But then, will you?

You remember how you got here. Don’t you? You remember being entangled in a muddle of emotions. Don’t you? Your head was hanging backwards from your shoulders. Wasn’t it? You mouth was too tired to utter another word. Wasn’t it?

Too far from reality, a sole resident in this world, not your own, sinking in quicksand.  Weren’t you? Reading between the lines. Were you? Found something interesting. Did you? The lines have grown apart now. Didn’t you want them to? The voices have grown faint now. Didn’t you want them to?

So inadvertently convinced that you’ll “get there”, you’re not moving at all. Are you? With a mere glance at every next colour, you’re having a ball with self conceived rainbows. Aren’t you? You say you don’t know what’s on your mind. But you do know what’s not. Don’t you? You seem trust your intuition, but appear to believe your counter intuition. Don’t you?

You declared to have found beauty in everything “just as it is”. Didn’t you? You claimed to have discovered content in silence. Didn’t you? But the crazy circus outside still tempts you. Doesn’t it? But this obtuse spontaneity still entices you. Doesn’t it?

If not waiting for anything. Why the hourly countdown? If not longing for something. Why the daily count up?  You’ll figure this out someday. Won’t you? And when that day comes, you’ll leave here. But then, will you?

Prologue to 'Miracles'

Most of you must know of only three universal divisions – Hell, Earth and Heaven. I have spent decades of my life in the fourth.

I’ve not been a part of your world for quite some time now. My thoughts are always almost clear before this swirl of memories hits me from nowhere. And then suddenly, somehow I don’t know what’s on my mind anymore.

I try to figure out what's wrong. But my heart has been glued to something unseen, something unknown, and unfamiliar. I search the past to find something to compare it to. But everything is blurred, tainted with a desire, deeper than my own, to grasp firmly to the fragility this reverie. I try to look into the future with no higher hope than to find something relevant, something related. And as I do, I find it ironic that everything is related, originated from now, from this unseen, unknown, unfamiliar feeling.

They say that in order not to remember something, sometimes, you have to give up trying to forget it. I’m giving up, ready to confront the choices that I made against Michael's aspirations.  

We all do believe in miracles at some point in our lives, not because we have witnessed one but because we want one for ourselves. Perhaps when I’m done telling you this story, this swirl of memories will fade away.


With closed eyes,
Breaths louder than sighs
It makes me wonder,
Somewhere down under

Would I still be me,
If us would still be we?
Had I done what I could
What you said I should.
          
                         - - Elizabeth Phyn

Alix and Alex- Part 2

{Alix giggles as the two walk down a mildly crowded sidewalk.}
Alex: “You know that no one likes it when you do that.”
Alix: “Do what?”
Alex: “That. When you make someone believe that you have something to say and then pretend that you don’t.”
Alix: “It’s just something I read somewhere. It has my mind working overtime. It had an intensely ironic central question. A part of it goes like this,
                                      My persistence would tempt the curiosity of fate to sway
                                      If only an insistence of fate would let my persistence stay"
Alex: “Are you making fun of me again?”
Alix: “I am not, if you tell me what was it that you were going to write after that.”
Alex: “I can’t. I don’t have the entire thing figured out quite yet.”
Alix: “Oh! Come on Alex. I know you don’t write unless you have a complete tangible idea in mind.”
Alex: “It’s a sensitive matter my dear. And given my articulacy, I do not allow myself the luxury of discussing it verbally, not with you at least.”
Alix: “Are you scared Alex, scared that the dexterity of your sensitivity will render it unreal in some way?”
Alex: Tell me something. Will you be convinced if I stated it factually that people, you and I for instance, live in different worlds?
Alix [interrupting him]: “Is that a question for me to answer or are we already inside your secret topic?”
Alex: "Both, I’ll have to say. And that an individual is only capable of fancying or despising someone else’s world, not his own.”
Alix: "Maybe… If it’s the ‘trying to be someone else’ saga you are referring to, yeah absolutely."
Alex: “Like they always say, ‘Be yourself’ and most of us reply by 'how the hell could I possibly be anyone else'. But then one day when you stop running and look back and all you can come up with is- ‘Oh shit!’”
Alix: “It is agreeable to some extent. We all have been in depths of melancholy when a longing exists and in paralic waters where our mere existence feels shallow.”
Alex: "Yeah exactly. That was the entire idea."
Alix: "And what about the two lines I accidentally stumbled on?"
Alex: "That life always brings you back to yourself. You get out of bed one day watching your dreams come to life. But it’s only when something knocks you off-track, it occurs to you that you are still dreaming, just sleepwalking instead…"
Alix: "…And you stop trying to be anyone, but just accept who you really are."
Alex: "Yeah, right. So now, in just less than 15 minutes you have officially stolen its essence."
Alix: "But it wasn’t a waste of time. Was it now?"
Alex: "Maybe not."
Alix: "That’s good to know."
Alex: "Would it have been bad if I would have said ‘maybe’ instead?"
Alix: "Then, my dear Alex, it just would have been ‘not good’.”
{A calm smile takes over any other noticeable expression on their faces, as they walk down the mildly crowded sidewalk.}


...click here  for Alix and Alex part 1

Stolen

The time has slowed down, and so has the rain. I can see through every drop, I can hold it, stop it from touching the ground if I want. I decide to stay a little longer in this gazebo, for this rain is no ordinary one. As I gaze through the droplets, I look into another world, memories trapped right at the center of every sphere, images so clear that I seem to be losing the sense of reality.

