Motionless

"Is there anything else you would like to tell me?" asked Dr. Mary.

"Our office is on the platform facing the tracks. We shifted to this one a few months back. There is a glass window between our desk and the platform. Its a one-way see-through tinted glass; so, we can see the passers-by on the station but nobody can see us. Most travellers used the glass pane as a mirror to see themselves. When John had joined the office, he used to get startled by the sight of the onlookers but with time, like all of us, he got used to it. And recently, he even started gazing back at them. I just remembered this because when I saw his picture in the newspaper, the staring eyes reminded me of how he used to stare at the travellers. He was a gentle, reticent and good man."

----------------------------------------

"How is Rita, Dr. Mary?"
"She is doing well. I have succeeded, after a long time, in making her write. She has kept a diary and every now and then she writes about her past."

----------------------------------------

He never spoke much. He had a rigid routine and his needs almost never changed. After so many years of living together, it had become completely unnecessary for us to talk. I knew what he wanted at any given second of the day. He seemed content with his life. He never made any attempts to improve it and never complained. He had no friends.

The stares began a few months back. I woke up one day to see him sitting beside me and staring intensely at me. I was completely shaken. It was an icy cold lifeless stare. I shrunk away from him and got out of bed. His eyes didn't move, he didn't budge. I slowly walked to him and shook him. He looked at me, smiled like nothing unusual had happened. I asked him what the matter was and he just said "I was lost in thought."

Then slowly it felt as though he became completely oblivious to his surroundings. He began staring at people as though they didn't exist. When my friends visited us, he would not notice them entering or hugging me and even after they sat down around us, he would be mute and staring at the wall or at the door. He had to be shaken out of his morbid reverie.

So many times, I spoke to him for five or ten minutes thinking he was there talking to me, but he was not. Only after he was shaken and explicitly told that I was talking to him, would he listen and participate.

He looked stoned (he wasn't). He only drank a little and perhaps it was only then that he was merrier than usual. When I asked him about it, he said he didn't feel any change in himself. It was as though people around him had stopped existing for him and he had to be consciously made aware of the fact. Movement, sounds, smells - nothing could reach him any more.

I couldn't stand the eerie transformation. He was a dead body, a zombie. He was inert, motionless. And his eyes, that vacant stare was the gaze of death. It had an unchallengeable, callous stillness that chilled my bones every time I saw him.

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Rita Anthony, a 45 year old woman was found sobbing in a pool of blood in her house at 34, Lessing Gardens, this morning. Beside her was the hacked body of her husband, John Anthony, an officer at the local Railway Station. Her neighbours had heard her screams early in the morning and informed the police. The police forced the door open to enter the house. Rita surrendered herself willingly and when questioned, said "Yes, I cut him into five pieces with that", pointing at the axe that was found beside the dead body. When asked for the reason, she said "I couldn't stand him any more." She refused to speak further and has been silent and morose. Sergeant Edward King and Dr. Mary Thomas have been assigned to the case and Mrs. Anthony is in solitary confinement at the Sherwood Psychiatric Centre.

Many fall

With a strident yell, I fell off the edge of a cliff and felt my heart thumping out of control as the air pushed me, with increasing anger, miles downward into a thick darkness.

My eyes were closed and limbs were outstretched on what felt like curved surfaces. My head, turned to a side, was flattened against a sphere. My eyelids shivered and opened a little and shut again. Consciousness was around me, not inside and was about to leave but it felt like I woke up too soon, caught it by its trailing strings and was swallowing it back into myself. I became aware of my body in parts. My arms and legs appeared slowly. I could see that I could see again. It was white all around, everything was still.

Sight and movement felt novel, exciting. For a long time I just moved and observed my fingers and toes and all the joints of my body. I looked around and found gigantic white spheres all around and found myself in the gap between six spheres - two above, two below, one ahead and another behind. There was space between the spheres for me to walk - as though a path had been created. My mind was completely blank. I had no thoughts, no memories, no knowledge. Feelings - strange and new - were emerging.

I began moving in the world of spheres. Each touch felt the same curvature, the same glassiness of the surface and the same bright white rays from every sphere. I was walking on spheres and the path went on endlessly, jumping from sphere to sphere always finding more on every side.

After a while I saw a blurred image in the white light. I strained my eyes to see clearly. Bit by bit, the image grew to completion - large and alive. The creamy white light carved out the image of single female breast. Above the breast was a big, uneven forehead of a woman. A man was making love to the breast and the forehead. I went closer and saw the man from behind. The breast was as big as the man and the man was lying over the breast and kissing the forehead. I went closer and bumped into the surface of a sphere. I realized that the man, the forehead and the breast were inside the sphere.

