From a pimple, with love

This letter was written from the trenches of a war which was fought between some brave pimples and a highly efficient, highly effective skin-care product. The pimples lost the war and its last days, as witnessed by a corporal in the pimple army, are captured in this letter,addressed to the corporal's fiancee.

Dear Zita,

I miss you. I don't even know if I'll ever get to see you again. It's been five days since I last caught a glimpse of your lovely redness. You were looking stunning as always. Resplendent, glistening, perched on our host's forehead like a bindi. The way your curves mesmerized me and every hot-blooded, sebum-charged male acne  around me...ah, te amo, I can struggle and struggle endlessly, but I'll never come close to describing it.

But now I'm worried sick because I cannot see you anymore. Earlier, you and I ruled our host's face like royalty. I occupied my throne atop her nose-tip.  And princess, you used to look down from your seat on her forehead, gazing at me, none other than me, coyly, affection bursting at your seams. You and your smile showered radiance upon me like a million falling stars.

Now things have changed. They changed the moment our host (I think her name is Sanjana) decided to wage war upon us. She unleashed hell upon us, Zita. Garnier Pure Active Neem Face Wash. Every word in that long name makes me toss and turn in my sleep. I have seen horrible things in the last couple of days, my love. All my brothers dying on me one by one. Just a few moments before, my best friend breathed his last in my arms. It was mind-numbing, Zita. All the dead cells and bacteria wrenched out from his once proud and healthy body, he was a pale shadow of his former, youthful self as he sputtered his final goodbye. His last few hours were a testimony of pain. His body had become nothing but a cage, with every cell screaming in agony, waiting, craving for release. I don't think I can ever blot out that vision of horror from my brain.

Something tells me I'm going to meet a similar fate. Soon. As I see my last days approaching, my mind keeps going back to the happy ones which are behind us now. I think about how our pimple community spent their days on Sanjana's face amidst peace and prosperity. I think about our glorious days when we played havoc with her sense of self-worth. The crippling blows which we dealt to her confidence, the way we shook up her courage to face the world-those were our days in the sun! Remember the parties we had to celebrate whenever she cringed on seeing her acne-dotted face in the mirror? I remember all too well how your sparkled and glistened whenever she sweated profusely last summer. All the frustration you caused, the way you lowered her morale, the inspirational style in which you made her feel "less"-all your inimitable qualities just made me love you more and more. Remember the poem I made to tell you I love you? I still have it with me. I read it often these days. It's comforting, especially because I've lost sight of you now.

You, beloved, make my heart leap and boast,
Because of the way you unnerve our host.
'Coz of you, she can't look people in the eye,
'Coz of you, her confidence has bid her a good-bye.
She tried to hide us with hair and make-up,
Yet, she and her bf went through a break-up.
You made her the target of her friends' taunt,
'Coz of you, her beauty she couldn't flaunt.
You made her shy-you made her avoid school,
Oh my princess, oh my queen, you rock, you rule!
She dreams of becoming a model, you're ruining it,
Thanks to you, her soul is being sucked out, bit by bit.
You, my love, I will forever and ever cherish,
My devotion to you can never perish.

Sigh! Te amo, even your memories make me high!

You know, before this war began, I often used to leaf through the pages of our history books detailing the achievements of our forefathers. I always used to feel humbled by what they had accomplished.  Some of our forefathers had managed to ruin interviews and job applications because of the blow they had dealt to their host's self-image. Some had managed to instill a deep sense of social phobia in teenagers. The pesky teens had become more withdrawn and secluded because of us. Zita, as much as I felt proud of these achievements of our ancestors, I couldn't help feeling a little unworthy. After all, what had I achieved? What had I done to 'make it large'? I have always been a modest-sized pimple. True, I enjoyed a strategic position. The nose-tip. Sure, I was a freaking embarrassment to her. But that's all I had to boast about! Then one day I chanced upon a couple of lines from a book Sanjana was reading. And they changed my life. I committed the lines to memory.

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough..”

Such profound lines! Described my situation so perfectly. The book was 'The Notebook' by Nicholas Sparks. Loving you has been the greatest accomplishment of my life, te amo. I watched a lot of my near and dear ones die in the last few days. The space around me, once teeming with vitality and zest of a million bacteria, has become nothing more than a barren wasteland of normal and healthy skin cells. All the horrors I witnessed because of Garnier Neem Face Wash have filled my mind with nothing but unceasing visions of intolerable sorrow and crippling anxiety. In these dark moments, it is only your love which keeps the flame of courage alive in me.

