Rita stepped out of my life to just another name then I began to forget, first her body, then her hands, her hair, her nose, her voice but those eyes I could still see staring at me in accusation, in acceptance of my animalness. I couldn’t forget those how much ever I tried. She was better off without me, I believed that.
I didn’t really forget her. But she wasn’t Rita anymore, just a memory, a memory of myself. Whose story was it? hers, them, mine? Ours? Sure I cried, I hung around all her places just to catch a glimpse of her but she had disappeared. Pune had inhaled her back as it had exhaled her with finality. Now the parrots screamed in frustration as dusk drew its curtains. I wished that I could see her again, coincidently as if it were meant to happen. I still had a lot that I didn’t say. More now that I had a little time to put words around my screeches.
Hindsight being such that I felt my inadequacy then with far more accuracy than was good for me. My depression was back like storm clouds blackening a perfectly nice sunny day. I wished that human race would just give up and start all over again. I searched for the giant undo button of life. This time I was the mouse running the maze, I had hurt the cheese, if only I could go back and say all that was needed. But words couldn’t heal, I knew that. And I was better off now. No electric shocks, no more games, just me.
Me, the one and only.
Me, the one and lonely.
She had changed me, hopefully for the better. I still had to test out the new me. I was still a lonely dolphin. My eyes were darker than ever, and I was loosing my Gift.
It was recurring with dangerous regularity, I heard everything that was going on around me, watching… waiting, observing. My eyes were recorders. They saw but they never felt. That went on in my head, and i stopped talking to myself. I could feel the voice somewhere inside me, sometimes maybe it was lonely as well. I felt like I had just woken up and the nightmare of sleep was far more better.
Or maybe it was all a desperate attempt to gather sympathy or pity or any emotion that would just heal me. People came; they said I looked sick, I told them I was. They left. My friends said I should start smoking, I pointed out I had never quit. That could be it they laughed back.
Ajay was in a relationship again; she was a page three also-ran. Marketing vice executive in charge of product distribution, a salesman or something. She took part in disco haunts every night, a great boyfriend being an essential ingredient like the latest cell phone. Ajay was happy because of a little thing called expense account.
“It isn’t meant to last”, he would grin. Light glinting off his pearly-whitened teeth. Shirt that was a size small and pants that hung precariously, sandpaper beard and petroleum hair. “Someday paradise will burn till then spill your drinks and sing”, smiling he slithered out.
This was before I removed him from my life.
That was one of mine, you bastard. I should have heard me say. But I didn’t, I couldn’t or wouldn’t and I thought of it when I was staring at the night sky and saw all the stars looking back at me and the hungry, haggard face of the moon.
This was after I had Ajay’s blood on my hand.
The moon, the one and lonely, waiting for all of us to die. A dolphin in the sky.
He had walked out of the door, once again, just strolled out. I felt myself get up and call him, smiling. I didn’t know why I called him back. I don’t know why he came back, he hated being called just as he was leaving. Maybe he felt that he owed me something. But he did.
“yeah”, he smiling asked, facing me.
“yeah”, I replied, my fist feeling his pearly-whitened teeth and sandpaper beard. My Voice didn’t ask me to do it, I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to do it. it just happened. For one moment I felt all of myself doing it. My calm fist caressing his unsuspecting lip, bursting it to let his surprised blood spurt on to my pained knuckles. For one moment I felt myself doing it.
Then he was lying on the floor, unmoving. Mahlesh not staring at the TV where men in coloured lycra beat the hell out of each other. Mahlesh, waiting for something to happen, watching my unemotional face then at Ajay’s sleeping face redding the unswept floor. Then starting to hysterically laugh at our animalness.
Water streaming out of his eyes, but it was blood that came out from Ajay’s face that was staining my hand. He laughed and gagged and laughed.
Vin came from inside to see what was happening. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t smile. He looked at Mahlesh fallen catching his stomach groaning, Ajay straddling the floor blood coagulating, me feeling the texture of the blood on my hand. Then going in to bring ice in a towel.
This was before we cleaned up Ajay, before he came around and visually picking me out sitting silently on my couch, staring at my eyes, accusing, accepting my animalness. Before he moved out and saw me occasional around the usual hangouts, hating me, fearing me, never talking to me all the things that weren’t there to talk about.
An ogre, the one and only.
An ogre, who didn’t feel anything.
A killing dolphin, who sang to himself when no one could hear.
I stared at the sky, the stars watching me, the unmoving face of the moon, where somebody left footprints in the dirt because there were too lonely where they lived and hoped that someone out there would talk to them.
Cynicism would save us, burning hope to keep away the darkness. At dusk I missed her the most when the sun’s sets fire to the sky and all the small birds fly around screaming or maybe singing glorious praise of a fight that was doomed to loose, its result forever decided before hand and the battle itself renacted daily.
And the phone rings and my universe stops waiting in anticipation and fear, hoping as much as it should be as it shouldn’t that the sound on the other end would be hers, for somebody else to pick it up and call out ‘its for you’, to remember every detail of the single moment when I reply ‘hello’, the slight warmness of the cell, the slight humming that only else can hear, the plastic coldness of its touch on my ear, waiting I wait.
