. The scent is so familiar.

Are you here, July?