I decided to get rid of the litter in my apartment and reduce clutter in my life, but found a website where stuff was given away free.
Most of my stuff has memories attached to them, like the wristband to my first Sonu Nigam concert or my first air ticket to the Iranian resort island of Kish, so I decided to get rid of my wife’s stuff instead.
The article had said that when you reduce life’s litter around you, your karma changes and you begin to feel that a burden has been lifted off your shoulders.
I imagined myself sitting cross-legged and floating five inches off a clean, white bed in a minimalist bedroom of light pastel colour and happily typing on a clean keyboard that did not have crumbs of brown bread lodged between the keys.
“Don’t you dare,” said my wife, before leaving for work. “I know where my things are,” she said.
That is not exactly true because we keep buying stuff that we cannot ever again find. For instance, when I heard a crashing, tinkling sound from the kitchen I knew the maid had broken the last of my favourite glasses that were made in Japan, not China.
“Don’t worry, we have more of these,” I said, as the maid pretended to be contrite and sorrowful, but I know that she loves the sound of glass shattering every week.
When I looked inside the walk-in closet that we turned into a store room, I could not find the glasses, but found a fishbowl instead, that brought back memories of the Siamese Fighting Fish and the snail that we killed by freezing them to death with our air-conditioning.
Seeing a guitar leaning on the wall in the corner, I decided to go online and sell my kids’ stuff instead. I took it out of its gig bag, placed it near the window and took a picture. “Barely Used. Best Price,” I wrote in the caption under the picture and posted it.
While I know it is important to use shorter sentences and verbs, I am still not sure what words actually help sell your garbage stuff.
As I was browsing the website, I found a section that said “Free Stuff”. “Ha, trying to get someone to get rid of your rubbish,” I said, looking at adverts of people wanting to give away their furniture.
Then as I was scrolling through, I found an advert where a young woman was giving away fish for adoption. “Maybe it will be good for our souls to give this fish a new home,” I told myself.
When I finally found her home in the new development somewhere out in the desert, she also had a fish tank with a filtration system. The fish were ornamental gold fish with diva-like swishy, long, angelic tails.
“Perfect. My son will love these,” I told her struggling with the heavy fish tank as we walked to my car carefully so as not to stress out the fish.
“I don’t have time for fish,” said my son, peering into his iPad. “I am busy with my exams.
I read somewhere that pets are good for kids and it helps them see life from a different perspective or something like that. The fish now recognise my son every time he comes to the fish tank to feed them. They generally ignore me.
The other night as I was browsing the same website, I found that someone was giving away tiny dogs that looked like toy dogs, for free. These sell for a huge price at the pet store, I thought, wondering where I would find a place for a dog, even a tiny one.
Meanwhile, the plan to free my karma has been put on hold.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.