I moved away and saw that inside each sphere there was an image occupying the entire sphere. The whiteness of the spheres all around were getting replaced by the colors inside. A bright red sphere drew me closer to itself. I saw a small black oval bud that had not yet blossomed. A swarm of bees was hovering around the bud trying to open the flower. The swarm formed a cylindrical shape and started attacking the bud like one single log of wood. Fresh red blood, dripping from every bee, had filled the sphere.

These sights were pure images and I could not identify what I saw with any system of concepts or language. I didn't know what I was seeing - I just knew that I could see. My mind was slowly buzzing into a state of convoluted activity. Images dug up memories and sounds. I started uttering sounds, meaningless sounds. I was still staring at the trickling redness when I uttered "beeeeeee..." and the sound of 'e' revolved around the spheres and kept hitting me as the bees were rhythmically trying to force into the bud. A vague, rusty associative memory between the image and the sound I just uttered was forming.

Every image was different and yet every image was inherently spherical. The world filled with so many different colors and objects seemed to have just one shape when touched: what I felt with my hands was just a spherical glassiness everywhere.

I walked ahead and saw more and more large images within spheres - a tuft of black hair dropping to one side with a few white strands, the legs of a farmer ploughing a barren desert, waves of the sea lapping the striped back of a woman, a glowing yellow sun setting itself behind a razor's edge, nimble fingers caressing a pair of hands, a small dark umbra of darkness and a penumbra filled with skin stretch marks, lips locked into each other kissing and starving and putrefying into a pink gangrene, a window of a bus intermittently flashing lights on an enchanted face, a slimy snail shaped like a human ear in orgasms of joy, foam filled hands scrubbing and laughing, a spine tickled into jerky movements, a mouth being fed pages of a novel, large eyes surrounded by blackness and filled with tears, two shadows walking in circles around the moon, blind eyes absorbing endless expanses of throbbing skin......

Words were rushing into my head and I was yelling them out in a nonsensical stream of babble. I ran between the images and yelled "haaaaaaaaair", "leeeeeegs", "feeeeengers", "peeeeeenk",... stretching out the vowels and reveling in the formation of my mental associations as they emerged from my clouded mind.

Suddenly I saw someone looking at me - was she inside a sphere or outside? The word 'mirage' flashed in my head, I yelled out "meeeerage" and pursued the figure. Catching glimpses of her now and then, I kept running between those images inside the spheres trying to find the image outside the spheres.

Then, with a roaring sound, the spheres started melting. The images inside started acquiring life. The sounds from every sphere filled the air with a deafening noise. At the same time all the spheres also started coalescing. The entire world was melting and fusing around me. I was at the center of a tremendous vortex. The woman I was seeking began to form from the melting and coagulation of everything I had just seen. She had been inside each one of the spheres. And now she was congealing inside me. I was also melting and fusing with every image.

I was not outside anymore. There was no outside anymore. There was no inside either.

Vortex of discontent

Another evening is dying a slow death. The gloomy sky is blending into the gray mountains. The wind reminds me of a naughty child in search of an elusive treasure. The trees are mildly amused at its playfulness. The buildings stand callous and sombre.

I can feel a dull silence emerging from my gut. A void that is wanting to be filled, an unidentifiable restlessness. I feel like an empty earthen pot that yearns to be filled but refuses to fill itself with anything around. Like a dysfunctional digestive tract that vomits what it consumes: it starves seeking nourishment, dies seeking life.

I fill the void with words whose impotence mocks my pen. Every form that this ink assumes deforms its intention. This is an exercise in futility. The arrow that misses its mark conveys an intent that is frivolous.

A desire, a quest fulfilled only by a conquest. A future, a dream that invades the present. A word, a form that colors a dormant darkness.

Existence is a mould for disharmony. Its violations are defects in its design. The aberrations isolate themselves with an immutable hope. A hope that is abstract - formless, since it defies existence. Is it a self-absorption that is so vain that it fails to see its solipsism?

clutter

...and there were bottles of all sizes and hundreds of toys and tomes of books and jewelery and watches adorned by several mannequins; there were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, plenty of lamps - lit and unlit; clocks showing different times, clothes for every purpose and mirrors, yes, there were mirrors. mirrors reflecting reflections of reflected mirrors. mirrors mirroring the bottles, toys, books, clothes, lamps, clocks...mirrored clocks bespoke mistaken times...reflected faces spangled bejeweled shadows...
...i stepped in, walking on my six legs, my feelers guiding me...and there was an army i was leading, and there was an army ahead of me, competing...a radiant battlefield, ominous timely thunders; with dust inking us, lints of pain cutting through us; we moved as i moved...ahead, turning left, and then right and forward again...they were cautious, i was brazen, persistent....
...and then, i fell an unending fall...i saw behind me - there were none, i saw ahead - there were none...there was me, and me and my falling selves in infinite morphologies...in constant movement captured by reflected stillness...yes, there were mirrors...reflected shadows spangled bejeweled deaths.

