My life, your way

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was sitting on a bench in the park. I had my diary in my hand, and I was penning down my life goals. Filled with motivation and a pinch of anxiety, I started my- to-do list for the upcoming week.

Just then, I heard a glass bottle rolling towards me. I was disturbed to see the liquor bottle, and I saw a man lying on the nearby bench, murmuring something in his state of trance. I ignored. However, he continued his rants. I overheard him abusing people in his life. On a closer look, I was shocked to find seven bottles lying around him. “Why would someone drink so much in broad daylight, that too at a public place?”, I wondered. I gathered my guts to inquire about him. I left my diary on the bench and held on to my pen tight as it gave me a sense of safety if he planned to attack me. Even though my mind was screaming “Stay away,” I managed to stand in front of him. My heart was racing like a yoke of oxen and the blood flow within reminded me of Kerala floods. 

“What happened,” I asked. I was ignored, and so I turned my back. Suddenly, I heard him “I am a living dead.” “What a crap,” I thought and decided to move out. He whistled and said, “Come here; Sit here.” I turned towards him. “Do you know what these bottles are?” he mumbled. I had lost my interest to have a conversation and walked towards my bench to collect my diary. “These are my life,” he continued. “This is my job, that is friends, this is parents, that is marriage, this is children, that is money, and this last one is my hobbies,” he muttered. “Wow, what an imagination he has,” I exclaimed. I knelt in front of him, and he threw his visiting card on my face. I was stunned when I realized that I was kneeling before a surgeon at a reputed hospital. 

“You are a doctor, why do you………”, I asked, and he cut me off “Sssshhhhhhhh.” “You are no one to question me, why should I listen to you,” he yelled. “I lived a puppets life till now. My neighbors decided what I had to study, my parents decided whom I had to marry, my friends decided my status, my hospital decided how much money I could make, my wife decided what should I wear, and now my children decide where should I live”, he vomited out his helplessness. “Then who am I? A surgeon. A human who was made to look like a surgeon by the world. This is the real me, and he pointed towards himself”. He then asked me to hand over my pen. He held it firm and smiled. He then gave me an advice; no drunkard would ever give. “WHILE WRITING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE, DO NOT LET ANYONE ELSE HOLD THE PEN.”