Fractured Silhouette:

A skinny lad’s obsession.

Dubai’s gilded mirage dances just out of reach, mocking me with its glittering promise of solace. 112 pounds clinging to my bones, I’m a wisp of a lad in a city built for excess. They call me “skinny,” “Duval”, “stick,” the words echoing in the canyons of glass and steel. I swallow them down, along with my meager breakfast of buttered bread and boiled egg.

Security, that once-comforting blanket, has become a threadbare top, offering no warmth against the hunger gnawing at my soul. It’s not food my stomach craves, but numbers. Columns of emerald Dirhams stacking in my bankbook, a monument to my sacrifice. Each stroke of the clerk’s pen a symphony, drowning out the hollowness inside.

I work myself into a feverish trance, every spare Dirham a brick in the wall I build around my heart. Sleep is a thief, stealing hours from the relentless pursuit. Five-thirty dawns, the city still cloaked in sleep, and I’m already a slave to my self-made chains. The sun paints the glass towers gold, mocking the hollowness of my pockets.

Dubai’s pulse throbs with whispers of deals and deadlines. Telex messages crackle like lightning, and fortunes are won and lost in the blink of an eye. Eleven o’clock, the guillotine falls, severing another day’s dreams. Parathas? Egg sandwiches? They’re luxuries for the full-bodied, not for me, the phantom flitting through souks and skyscrapers.

My evenings are a monotonous ballet of taxis, relentless work, sojourns in the bazaar, the Catholic club and my tiny flat. Books blur into rows of numbers, my diary a chronicle of calorie counts and Dirham dreams. In the mirror, my shadow stretches on the wall, a gaunt accusation. I trace its edges, a morbid fascination with the self I’ve become.

Fatigue, the unwelcome guest, settles upon me like a shroud. But within its folds, I find a twisted pleasure, a kinship with the growing digits in my bankbook. Each thousand Dirham is a balm on the sores of self-denial. Yet, as midday brings the sweet revelation of new entries, the fatigue dissipates, replaced by a hollow echo of yearning.

Rohit, my anchor in this desert of ambition, sees through the facade. He deflects barbs with brotherly pride, painting me as the busy, healthy one. As snickers ricocheted around the Ping Pong table, aimed like backspin shots at my insecurities, his voice cut through the air, a sudden smash clearing the path.

But with each passing month, the truth hangs heavy in the air, unspoken but undeniable. I am the constant in this city of flux, a skeletal monument to a pursuit that yields only dust.

The 112 pounds clinging to me are not a badge of honour but a stark reminder of what I’ve surrendered. In the glittering mirage of Dubai, I’ve lost myself, chasing a happiness that shimmers but never burns. And amidst the symphony of Dirhams, a single, haunting question pierces through at what cost, this hollow peace?

Dubai, this desert sphinx, was starting to purr its secrets.

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Dubai

Youth

Wonder