Still. Resplendent. Lila

She was sitting on the ground with her knees bent. Her heels touched the ground delicately and her feet were bent towards herself, her toes straining to touch her shins. Her arms gently embraced her knees. Her back was stretched and curved inwards and her forehead rested on her knees. Her curly black hair spun out of her head in long wavy strands and spread on her shoulders. The symmetry of the spread had a mathematical beauty. Her pale white skin was moist and glistening. Her back, arms and legs were taut. She was like a wound spring who could spring out of her stillness any moment.

The light showed her from the side. Her face was completely hidden by her hair and arms. Her breasts were flattened, pressed against her thighs. It was dark all around. She was the source of light and only she was illuminated. I approached her from the darkness, from behind. It was light that I was seeking. Darkness was within me, enmeshed with me and indistinguishable from me. I wanted to embrace the embracing arms.

As I crept close, I confronted the hard shell of a turtle. The dark invisible turtle was crawling very slowly on her back. Its movement was as incredible and unreal as the possibility of its existence between us.

My embrace was an inert fluid that surrounded her and the turtle without their knowledge. I waited in agony for the turtle to move away and allow the fragrance of her naked skin to touch me. Time was frozen in the endless wait and she sat motionless in her resplendent, silent beauty - palpable and yet remote. As the turtle moved, my arms started metamorphosing into large white luminous wings - the only part of me that was now visible. My body disappeared leaving behind a head, my enormous wings and claws that had nailed themselves into the turtle's shell. The turtle had conquered me. I flapped my wings in vain, in an attempt to fly with her and the turtle. Her stillness was unyielding and the darkness impenetrable.

Conquer

Sailor, sailor, why do you sleep?
Enchanting beckoning rhymes are the winds
Waters cradle your boat with longing desire
Wake up and go, explore, conquer!

O absurd voice, O blind fool!
I am a coconut, not a sailor of your charming dreams!

Awake

Dark is the day as I stroll in my lands of fiction
Fighting with images of my myopic breath
Juggling carnival eggs in a giddy merry-go-round
Why did you wake me up, O treacherous dawn!

the silent night

With both hands clutching my hair and my head bent, my eyes were restlessly following the intricate design of the tablecloth. A glimpse of the passing waiter’s apron stole a part of the table from my vision. I recklessly turned and blurted – “A cup of coffee please.”

I was taken aback to see a beautiful girl in an elegantly simple evening gown standing there, equally alarmed. For a few moments we just stared at each other – both of us stunned at my outburst. Her smile finally broke the awkward silence and she daintily went and sat at the table ahead. I was still in a state of shock. I caught up with reality, rose and went to the next table to apologize. “I am very sorry. I mistook you for the waitress.” My words were slow and abrupt and it seemed like each word touched her sparkling eyes, felt her soft cheeks and then reached her ears. She patiently heard me with a benign smile and nodded. She had a sweet face that reminded me of a flowing river – full of life, calm and soothing.

I didn’t know what to say next. This time her touch broke the silence. She touched my hand and pointed to the opposite chair. Her face and smile had enchanted me completely. Her sharp nose was small for her face but it made her look cute and innocent. I realized that I was deeply attracted to her. I also sensed, or perhaps imagined, that she liked me too.

I was about to say something when she lifted her finger, pointed to her mouth and shook her wrists. She could not speak! She pouted her lips and squeezed her eyes as though sad about her condition. I clasped her hands with mine. I wanted to speak, thinking it would entertain her. But I felt her eyes asking me not to speak. I felt that her language of silence was richer than mine and we were communicating with an immeasurable tenderness. I was mesmerized by her, enslaved by her lively eyes, motionless lips, tantalizing fragrance and reassuring silence.

She held my hand and led me out to the balcony. Sounds of lapping waves were dancing wildly in the soft light of the full moon. The moonlight seemed enthralled as it touched the bubbling whispers of the sea. Silently absorbing the intoxicating beauty, we held each other closer and kissed. Her passion was as tender as her smile. Under the moonlight, we made love in a dream like delirium.

When I woke up, I thought it was all a fantastic dream. But then, I could smell her fragrance on my self. I looked around and couldn’t find her anywhere. I ran down to the portico and saw her entering a car. I almost called out her name and I realized I didn’t know it. And then, I heard her talking to the porter! The bewilderment at hearing her voice shook me from within. A streak of worry passed over her resplendent face as she saw me. The car roared away filling my shock with smoke.

