Saturday, February 19, 2005

IMAGES

I stood still… but it wasn’t calm around me. I stood still while the storm raged around me. The world around me was as if possessed. The leaves flew fast, the dust got into my eyes, the branches kept breaking and the black sky roared and lit up in fury. The sheets of rain just poured and my clothes were drenched. Everybody ran for cover…I stood on the terrace.

I heard her voice. Calm but trembling with apprehension, she spoke. Why don’t you speak to me? Why do you stand-alone? Why so far away? I know I don’t talk much but that doesn’t mean you break all the ties... and the story took the unpredictable turn predictably…

…The sun descended slowly, and dropped off behind the cluster of buildings. A light breeze felt its way through her long soft hair. The loose dress she wore pulled away at her frail body. She stood on the cliff looking down. A hundred and fifty feet below the water frothed white. She had overcome the urge to live, she had overcome the most basic animal instinct to live, and now it didn’t matter. The dying soft orange rays of the sun set the sky ablaze… she took the final step forward.

He spread his arms. The black cloak he wore gave the impression of him having wings. He leaned over and pushed off. In slow motion: the cars rushing, down below him, the skyscrapers blurring into dark lines. His whole life flashed past his eyes in those few seconds. It was a lifetime compressed into a numbed consciousness. And then he hit the ground. He was dead.

When he opened his eyes…he was bleeding. His skull seemed to have cracked near his temple…there was a lot of blood from the right side of his head. He was dead. He saw people. But he felt no pain. He felt happy…in fact he felt ecstatic. He broke out into a song. He bled all over. He jumped, ran, stopped and he ran again. Then he turned around and started walking backwards. He was too happy to know what joy was.

I saw a man. The guy was wearing this dirty and patched up coat. He kept looking behind him and running fast. Then he’d stop and look back at the ground behind him: panic and run again. He finally stopped. Turned around and kicked and jumped on the ground in front of him.

Obviously he was mad. He was trying to get rid of his shadow.

… I saw the song come to life. I felt the colours run through my body. They pulsed with every beat. It was dark and shiny. It was purple. Felt like kilos of violet silken cloth wrapping up around me. It was A rhythmic metallic sound kept pricking my skin. And I felt heavy…yet I was floating. I wallowed in the purplish balmy liquid…

I was living my dream!

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."-
Harriet Beecher Stowe

1 comment:

Sudarshan. A. G. said...

"The people in those tales had many chances to turn back, but only they didn't. This is why those folks from the tales are remembered, Mr.Frodo"
-Samwise Gamgee, Two towers, Book -II, Lord of the Rings.