goldfluke

TEN

His need to break the wall and reach the other side overwhelms him and like an obstinate 3 year old he starts banging his head against it. Slowly at first, hoping gentle persuasion will cause it to collapse. Then a little harder: a brain jarring thump-thump. This is about the time when the pain kicks in. His high threshold for pain helps him continue undeterred. Hit by harder hit, immovable object meets flesh and bone. He hears garbled voices asking him to look away, to get over the fascination, to enjoy where he is at: radio static, which in no way can compete with the, by now, thumping break beat. With the aural having resigned, covered by the self’s own blood, vision too leaves. Now he can’t hear or see where he is, just feel the wall against what’s left of his forehead. Somewhere around now is when he starts losing his sense of place, followed rapidly by reason and his whole life centers on the banging of the head against the wall: the before, the after don’t matter anymore, he stops looking or thinking or caring for anything else. 3 words consume him: ‘break the wall’. The blackness moves from the eyes to the rest of his head and steadily takes over the being. At last everything is the same, this side or that doesn’t matter: Peace out. That is, till he gets a glimpse of hope in another wall...

NINE

He didn’t want to go to the conference. The heavy laptop helping the weighed down-ness, he dragged his feet through the airport. All around him were biz travelers: heading home: their ‘lappies’ in tow, in their not-so-crisp-anymore biz apparel and their uncomfortable-but-black-as-night biz shoes, standing in one queue after another, waiting to get aboard and eat their pre-cooked-we-are-here-to-keep-you-shut food.

He didn’t want to be part of any of that. He wanted to be home, in front of the TV, flipping mindless channels, chomping on calorie-bursting burgers, soaked-in-fatty-oil fries, washing them down with a pesticide-laden fizzy drink and top the abuse with some nicotine sticks.

Instead cramped into 27F he worried about the presentation he was supposed to make to the firangs at the conference: and wished he had made the slides more succinct and easy on the eye… but too late now: both time and his interest were in huge short supply.

They say it is all in the mind: did that mean that if he fooled his mind enough, he would start liking the idea of the conference? Calvin did that all the time. What Bill Waterson can preach, I can practise, he thought: What if it wasn’t a boring advertising tool / process learning exercise? What if he were the keynote speaker at the president of the universe convention? What if he was the convener of the hippie-rebirth meet? What if this was the convocation where the women of the universe finally crowned him their leader?

Come to think about, this could work. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Yes! Delusion when carefully handled could abet sanity!!!

*-)

EIGHT
Tanzania, to me, represents the foundation of my story. And for a large part of my life it has been the past AND the possible future.

A symbol of my desire to return to unencumbered-ness: a cocoon which nostalgia has turned into a soft, mild space of perfect ease: the place where I can get off the racetrack, which offers escape, anonymity, another begining.

I had rationalized all of this some years ago: mount Kilimanjaro was the destination: a 12 day trek through all the climatic conditions that existed on earth: Amazonia like heat soaked jungles to the snow covered crater. And then I had bunged in the cities I had grown up in as icing: reversing the priorities had made it easier for the adult mind to accept the possibility of working at going back.

But that was then, today I have come to believe that I can never go back, what I want to return to is in my mind: in reality it’s a different place and if I want to, I have to learn once again to belong in it: cause nothing remains the same, within me or without me. Its almost like the fear of spoiling the picture perfect past has made Tanzania fade out of my mind map. So much so that I have given up on planning for it: believed in the futility, the vulnerability of dreaming, preferring the numbness of no-anticipation to the pain of disappointment.

Tanzania remains with me, but only in conversations, as and when I find someone who is curious enough to ask about my ‘golden years’. A backdrop for my stories of brushes with death, relegated to an interest-fueling context.

And true to all non-nurtured dreams, going back to Tanzania has withered away; the harsh rays of reality has dried it up and killed the hope that came with it.

SEVEN
He liked being alone.

He had outgrown the need and desire for company. A detachment that had served him well: no obligations, no emotional chains, no debts to repay or loans to incur.

And yet this morning was different: he had woken up with an acute need for company. To be in touch, with people who would want to be with him, people he would want to be with. This was not an alien feeling; one he had dealt with in the past and had gotten over. Then, where in the name of god was this vacuum from?

He flipped open the phone, wondering whom to call, what to do with that somebody, then stopped: coz there was nobody to be with, let alone do something with. By design he had systematically deleted all variable support systems. People, who were on their own trajectories, living lives as far and away from his as he was from theirs, filled the phone book.

“The feeling will pass”, he reassured himself, all he had to do was stare it out, re-deal with it, like the initial months after.

He walked into the living room and there she was: standing with one hand on her waist, the smile reaching her eyes, her hand tucking her flick behind her ear. Infected, he smiled too, his eyes wandered over her, noticed her airline tag attached bags lying near the door, her ever-present cell phone resting on the dining tale, her sandals resting next to his. A thousand thoughts bullet-trained through his mind, she caught the look, “Shhh…, come here, baby”.

They hugged, not too hard, he always thought of her to be fragile; always worried he might hurt her. She lit a cigarette and sat down, within arms distance, like always. She talked and he stared: the comfortable rhythm they had loved so much in the past, seemed as much at home in the present. The conversation gurgled about tours, people he didn’t know, hotel rooms, strange cities, friends and strangers, the room filled itself with warmth, laughter, words, kisses and touch.

And then the bell rang, he got up to answer the door, knowing when he would return she wouldn’t be there: the mind construct would expire; the memory bubble would burst.

But that was all right: the parchedness had gone, the desire had ebbed, the weakness had turned, just like she had promised: “Death wont’ part us, only lack of love will”.

He liked being alone.