I stood watching the car with my vacant eyes, my mind confused and numb. The car stopped at a distance and I saw the driver running back. He came to me, handed a sheet of paper and ran back. I felt I was in the midst of a mysterious intrigue. I watched him running back to the car and drive away. The note explained it all. It was as simple as that – “I didn’t want words and our lives to come between us.”

The Parting

I was sitting in my verandah with a book on my lap staring at my dreamy eyes that were looking at the refreshingly clear blue sky. I could see birds gliding near the horizon – birds trying to fathom the depth of the sky, moving higher and higher, dissolving in the sky and emerging again from a speck. While the book was fluttering its pages to catch my attention, I heard another flutter.

My friend, the gray falcon, flew into the verandah and sat beside me. Had she flown out of my mind or did she fly in through the window? There she was in flesh and blood and it was a delightful surprise! We had not met many times – she had the habit of flying in and out of my life at her own fancy. I remember the first time we had met – we had struck an instant friendship. There was an ineffable aura of warmth and openness when we were together. As she sipped water from the bowl, memories of our previous meetings – few and fond – flashed through my mind.

She: You have become older!
I: Yes, I have! And you look better than before!
She: I’m enjoying my flight more than ever. In the last two years I have seen new lands and met new families. Nowadays, I’m flying with a family that’s very simple and easy to live with! Indeed I’m happy with them!

She winked and added, “They are not complicated like you and me!”

I: How I wish I could fly!
She: It sure would be nice if you could. We could have spent more time together. But, men can’t fly because their minds are too full. They don’t “let go”. Flight requires freedom.

I pondered over the meaning of that esoteric statement. She was flying in and out of the window meeting other falcons who were passing by. We talked, as usual, about life, philosophy and flight and of old times and common friends. A falcon’s face is not too expressive but she could laugh. We had a meal together and later, I walked behind her while she flew ahead. It was symbolic of the past when she had led me to unknown directions. We returned and sat quietly in the verandah.

She: This is probably the last time we’ll meet. It’s sad.

There was a melancholic quiet when she said that. I tried to fill the silence with hope.

I: Life is long and strange. You never know how and when our paths may cross again.
She: You are a man and I am a falcon. We have different lives and different flights. And, today when I fly, I don’t know where I’ll be going.

A quaint thought passed my mind. I imagined the two of us meeting after many, many years and spending the last few years of our old age together. It was an amusing picture – a gaunt, toothless, hunched man with a walking stick and a drooping falcon on the shoulder!

She: I have to leave now.
I: Can’t you stay longer?
She: What is the use? I have to leave anyway!

And she flew away once more. Her flight was elegant and enchanting. Her flapping wings soon became a spot that disappeared in the clouds. But the spot started growing and flew in my mind for hours. The breeze blew her dropped feather onto my feet. I looked at it wistfully and thought, “My dear friend, I’ll miss you. Hope you have a good life ahead!”

Many birds visit my house. Most are scared of me. Some like me and talk to me. But only a few leave a nest behind. When they come and fly away, they leave a disquieting void in the nests. But slowly, their nests get filled with memories, and life goes on…

Believe It or Not!

I woke up groggily one morning to find myself in a dark, damp hole! “This is definitely not the place where I had slept last night. I didn’t drink too much. I’m not dreaming,” I thought as I pinched myself several times. The place had an awful stench of soggy, rotten vegetables. After a while, I could also discern a fertilizer-like smell. “Was I kidnapped last night and dumped in this weird factory?”

I shook my head in disbelief as I looked behind. There was no bed – I had slept on the ground! I felt nauseated seeing the place around. The ground also looked soggy like the walls. Now, when I looked more carefully, I saw that the room was spherical in shape. Not exactly spherical but it had no sharp edges anywhere – just curves all around with several flap like structures on the sides. Dull light was streaming in from one corner of the room. It was intermittent and there had been several short periods of startling darkness. I could hear faint gurgling sounds like the working of some distant, gigantic machine. I was bewildered and petrified. I was rudely disturbed by a large ball that was slowly rumbling down the window.
“Was I Alice in Wonderland? Was I dead and in hell?”

Confused, scared and hopelessly out of my wits, I saw the ball coming dangerously close. Without knowing where to, I decided to run. I got my second and bigger shock when I ‘saw’ that I had no body!! Mad with confusion, I wanted to kick the wall – but, obviously, I couldn’t! I calmed myself and decided to think about this bizarre situation. In the meanwhile, the giant ball had broken into bits and surrounded me. It was a gooey whitish substance and was sticking and rolling about the wall. I had no body and yet I could ‘see’, ‘hear’, and ‘feel’ that place. I was happy that whatever ghoulish contraption I was in, at least, it wouldn’t hurt my body! I realized that although I could see all around, I couldn’t move.