If we could fly will we still be lonely.
I didn’t really forget her. But she wasn’t Rita anymore, just a memory, a memory of myself. Whose story was it? hers, them, mine? Ours? Sure I cried, I hung around all her places just to catch a glimpse of her but she had disappeared. Pune had inhaled her back as it had exhaled her with finality. Now the parrots screamed in frustration as dusk drew its curtains. I wished that I could see her again, coincidently as if it were meant to happen. I still had a lot that I didn’t say. More now that I had a little time to put words around my screeches.
Hindsight being such that I felt my inadequacy then with far more accuracy than was good for me. My depression was back like storm clouds blackening a perfectly nice sunny day. I wished that human race would just give up and start all over again. I searched for the giant undo button of life. This time I was the mouse running the maze, I had hurt the cheese, if only I could go back and say all that was needed. But words couldn’t heal, I knew that. And I was better off now. No electric shocks, no more games, just me.
Me, the one and only.
Me, the one and lonely.
She had changed me, hopefully for the better. I still had to test out the new me. I was still a lonely dolphin. My eyes were darker than ever, and I was loosing my Gift.
It was recurring with dangerous regularity, I heard everything that was going on around me, watching… waiting, observing. My eyes were recorders. They saw but they never felt. That went on in my head, and i stopped talking to myself. I could feel the voice somewhere inside me, sometimes maybe it was lonely as well. I felt like I had just woken up and the nightmare of sleep was far more better.
Or maybe it was all a desperate attempt to gather sympathy or pity or any emotion that would just heal me. People came; they said I looked sick, I told them I was. They left. My friends said I should start smoking, I pointed out I had never quit. That could be it they laughed back.
Ajay was in a relationship again; she was a page three also-ran. Marketing vice executive in charge of product distribution, a salesman or something. She took part in disco haunts every night, a great boyfriend being an essential ingredient like the latest cell phone. Ajay was happy because of a little thing called expense account.
“It isn’t meant to last”, he would grin. Light glinting off his pearly-whitened teeth. Shirt that was a size small and pants that hung precariously, sandpaper beard and petroleum hair. “Someday paradise will burn till then spill your drinks and sing”, smiling he slithered out.
This was before I removed him from my life.
That was one of mine, you bastard. I should have heard me say. But I didn’t, I couldn’t or wouldn’t and I thought of it when I was staring at the night sky and saw all the stars looking back at me and the hungry, haggard face of the moon.
This was after I had Ajay’s blood on my hand.
The moon, the one and lonely, waiting for all of us to die. A dolphin in the sky.
He had walked out of the door, once again, just strolled out. I felt myself get up and call him, smiling. I didn’t know why I called him back. I don’t know why he came back, he hated being called just as he was leaving. Maybe he felt that he owed me something. But he did.
“yeah”, he smiling asked, facing me.
“yeah”, I replied, my fist feeling his pearly-whitened teeth and sandpaper beard. My Voice didn’t ask me to do it, I didn’t think that it would be a good idea to do it. it just happened. For one moment I felt all of myself doing it. My calm fist caressing his unsuspecting lip, bursting it to let his surprised blood spurt on to my pained knuckles. For one moment I felt myself doing it.
Then he was lying on the floor, unmoving. Mahlesh not staring at the TV where men in coloured lycra beat the hell out of each other. Mahlesh, waiting for something to happen, watching my unemotional face then at Ajay’s sleeping face redding the unswept floor. Then starting to hysterically laugh at our animalness.
Water streaming out of his eyes, but it was blood that came out from Ajay’s face that was staining my hand. He laughed and gagged and laughed.
Vin came from inside to see what was happening. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t smile. He looked at Mahlesh fallen catching his stomach groaning, Ajay straddling the floor blood coagulating, me feeling the texture of the blood on my hand. Then going in to bring ice in a towel.
This was before we cleaned up Ajay, before he came around and visually picking me out sitting silently on my couch, staring at my eyes, accusing, accepting my animalness. Before he moved out and saw me occasional around the usual hangouts, hating me, fearing me, never talking to me all the things that weren’t there to talk about.
An ogre, the one and only.
An ogre, who didn’t feel anything.
A killing dolphin, who sang to himself when no one could hear.
I stared at the sky, the stars watching me, the unmoving face of the moon, where somebody left footprints in the dirt because there were too lonely where they lived and hoped that someone out there would talk to them.
Cynicism would save us, burning hope to keep away the darkness. At dusk I missed her the most when the sun’s sets fire to the sky and all the small birds fly around screaming or maybe singing glorious praise of a fight that was doomed to loose, its result forever decided before hand and the battle itself renacted daily.
And the phone rings and my universe stops waiting in anticipation and fear, hoping as much as it should be as it shouldn’t that the sound on the other end would be hers, for somebody else to pick it up and call out ‘its for you’, to remember every detail of the single moment when I reply ‘hello’, the slight warmness of the cell, the slight humming that only else can hear, the plastic coldness of its touch on my ear, waiting I wait.
If we could fly will we still be lonely.
No comments:
Post a Comment