Once upon a time, sharks flew across the sky.

Or so one would think if one hadn’t been living in that era.

It was an age where people thought they had the right to punish people in God’s stead.

It was a time when it was okay to turn the sacred ground of universities into abattoirs.

It was just one of the moments in a string of moments when masks slipped off faces. With the carapace removed, you could see the hideousness underneath. The beings that had been masquerading around as animals were found to be much much worse. They might have been playacting to be civilized animals but the reality was abhorrently bad. When the masks were gone, we realized the torturers had been human.

Only the most unfortunate were alive at this instant in history. Could there be any doubt about their luckless nature if one looked at their accursed existence?

It was an epoch when nests were raided and the nestlings would never be safe. A false sense of optimism and security lay on the world like a thick heavy blanket. It seduced the birds to keep breeding, thinking their cygnets would be the only ones to be blessed. They never were; their fates had been anointed with humanity. There was no way those nestlings would remain unaffected.

It was a phase in human history when the Painbearers were taught their place. Untouched but still sullied, they plodded on. The chinks grew larger and each time, they glued the pieces back with hopelessness. Freedom was an illusion and the idea that they would ever be anything but the bearers of pain, a mirage.

It was an interval that had stopped being an interval a long time ago. It was like a pox-ridden Cronos but who refused to die.

In short, it was everyday o’clock.

Originally published at midureads.wordpress.com on August 30, 2017.