Then, I heard voices. It was my wife calling out my name.
“Was she also in the same predicament? In another torture chamber like this?”
And then, I heard my voice! I couldn’t be mistaken. I was talking to my wife. I heard myself crunching some chips. Just then, I saw another soggy shape descend through the window. I thought I saw the ridges of potato chips in it. I thought I was hallucinating. An outlandish idea struck me then – “Am I in my stomach? How is that possible? Well, nothing sane had happened since waking up! But, if I am in my stomach, then who is outside? What about my normal consciousness?” My wife had not sounded perturbed while talking to me. I had even heard her kissing me goodbye to office!

I had developed a parallel consciousness of my stomach. Very interesting! But, I didn’t want to continue experiencing the noisome acid filled environment with a window that emitted semi-digested balls. I spent what felt like an interminable stretch of time in my stomach. And, suddenly, I ceased to exist. I switched back to normal consciousness. I was simultaneously relieved, amused, astounded and scared. However, life went on as usual after that, and nobody felt anything amiss.

I remember the life in my stomach just as I knew who I was while I was in there. After that day, there have been a number of days when I have woken up in my stomach. Its familiar territory now – those flapped peristaltic walls! Now, I am convinced that I have two parallel lines of consciousness and I can experience only one of them at a time. I switch involuntarily from one to another. Of course, there are many puzzling, unanswered questions – what happens to the other one while I am experiencing one? How could I experience all that without a body? Are there other levels or types of consciousness? And most confounding of them all, who am I?

From the ancient manuscript of grotesque tales

1. A devout couple lived a simple and pious life by the river bank. With the first ray of sunlight, they would begin the day with prayers. A day’s hard work at the fields would end with an evening of sacred chants.
2. Content they were with their lives but for their desire for a child to brighten their daily chores. The man wanted a daughter and the woman yearned for a son.
3. The Gods who listened to their prayers were in a playful mood one day. They granted their wishes and a child was born to them. They were both overjoyed and danced with delight.
4. The pregnant wife’s face was more beautiful than the moon. The happiness of the husband never ceased to show on his face. And nine months later, a boy was born to them.
5. As was the custom, to christen the child and know his future, on the 101st day he was taken to the astrologer who was old, wise and well versed in the arts of astrology, palmistry, face reading and other psychic disciplines.
6. “This child is not normal. It’s a boy below the navel and a girl above. This child will suffer when it grows on account of this. You both are devout and God fearing. I don’t know why this misfortune befell on this innocent one,” said the learned man with a dark seriousness.
7. Stunned to silence, the mother saw her smiling child holding her hand. Her eyes moist with tears, she held him to her bosom and covering him from the astrologer’s wrathful words, ran away to her home.
8. The child was named Krishna. Enchanted by the child’s tantrums, the astrologer’s words faded and flowed away like the waters of the mighty river of Saurashtra and many years passed.

9. Krishna reached adolescence and it was then that the parents remembered the dismal predictions of the seer. Krishna’s voice, face and breasts were that of a beautiful maiden. But, below the navel Krishna was a strong, virile man.
10. The villagers called Krishna a witch for she could sing better than a nightingale and run faster than the cheetah. Villagers avoided her and she became devoid of all friends.
11. Years passed as Krishna and her parents led sad and lonely lives. Krishna helped her father in tilling the land and sang with the birds. And then, her parents died, worried and fearful of Krishna’s future until their last breath.
12. Once a troupe of hermaphrodites came to the village and Krishna left her house to travel with them. Although Krishna was with them she was still lonely and couldn’t find a friend among them. They were boisterous and insensitive while Krishna yearned for nobler company.
13. Krishna earned her living by selling her voice and not her flesh like the others in the troupe. Many men were attracted to her divine face and sweet voice but were horrified to know her secret.
14. Krishna’s first friend was Shyam, a drunkard poet who was ostracized because he was an atheist. Although Krishna was a believer, she liked him because he was a thoughtful and sensitive man.
15. Shyam wrote songs that Krishna sang beautifully. But the people around disliked their happiness like the rain clouds dislike hot lands. They were pushed out of the village and were forced to live with lepers.
16. Shyam fell ill and was bed-ridden. Krishna was again lonely and miserable. Poverty-stricken and desperate, she thought of ending her harrowed life many times. She bore her tribulations only for the sake of Shyam.

