Written by Aleya Jamel
I have a confession to make. I have multiple personalities. I seem fairly normal, but what you don’t know about me is all the lives that I have lived. I can’t remember the precise age, at which I was conscripted in, as the secret unwritten-about member of a group of five intrepid adventurers. I was the one who finally solved the mystery that unlocked the puzzle that was part of the quest. Soon after, almost like turning a page, I had started a new life.
By night, I was guzzling Frobscottle and helping a large and genial creature with a bizarrely wonderful vocabulary, capture dreams. By day, I was sitting in Maths class focussing all my energies on the pencil in front of me, fully confident that if I just tried hard enough, it would definitely move. Before long, I had magically left the confines of my school in Nairobi, and was one of the blonde haired, blue eyed girls that all the cute boys hotly pursued. I would bat my eyelashes, and flick my hair, as we went on long dates over milkshakes in the neighbourhood diner (!?)
Thankfully, that vacuous life did not last long. After all, I was now playing the part of the manipulative temptress, who plied every trick in the book to avenge the death of her father. That was in between the impassioned court room arguments I would make in the legal thrillers! My favourite life so far was the one in which I left this galaxy to hitch a ride to the next, meeting all sorts of absurd and thrilling characters along the way. To this day, the trusty motto I take with me in all my new lives is “Don’t Panic”
Some lives even when they are over, leave something behind that lingers long after, “The scent of bitter almonds will always me remind me of the fate of unrequited love.” As I have grown older, more and more, I find myself in the role of supporting character. I am not the one who stages a dramatic escape from prison, navigating the Indian underworld and masquerading as a doctor in a slum in Mumbai. I am simply a bystander. Though, every now and then, an unexplored desire is awakened, and I recognise a streak within me, that is begging to come out. I am teased and seduced enough, that I drop my life, and am thrust into a new world. I escape the confines of my society, my community, my upbringing, my family and I become…Woman. Pure. And inevitably dark. There is one man that takes me there every time. Milan Kundera.
You may think it is impossible for me to have lived so many lives, and to be still relatively well adjusted despite this (which in itself is debatable.) The truth of it; every time I enter a bookshop or a library, I salivate in anticipation. As I run my fingers across the spines of the books in front of me, I choose carefully which life I will enter next. It is addictive.
So aside from all the well documented benefits that reading brings, why do I read? To live! My life is far from boring, but frankly, one life simply is not enough for me! Whilst there is a possibility that I may hitch a ride to another galaxy in the future, one thing is for sure, I am real glad that I attended the mad hatters tea party when I had a chance! Who knows what’s in store for me next!?
You ask what life am I leading in secret now? Well I will deny it if ever confronted, but I am Wimpy Kid. If you want to know more, you will just have to read my diaries.
