The weighing scale is a mean thing.

The weighing scale? What does it care about? Does it care that today you are feeling lazy? Or that it was raining? Or that mornings are meant to be slept in. And evenings are full of work. Kids need to be minded, fed, bathed and put to bed. That the house needs to be tended. That you want to meet friends.  Does it matter to it if the weather was horrible? That it was raining? Or that the sun was much too bright. Or that when you woke up this morning, all you wanted to do was snuggle back with a coffee and a book.

It sits there, saying nothing, as you gorge on a chocolate cake. Or cookies. Or on potato chips. You try not to look at it and it hears you make your promises. It impassively hears them- promises that this is the last one. Tomorrow, I will go running. Let me eat this now, but after this, I’ll stay away from all kinds of junk. Impassively listens. Doesn’t say a thing.

It sits there even when you push everything away and start running. It offers no praise when you say no to a gooey desserts. It doesn’t tell you whether to choose yoga over aerobics or dancing. Doesn’t goad you to do anything specific. It just sits there quietly knowing that it has something that will make to return back to it.

And you come back to it, the next day, full of trepidation. You approach it, much like a small kid waiting outside the principal’s office for a misdemeanor. It pays no attention to that silent plea of yours. The plea that said: Be kind. Don’t break my heart. Give me hope.

But does it? Absolutely not. It gives you the truth. It tells you coldly exactly what you weigh. It makes no judgments. It doesn’t need to because it knows you will make them yourself.  It knows if you’ve been naughty, you will hang yourself with the noose of that naughtiness; and that if you’ve been good, then you’ll be full of yourself.

It sits there, staying equally judgmental, whether you have won or lost; and whether you are happy or sad with the answer it has given. There is no emotion. No empathy. No care in this world. Just a reveling in its power. Power that is not exerted. Or explained.  Power of knowing that you are in its grip and you’ll be back tomorrow. To ask again. To be judged again. Again & again.