17. And then, so was the playful will of the Gods, sorrow and happiness came together. Krishna met a group of women who were kind and loving. Enchanted by her magical voice, they decided to keep her with them as a servant. On the same day, Shyam died.
18. They were women who made love among themselves and avoided the company of men. Each had been shunned by the society because of their deviant desires. Except for Meera who had once loved men but all the men she had known had been deceitful, selfish and violent with her.
19. Meera, strong willed and independent, had decided to leave the world of men like the solitary tigress leaves her mother to find a different family. She was loved and revered in this group and soon assumed the role of the leader.
20. When the group learnt of Krishna’s secret, they were apprehensive of keeping her with them. But, Meera, who had developed a special liking for Krishna, was strongly in favor of her staying with them and her voice prevailed.
21. Krishna was also fond of Meera and soon they were consorts for life. Krishna was the perfect partner for Meera as she was virile in bed and had a woman’s sweet kindness.
22. Krishna led a happy life thereafter and the souls of her parents smiled with satisfaction in the abode of the Gods. Such was the inscrutable playfulness of the Gods.

Disclaimer: This is purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person (living or dead) or to any texts (ancient or modern) is co-incidental and unintentional.

Anne's diary: 27th December - last night

It was a cold night and I was cozily tucked into my boyfriend's arms. He was half-asleep and was mumbling intermittently. I was staring at the white ceiling trying to find dark spots in the seemingly spotless white.

“You are the quiet types, aren’t you?” he whispered drowsily.
“Hmm,” I said.
“You hardly speak, honey. Sometimes your silence is scary!”
“I’m scared of words.”
The words hit his impenetrable sleep and spiraled upwards carrying my thoughts.

I saw my Dad’s hand emerging from the bathroom and asking my Mom for a towel.
“Get ready soon, Daddy, I’ll be late for school,” I yelled with a mouth full of oranges.
“Chew your food properly, Anne, and don’t talk with food in your mouth,” ordered my Mom. She came to the table and meticulously packed my lunch box. I chewed the oranges opening my mouth, now and then, displaying my efforts to my Mom.
“Anne, don’t do that. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Sorry, Mamma.”

I ran into Daddy’s room and saw him sitting silently on the bed, facing the wall. He was still in his towel. I heard a strange humming sound. I got scared. I had never seen Daddy sit so silently before. I ran back to my Mom and cried, “Mamma...”
“What happened dear?”
“Daddy…”
“He’s getting ready, isn’t he?”
“He’s not moving…”
“What?” a look of concern flashed on her face and we both ran into the bedroom.
Daddy was there - immobile.

We crossed the bed and saw him. His face was peaceful, almost numb. He was still. Dead calm. But his lips were quivering and he was softly muttering something incoherent. My mom yelled and shook him. But his body was lifeless. His mouth didn’t stop. It was muttering non-stop – “car happy talk office book is was am I a the rat year father anne mother room parrot sand water pavement rain help man stomach dates palm copy sheets snow train battery pencil gas…”

I was petrified. Both my Mom and I were crying.
An ambulance came and took him to the hospital.
A few hours later I saw him in the hospital, unconscious but his mouth moving slowly. When he regained consciousness, there was an incessant stream of words from his mouth.
I never saw him again after that day.

“You are sweating,” said my boyfriend as he hugged me again, “Oh baby, must have had a bad dream. Sleep tight dear.”

Ear itch

My right ear had been itching inside for a long time. The itch would aggravate in certain positions. For example, when lying on my right side with the ear pressed against the pillow. At times, there was pain in the region below the ear. A course of antibiotics ruled out an infection - the feelings persisted. Physical inspection also dismissed wax collection. I could feel movement within the ear. Like a sharp pricking pain moving along the interiors of the ear - millimeter by millimeter.

A few days back I was lying on the bed with a mirror in my hand early in the morning. I noticed a black spot in motion in the cusps of my right ear. I turned to look at the pillow and found a clear white pillow-cover. Despite some gymnastics with the hand mirror & the mirror on the wall, I couldn't look inside my ear! But then I realized that there was an animal living inside, most probably, an ant. An ant that had liked the warm coziness of my ear. Perhaps, it had also acquired a taste for ear wax.

Days passed.

I have now got used to living with the ant in my ear. It regularly crawls out for fresh air. But returns promptly on seeing any approaching threat including my fingers. It doesn't recognize my human body: it just knows the ear canal - its home; and the ear wax - its food.

We have a language of movement and touch with which we communicate. There are certain head positions that my ant dislikes. During the day, when my head is almost always straight, my ant doesn't move much. I think it sleeps. At nights, particularly when I just lie down, I wake it up with many jolts due to my changing postures. Earlier, due to these jolts, it would run helter-skelter making my ear itch for a long time. Then, slowly, it got used to the daily earthquakes and I, for my part, always moved my head delicately, with care.

