The trip begins...
Sodium vapor lamps have character. They make love to darkness unlike the harsh mercury ones, and beget little puddles of orangish black. They are rude, these lamps. They monochromatize even the stars! A world of blackish orange with a purple universe giving up to a chemical libido. And then there are places where they fail to reach - gaps in the fabric of luminous reality. Darkness. Footsteps meet the silent night.
What do writers mean when they say that the air was crisp? Does it mean that the air is brittle, breaking with every word? But I swear - no other word describes the state of the air better than 'crisp' when it is 3 in the morning on a cold November in Bangalore. Crisp, crunchy, cold air shrouded by the night. A little dog was laughing somewhere in the distance. And as usual, the sound of the distant train. All inimical to a silent night. Only thing missing was the tick tock of the invisible clock. My nocturnal overture.
I was dressed unfashionably - knee-length trousers and a thin T-shirt that said "Don't follow me, I am lost too!" on the front. My flip-flops were flipping and flopping on the pavement. I was chilled to my very cells.
I was, of course, going through a mental anguish. No other person would be walking those streets that night but one with a heartbreak. And when a 22-year-old male takes that walk, you can bet your last cigarette that a girl is involved. My problem was that the girl was not involved. Not involved in me.
My world was slowly crumbling around me. I had been born a die-hard romantic - the worst kind. I used to be the kid that headed to the library when the rest of the boys were playing cricket to impress the girls. The stereo-typical head-of-the-math-club kind of a kid. Except that I hated math. But I do wear glasses. Then one day, as my rotten luck would have it, I had picked up "Bridge Across Forever" by Richard Bach.
Which was why I was wandering aimlessly on that desolate street, trying to find meaning, to find reason.
Everything happens for a reason. But for the devious mind, every single occurence can be interpreted as a reason. I don't believe in fate or destiny. Life is nothing but a cast of a die. A six and you're in love. A one and you're dead. Cause and effect are mere probabilities, connected by happenstance. Doing the right thing does not matter except that it might slightly increase your probability of having a good thing done on you. Chance. Not fate. Luck. Not reason.
I carefully retrieved a smoke from my box and lit it up, inhaling deeply. I turned around to watch out for any passing police cruisers.
Time has a curious habit of stretching when it wants to. Time is expandable.
Sodium vapor lamps have character. They make love to darkness unlike the harsh mercury ones, and beget little puddles of orangish black. They are rude, these lamps. They monochromatize even the stars! A world of blackish orange with a purple universe giving up to a chemical libido. And then there are places where they fail to reach - gaps in the fabric of luminous reality. Darkness. But was it really darkness? Have I been here before?
I had a well-paying job. The typical IT ones. My day started at six thirty and ended at one in the morning. The pay was good - it was phenomenal for one just out of college. But the work was tearing my mind apart. Ever since I had joined the job, the only things that I had read were some Functional Specifications of some weird business house and the only things that I had written were some few lakhs of meaningless codes for some faceless clients. I had had enough of that numbing cycle.
The dog grinned at me in a curious way - very reminiscient of its relative, the hyena. A scavenger come to feast on dying dreams. Rigor mortis was setting on my ambitions. I could see the tongue lolling out, eyes open in one last desperate cry for life. I didn't much like that dog. The pavement was slowing down beneath me, the tiles too far apart.
A few teenagers were singing "Alice! Alice! Who the fuck is Alice?" from one of the numerous terraces. A cellphone was ringing from a nearby house. My mind was screaming out a eulogy.
Where was the silence? I needed some quiet.
I heard a tiny sound and I looked up. The sky was unbelievably huge and vast. And not a single cloud in sight. There was Orion. And right above Orion was this small orange star. Probably a red dwarf long dead now. Half the stars in the sky are most likely dead. But what does time matter in the cosmic sense?
Time is expendable.
The sound seemed to have come from that dying star. A huge tunnel was yawning open in front of my eyes, the star at the end of it. Star streaks formed the inner wall of the tunnel. Just like that rabbit hole that Alice went through. WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?
I knew I had to change my lifestyle. There were lots of things that I wanted to do. Travel a bit. Write a lot. Meet interesting people. Be known as someone other than that-relative-of-yours-who-is-a-techie-right?. And the time to do that was fast approaching.
The orange star was the only thing left in the sky, and darkness was creeping up from the sides. The tunnel was nowhere in sight. A strange warmth and a sudden chill. And - bless my soul! - a feeling of euphoria! Curiouser and curiouser.
"Hallo!!! What you doing? GET UP!"
I stood up and faced the fat cop. He was stinking of urine and whisky.
"What you doing here? Huh? Where home?"
I smiled. It was love at first sight. Humanity was beckoning. Where was my home?
to be continued...
posted by Confused Martian | 3:44 PM
|
0 Comments
