The first letter in a string

“I can’t think. There are too many images tossing about in my mind. I can’t see clearly. The afternoon sunlight is blinding. There’s a desolate road on the right. There are no people. Dead faces - faces that have no meaning in my life any more. This road is my life now. Oh, my bloody itchy legs. Damn my leprous skin. I am surrounded by them – strangers - and I want none, I can see none. Aah! The acid is surging into my neck now. This house looks like mine. Looks like the house that I once had. What’s this tinkling sound? Three rupees. Why did I lose today’s game? The brandy was good – worth my last note. Why am I so restless? Its all so disgusting, so ridiculous. Look at this leaf that falls from this monstrous tree on my bruised shoulder. I want to look at my eyes, strained, burning, teary eyes.”

A dog was lying in the shade. It was a puppy that was on the threshold of becoming an adult. A man with ragged clothes was walking on the road. He had a dreamy look and would occasionally stop and look at the surroundings with vacant eyes. He looked completely absorbed in himself. His demeanor bespoke a terrible loss, a pensive, pathetic sorrow. Absent-mindedly he stepped on the dog’s tail. The sudden disturbance irritated the dog. It yelped and angrily sunk its teeth into the man’s leg – just above the ankle. What followed was an episode of shocking brutality.

The man bent on his knees and caught the neck of the dog with his large, swarthy hand. He rammed the head of the dog into the bark of the tree. The dog was yelping loudly and desperately attacking with its paws. The nails dug into his feet and legs and they were bleeding profusely. His red, livid face was shrieking with anger but his eyes were still vacant. They were not participating in this gruesome duel.

“How many more things do I have to face? This bloody creature…what right does it have to live? Why should it suffer this existence? Why can’t they just leave me alone? Bloody bastards, I’ll kill them all. Sickening morons – all of them. The villains, the plunderers – oh, this stupid dog, its stinking flesh. Ah, see the mashed flesh, the fresh blood. Society, evolution – what utter nonsense. Bloody scoundrel of a dog – why did you bite me?”

His left hand found a large stone. His right hand was still clutching the neck of the suffocating dog and muffling its cries. The stone pounded on the dog’s head till it was thoroughly smashed. The ears bled, the eyes bled, the teeth cracked, the skull cracked. Pools of blood surrounded lumps of scattered pulp of the dog’s flesh. The fidgety limbs came to a halt. The man released the dog’s neck and stood up. He jumped on the body of the dog kicking it with vicious force. With every kick his angry yells became louder and more terrifying. The unconscious dog’s abdominal skin tore apart. The man was not looking at the dog. His face was tensed and stretched to the point of exploding. Tears were flowing from his bloody eyes that stared with melancholy at the clear sky.

Completely exhausted, he fell on the ground that stank of blood and flesh. A mangled body lay beside a battered mind.

Early morning

A cold beautiful morning melts on the quiet buds of my thoughts. The suppressed crooning of the tender breeze bathes my skin. I wake up and look out of the window. Just inhaling the sight around me is divine, blissful. Twittering birds that dissolve in their camouflage. Moist grass catching the enchanting first rays of sunlight. I look at a large drop of water sitting like a pearl on the upper edge of my window. It has swallowed the sky and I look at the clouds floating inside it. As I open the window further, the drop rolls down slowly. I can see it letting go of the sky and consuming, one after another, the trees, the hut beside, and my finger nails. Like memories, they coagulate inside the drop and vanish. The drop falls on the ground and spreads to engulf the blossoming of a flower above. The liquid flower flows in the spreading drop, mingling with sunshine, yawning and stretching, changing colors and shapes with a fluid effortlessness. In that fantastic mirage, the flower and the water live together and move with the rhythm of the sunlight, feeding on the ground and slowly fading away. In an effort to save them, a drizzle begins. The sweet smell of rain wafts into me and settles on the stillness of my mind. I see the colors of the flower rise up against the rain, crystallizing in every raindrop. The rain destroys the solidity of the surroundings - the hut, the trees and the hills around. They become shimmering silhouettes of delicate, dancing colors. The world around me looks gentle, vulnerable and tremulous - like a nascent being.