My ant feels better now. From its position inside my ear I know when it is sleeping, eating or playing my ear drums!

The Final Intercourse

He was delirious with exhaustion. His heart was beating wildly as he lay with his back kissing the dry grass, his hands outstretched beside his head and his legs held together as though in a vice. Despite the heat and noise, his mind was comfortably numb and was moving incoherently through absurd lanes of his mind. The sun was streaming mirages into his head - a bed cozily tucked below a dark, damp staircase, a garden surrounded by snow clad mountains, previous moments of intimacy that he had never found in his conscious memory…

She was lying atop and had the serene look of conquest in her eyes. She was panting and her nails were quietly caressing his bare chest drenched in sweat. Her legs were on his legs - perfectly superimposed – twitching now and then, seductively, through the shreds of his trousers. Her naked skin displayed the resplendent vigor of youth.

Their breath coincided in a swift, tired rhythm. His eyes were closed and hers were intensely awake. In the midst of the blistering sunlight and arid land, the two of them made a perfect picture of raving wildness and intolerable hunger.

At a hazy distance in the plains, she saw hyenas approaching. Without further delay, she dug her razor sharp incisors into his stomach and devoured his entrails. A strident wail melted in the vastness of the plains as her tail fondly stroked the spattered blood on his legs. Other lionesses and cubs had joined her and were nibbling at his toes and outstretched hands.

On the way...

He could see a blur of whiteness on his side. There were shapes forming one large mass and then fragmenting into two or three or four blobs of white and then again uniting into one continuous shape. Only when the shapes came very near and bent over him, did he realize that they were nurses meticulously and anxiously exercising their skills. He had to concentrate hard to make sense of all his sensory perceptions. He slipped back to a daze with a welcome effortlessness. The rattling of the ambulance van became a rhythmic motion cradling his imaginations and moribund thoughts.

Lying down, he could see the balconies and terraces speeding past and the clouds scraping the electric poles. He could see the clouds funneling and trickling onto the roofs. He could see figures dancing on the electric lines – figures from the deepest recesses of his minds, faces he had long forgotten. Every figure balanced and danced perilously on the lines and on the balconies – some abruptly falling down and vanishing and others joining newer figures and forming an ever expanding procession that was following his thoughts, trying hard to keep pace.

Beams of light reflected from regions he would never see again sparkled in front of his eyes – each ray gained an indescribable strength, became an invigorating attempt, but in vain. The rays pushed the houses, uprooting them from their foundations. The houses merged with each other and the clouds pulled them from above. The houses formed images that were a jumble of his memories.

A ruined fort in a desolate desert became a temple with a mellifluous garden, an enchanting dew drop turned into a towering inferno. He heard whispers echoing from the sweetness of togetherness and shrieks from wild carousals. The gables turned to turrets, the soft sounds of flowing rivers melted into the smell of rain. It was a cumulating of sensations – sights, sounds, smells – that slowly faded into a blissful darkness.

BOO

The young boy was sitting with his elder sister on a wayside restaurant. It was a dry, dusty day. They were in the outskirts of the village and arid lands were all around. The vegetation consisted chiefly of dry, thorny shrubs. Once in a while, a vehicle passed them on the road - a state highway - moving towards the city. Every time a vehicle passed them, the dust on the road swirled up and appeared to dance with the tune of the engine, settling down slowly only after the vehicle was out of sight. The midday sun shone with blinding resplendence – not a speck of cloud was visible in the azure sky.

There was no one in the restaurant. After serving them, the waiter, who was also the cook and the owner, had gone to his house as his buffaloes could be heard bellowing for a long time. The boy was looking at her sister as she was scraping the last morsels of food in her plate. There was a playful wistfulness in his demeanor. The girl was chewing the food and the mingled dust without feeling either - apparently. Between two consecutive sessions of mastication, the girl was chattering incessantly in a drawling voice and the boy, without paying any heed was looking at her and day dreaming. He saw a thin red line appearing on her neck. The line was lengthening and encircling her neck. The girl went on chattering without the slightest hint of discomfort or pain.

The thin red line had become a full circle and a liquid – red in color – started oozing out from the line. Flies from the surrounding filth started buzzing around her neck – many of them sitting on that circle and devouring the liquid. The liquid was now flowing like a stream and her neck, below the cut, was completely red. It was like a grand necklace with flies carved into the design. She had been talking without a pause. Then, she let out a sigh, brought her hands near her ears, clasped her head with both her hands and with a soft groan, pulled her head off her body and placed it on the empty plate. A fountain of blood gushed out through her neck and her body fell backwards along with the chair. Blood streamed all over the place and mixed with the filth all around.

