Can “LIKE” mean anything we like?

Should I call this a coincidence or ignorance? 

Coincidence because I saw it like graffiti on the wall of Facebook the second I logged into it; and ignorance because I notice one of its kind constantly surfaced on the wall.

I was closely following my friend after he has dropped a message on Facebook saying that he is visiting his sick mother. Since we’re the bosom friends, I bored an equal dividend of his mother’s pain. That sterile internet access through his mobile phone sustained to feed me flickering flames of messages each day.

Yesterday, he has left another message that read:

Hi Dumcho,

I will return to my office tomorrow. The ten-day casual leave is almost over. The few days I have had to be invested for any unforeseen emergency next time.

The health of my mother has almost regained but now, I am worried about the health of a road that connects to the highway. It has been two straight days that the rain did not stop dancing its feet here in our village.

Will keep you informed anyways.

After reading his message, my heart broke into two slices of mood: Happiness and Unhappiness. Happiness because the bent pole of his mother’s health was almost straightened. Unhappiness because of the torrent of worries that kept me thinking of the road condition.

The road that bonds to the waist of the national highway isn’t always stable. It never hesitates to be chopped into many segments even with the slightest slap of the blunt rain balls.

I was gobbled up by the worry because it has been two days that the rain launched a jam session. I could easily paint the equation of the road’s condition in my mind then. Besides, the diminishing number of his entitled casual leave nailed my heart with thousand pains.

This fact has always grievously alarmed me that teachers don’t have the luxury to move out like any others do. At times, we have to sacrifice the meals of our personal necessity and strive to feed others’ wants. The bread of our profession is such that we have to eat on time before the deadline. Eating after the date failure will only invite thousands of verbal food poisoning from every boneless tongue because none of their ears is capable of hearing the whisper of the heart. This is a sad tale that I have to think about him. Hence, I wrote back with each word trying to hymn the silent wishes of my heart for his safe return. 

The scoreboard of LIKES my friend achieved

The next morning, I woke up to trace the footsteps of his updates. This was what he was written on the forehead of the Facebook:

Huh!! Have to wait another few hours due to the road block.

His words did not stun me because it was expected. But the worst thing that shocked me was to see 33 people who liked his misfortune.

I couldn’t believe my eyes and failed to understand what that word “LIKE” meant for these people.

“For them LIKE can be anything they like”, I assumed.

Call it an accidental hit or a deliberate one, it mirrored to me a different connotation. Because if I put myself in his shoes, it can count to a thousand meanings based on the name of a person.      

Even if it was one of his good friends, it would express that they hate my friend to be with them in reality. If it was some friends with whom he share a kind of lose-circuit-friendship, it would mean them celebrating his pain. And if it was his boss, we can draw the image of meaning in our own minds.

This trend of attempting to kiss the face of the word ‘like’ when somebody is drenched with the sweat of trouble and swimming in the sea of worries is so ironical in its literal understanding.

Those 33 likes in the case of my friend’s pain could mean 33 celebrations or 33 feeling sorry, or 33 feeling humorous or 33 feeling strange, Or 33 deliberates or 33 ignorance?

None knows. But only the person who liked it and the GOD know about it.   

  “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning”- Maya Angelou