You are constantly making exchanges. This for that. Giving up what you want for the need of the hour. Freedom sacrificed for the sake of livelihood. Love gives way to invisible pressures. Heat, dust and colour exchanged for a cool, clean greyness. Life given up for the sake of survival.
The question remains at the back of your mind, refusing to go away despite your efforts to deny its increasingly overbearing presence. There comes a time when facing up to it is inevitable. You grit your teeth and look at the question straight in the eye. You hope that the answer is different from what every instinct in your gut tells you.
Was what I traded in, worth more than what I got?
You wait, vulnerable and exposed, and you are met with nothing but silence.
No answer is forthcoming. Neither affirmation nor reassurance.
It is as you had expected after all.
The question wasn't really a question at all.
Rhetorical questions have a remarkable talent for making a frightening reality more palatable.