The head kept on chattering. The boy was delighted. He let out a yelp of joy, picked up the head of his sister, holding it with the short hair above and went out of the restaurant. He threw the head up lightly. The head went up in the air till his shoulder height and then started falling down. The boy gave a light kick and the head rolled forward into the field, scraping the shrubs as it moved. The boy steadily moved in the fields, kicking the head along. The head chattered incessantly.

Murder?

The wind was howling into his ears. The lashing rain colluded with the wind with a brutal ferocity that was terrifying all earth. From the window, he could see coconut trees swaying helplessly in the cruel, capricious storm. The fierce lightning and thunder could have petrified the bravest of hearts. The storm had been raging for hours now and beloved trees that had provided shelter to many had been uprooted with an unnaturally fierce callousness. The silence of doom was impending in the raucous drama of the elements.

He was staring vacantly out of the window. The stillness of the dark room seemed like the eye of a ravaging twister. His wife was lying on the bed in the middle of the room. The room was like a hospital ward meticulously inserted into a bedroom. There was a strike of lightning and the woman, who was on oxygen from a ventilator, convulsed and her body appeared to be writhing in pain. However, her face was as tranquil as ever. He looked at her impassively and made no efforts to move towards her. She used to have such convulsions frequently and each attach would last only a few seconds. In the last 12 years, this had been the only sign of life in her apart from the relentless, rhythmic breathing. She was in coma.

His face was calm and pale. The dim light in the room did not betray his emotions but the tempest outside was a perfect depiction of what was inside him. His countenance bore the signs of intense decision-making. He had lived with the eerie and miserable condition of his wife for more than a decade. Her rock-solid stillness had frozen all memories of his past life. He saw a dazzling fire-play of lightning that lit the whole atmosphere. He saw rain drops falling like a torrent and coconut leaves swaying like monstrous fans, sweeping all life forms into oblivion.

He walked to the bed and disrobed himself. He flung the blanket that covered his wife and unbuttoned her gown. The icy wind charged into their flesh. He removed her oxygen mask and lay on the bed embracing her limp, unresponsive body. He kissed her lovingly on her colorless, pallid lips and slowly life oozed out of her body. His eyes were full of tears as he lay clasping her death. The strident yells of the wind went on incessantly. With changing directions, the wind brought some rain into the room as well. The thunder was deafening.

Reality

It was dark with the faint moonlight straining to illuminate the earth. The silhouette of the mountains was visible in the distance - silent and majestic. A mud path was carved along the edge of the forest in the shape of a semi-circle. There were not many stars in the sky. The sound of beetles penetrated the stark silence of the night and made the silence more conspicuous. After some time, the sound drowned in the silence and the vacant silence engulfed you again. The view of the forest with the mountains in the background was spectacular and the darkness was eerie and astounding. I was standing at the edge of the road.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of hooves. A knight riding a glorious white horse came, riding along the road. As he came nearer, I saw that he was dressed in a steel armor, black in color. He was holding a spear and was crouching forward ready to attack and impale his opponent to a gruesome death. As he came galloping forward, his speed seem to increase. I stood petrified on the turn of the road - the ghastly forest in front, a steep cliff behind and death coming closer every moment. My heart was thumping in rhythm with the sound of the hooves - the pace of both mounting rapidly. I was drenched in cold sweat and fear. He was just ten feet away from me and he lifted the spear further up, ready to thrust it forward into my flesh.

I got up. It was an awful dream. My forehead and chest were wet with sweat. I looked around and saw my room - I felt secure and comforted. Through the window, I could see the moon shining bright and the coconut trees in my neighborhood swaying the cool, silent breeze. The night was soft and beautiful. I lifted myself and sat on the bed, staring at the sighing coconut leaves. My hand groped for a bottle of water on my table. I took a sip of water and waited for my heart to become steady. The breeze peeped into my room and touched me as and when it fancied. There was a sensuous quiet in the atmosphere which was almost spiritual.

And then, what happened was incredible - I got up! I was bewildered. What was happening? Didn't I wake up from that Kafkaesque dream some time back? I looked around and saw my room, the moon in the sky and the coconut trees - the same limpid night and the soft breeze. I shook myself in complete disbelief and a horrifying confusion. I threw myself out of the bed and walked around the room. I saw a bottle on my table. I then sat on my chair and thought. I then realized that the dream had not ended when the rider had vanished. It was a dream within a dream! Splendid! But then, I was very, very sure that I was awake when I woke up last time - the sweat, the fear, it was all real!! And, I am very sure even now. Am I?