As our numbers dwindle, I cannot help but marvel at our foe's ingenious war strategy. How systematically it has wiped us all out! It's not even a war anymore, Zita! It's genocide! We have nothing to fight back with. All our defenses have been neutralized, all our survival techniques invalidated. Our intelligence team had gathered a lot of info about our enemy, hoping that we would be able to figure a way out of this carnage. But even our best brains put together couldn't really do much, except watch helplessly as more and more of our numbers got slaughtered. All the same, I am sending whatever we know to you. I have not seen you for some time and my I clutch my heart fearing if the foe has got to you too. But I'll hold onto my hope and assume that you're still alive and well. You're just hiding till the storm blows over. I am sending you all the intel I have. Maybe, just maybe, you and your colony will succeed where we have failed and have a chance at making it out of this alive.

  

Our enemy in its decorated battle uniform

Below is the full inventory of the enemy arsenal:

Water, coco-betaine, PEG-8, sodium laureth sulphate, PEG-120 methyl glucose dioleate, sodium chloride, disodium cocoamphodiacetate, tea tree leaf oil, zinc gluconate, sodium glycolate, melia azadirachta leaf extract, tetrasodium EDTA, menthol, sodium benzoate, salicylic acid, CI 19140, CI 42090, linalool, benzyl salicylate, fragrance

Do you remember the war Sanjana waged on us last summer with another face wash, Zita? That time, we had sent the enemy fleeing with their tails between their legs. We could do this because we had turned their weapons right back on them! The previous face wash contained skin pore-clogging ingredients. Humans have a term for these substances. They call them 'comedogenic'. As a matter of fact, several face-washes meant for acne-prone skin have the same drawback. Thanks to the comedogenic ingredients, the skin-pores closed, our numbers multiplied and we grew from strength to strength. That was one of the brightest victories of our times, princess! That stupid girl used a face-wash which aggravated her pimple problems in stead of reducing them. I fondly remember the ball dance we had to celebrate that sweet victory. You, precious, were looking ravishing.

Now when Sanjana started using Garnier Neem Face Wash, our intel showed that Garnier Neem Face Wash had a comedogenic ingredient too-sodium laureth sulphate. Our hopes soared. Another easy victory in our grasp! 

How mistaken we were! Sodium laureth sulphate is only mildly comedogenic. Our numbers wouldn't be receiving any boost because of it.

Tea tree leaf oil

Watch out for their heavy artillery, love. The enemy decimated us with tea tree leaf oil. Tea tree leaf oil is the stuff our nightmares are made of. In 5% concentration, this is fatal to our kind. When I was in the crib, my mom used to scare me to sleep with threats of throwing me into a pool of 5% tea tree leaf oil. Shudders!

The enemy then bombarded us with Salicylic Acid! Salicylic Acid, for heaven's sake! It's plague, pestilence, famine and war combined, Zita! Untold numbers of our kind have succumbed to its wrath ever since the blasted humans discovered that this is our Kryptonite. Blackheads, whiteheads-all perished. The blasted thing didn't even allow those poor souls to leave any of their traces behind. It faded all their dark marks, the last remains of their legacy.

Neem leaf extract (also called melia azadirachta leaf extract)  then eat up our food and ration, Zita! All the bacteria, all the germs, the Stapphylococci family- the neem extract wipes them all out. They rob us of our means of sustenance. How long can we wage a war on empty stomachs?

After mercilessly mowing our battalions down, the enemy sends in the cleanup crew- Zinc Glycolate and Sodium Gluconate. The former makes the environment inhospitable for us by balancing the oil and clearing our host's skin. The latter fades the remnant dark pimple marks by peeling the skin cells.

How can an enemy so clinically wipe us all out?!?!! My interest piqued, I was forced to conduct further research into the company in which our enemy was born. Garnier is a part of a super-large company of the humans called L'Oreal. The first Garnier product, a hair tonic, was made by Alfred Garnier in human year 1904. Garnier is committed to making products with natural ingredients. The L'Oreal Group took over Garnier in human year 1965.

When people still used soap on their hair, Garnier came out with its 1904 hair-tonic. When humans didn't have any inkling of sun-care items, Garnier was one of its earliest producers in the 1930s. Garnier was also the first to come up with a permanent home hair color in 1960. Today Garnier is the No.1 brand in Europe using natural ingredients.

Now you see what we are up against, Zita? We are up against a company with this kind of illustrious history and rich background. Garnier is fully into research. Research for its products goes through four stages at one of L'Oreal's research centers. Garnier conducts clinical studies and consumer studies before releasing the product, as well as surveys afterward.

 Zita, this is probably my last letter to you. Heaven knows how much I love you. My dying wish is just that this letter finds you safe and sound. And if, god forbid, you have already been snatched away from this world, I pray that we meet again in our next life. I finish this letter with tears and blood that drips from my heart. I know there will be a tomorrow as long as I have your love with me today.

                                                                                                                                          Yours love pie,

                                                                                                                                           Pushead.                                                                                                                         

P.S. This post is written as part of an  Indiblogger contest. Please do visit the following links:  

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