The Atom’s Perspective

I am a single atom in the brain of a man named X. From my vantage point, I observe a morbidly obese man, stripped of love and belonging. His parents are the only ones who still care for him, but even their affection wanes with time, eroded by his inertia and unemployment. Most days, he feels like Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis, trapped in a grotesque form, isolated from the world.

Conversations, when they happen, are forced. Whenever he speaks to a woman, he senses that he alone carries the weight of the exchange. There is no reciprocation. And when he tries to sever the fragile attachments he has formed—those one-sided infatuations that barely exist outside his own mind—his brain, of which I am a part, torments him with memories. It replays moments he once deemed "good," but goodness, like everything else, is subjective.

I often recall a line that seems to echo his existence:

"I’m only laughing on the outside. My smile is just skin deep. If you could see inside, I’m really crying. You might join me for a weep.”

All he longs for is freedom. But what is freedom? He does not know. How can he, when freedom itself is subjective?

As an atom in his brain, I do much of the thinking for him. At times, I have whispered to him—suggesting, nudging. I even proposed that he rid himself of his mind altogether, but then, what is freedom without the ability to think? When he accused me of planting in him the desire for freedom without offering the means to attain it, I remained silent.

During one of his schizophrenic episodes—fractured thoughts strung together in disjointed whispers—he was urged to observe others, to study their sources of freedom. So he followed people, watching them move through life. He expected to find liberation, but all he saw was struggle. Some fought against society, others against their own

emotions. Struggle, too, is subjective.

One day, in his aimless search for meaning, he stumbled upon a man unlike any other. A serial killer—let's call him Y.

Y fascinated him. And yet, he frustrated him. Unlike the rest, Y did not struggle. He existed in a perpetual state of detachment, unburdened by guilt, remorse, or the constraints of conscience. He killed, but he also worked, carrying on with his day as though the two acts held equal

weight. At first, X believed the job was a facade, a cover to mask his crimes. But the more he observed, the clearer it became—Y did not care to hide. He would carry pieces of his victims with him, as casually as one carries a trinket.

The psychology of this man confounded X. He felt, for the first time, that he was on the verge of an answer, the edge of unravelling the tangled web of existence. All the lingering questions of meaning, of purpose, of freedom, were about to be laid bare before him.

Then came the night he witnessed a murder.

Y’s hands, steady and precise. His breath, unhurried. No hesitation. No remorse. The act was neither good nor evil. It simply was. Guilt, that insidious whisper in the minds of men, was an illusion to him. The weight of morality, the crushing force of judgment—Y was free of it all. To him, oppressor and oppressed were indistinguishable. He saw no lines between them. He did not play by the rules of society. He had his own.

X watched, enthralled. For the first time, he believed he had seen true freedom.

Perhaps Y was still bound by his own compulsions. Perhaps even he was a slave to his desires. But as I have said before—freedom is subjective.

-Praveen Jangid