Everything else however, seems to be running at its normal pace. Most faces that pass me by don’t turn back, and the ones that do, are cloaked by the closeness of my vision to the drops. A peculiar ricochet from each droplet suppresses every syllable of theirs.

An irrefutable desire takes over me, drowns me and itself into one of the few drops right in front of my eyes. There’s no ground in here, a rather mixed, combined sensation of walking underwater and flying. Time once again seems to have returned at its ‘normal’ speed or maybe it’s just an illusion as I’m inside this droplet that appears too tired to descend.

I go over, in, out, in again, and out again from drops to drops, memories to memories. The times from when I could have blown away the sun, to when I would have pulled the moon a little closer. From when I would climb up myself and scream from the top of my head, to when I would crawl down under my foot and hide silently.

I try to hold on to some moments, literally hold them and slice through some others with a butter knife. But I end up turning the diamonds into puddles, the former ones, and somehow two smaller drops falling at my feet from the later.

Just as I begin to think whether I should leave, comes a drop and I’m pulled in without any self-control whatsoever. This can’t be. I’m looking at a figure just standing and starting out in open at the falling rain. Another figure appears into the picture. It appears to be looking straight at me. I’m sure, as they’re the only eyes that I can see.

The figure holds up its hand, shapes it somewhat close to a claw, and starts waving into the rain. I witness a rearrangement of drops, it causes them to hold up, rise and fall slower or faster, virtually defying all that is known as gravity. It says: “you have been stolen from the time scale”, and one of the pillars, closest to the figure bubbles up, splashes down into the water underneath, as if it was made of water and wrapped up in a fragile envelope.

The figure turns right, the claw, the waving, defying gravity, and another writing appears: “Not to be bound by anyone, you have chosen to bind yourself, here”. Another large splash, the entire gazebo quakes, but holds itself through.

The figure appears to be rushing, looks back at me, the other me, staring at the rain, and then looks down. I see that we are not too far from hitting the puddle at the bottom. After all, the drop was falling at whatever speed, it had to hit the ground. I look up again, another scribble for me: “I know you from the past, and you’ll know me in the future”. The entire gazebo now stands on one central pillar. Wait… not the entire, one half falls down.

The figure steps away from the swamped area, and moves close to me, the other me, who is still staring in the rain, ignorant of what is happening. As the other half is about to turn into water and splash down, the figure starts running out, towards me. It splashes into me, pushing me out of the drop.

I’m dry. The gazebo still stands. The time and rain however keep changing their speed, high, low, high again, up to the normal and back to slow. I think of stepping out, I decide to let go of the control, to let the rain fall on my skin, to let the diamonds hurt and flow through me.

The mere thought causes the pillar upright to ‘bubble up and splash down’. And then the others, in the same sequence ‘bubble up and splash down’. I decide not to walk out, not right now, to let the roof ‘bubble up and splash down’ on me. And so it does.

Time and rain return to their normal speed. Most faces that pass me by, turn back.

They see me, hear me. I observe them, listen to them.

Partial Reflections

And as I look up, I see mirrors, thousands of indistinguishable rectangular pieces that form the walls, the floor, and the ceiling up above. Thousands of mirrors form millions of reflections. Every single me, slightly different than any other me.

At a length I recognize a white door, I try to count, four, no eight, no twelve mirrors in fact are replaced by a white panel with a crystal knob on it, confirming that it is, indeed a door. I’m not sure if there’s a ground beneath the glass floor, or if it will break by the pressure when I walk. I ask myself whether running through will help leave the shattering glass behind, or should I walk, careful, diligent slowing down at some steps and pacing on others.

Anyhow, I decide to walk. Funny thing! Only a few of my reflections are following me, I gaze at them all one by one, right in the eye. It doesn’t take me much longer to figure out that as I accelerate, more of me start to follow. I wonder if there is a scientific explanation to the phenomenon, but end up even more bewildered. The floor seems to be stable enough so I speed up further, but I see no more additions to the legion.

I reach the door. I try to push the door open, rotate the knob otherwise, and again try to push. I hear a mocking giggle in the background. One of my ‘non-followers’? What the hell! I think. I try to pull the door this time. It opens and I can figure out the laugh.

Soon the reflections that had been following me, start to frown, some show a hint of anger, some of disappointment, and some of pure despair. They don’t say anything. I convince myself into thinking that they can’t.

There it was. Another room of mirrors and mirrors and mirrors all over again. And another door, again forced me to wonder, sixteen, no twelve again! This one was closer, maybe that’s why the door appeared bigger in the scenery.

I understand, or at least I try to. I pretend to feel for them for I have to leave, never to see them again, for I don’t believe in “looking back”. Reassured, I run towards this next door. A smaller room beholds but still millions of new reflections. Once again not everyone follows. It takes me less time to get through and even lesser to figure out that what is there on the other side of the room. I knew I had to pull the door this time. I choose to ignore the frowned, angry, disappointed, and despaired faces. And so I did. To my surprise, I wasn’t wrong. Another room full of mirrors, still smaller.

I go through hundreds other such doors. Somewhere in the middle hence I get stuck, my followers however pass me by up to the end. I look down. I wonder if the mirror under me has melt down, or I thought the reflection underneath has held me. It’s neither.

I was holding me. The part of me whose reflections were never moving, walking or running with me, was holding me. He steps out of me, stands in front of me. He looks me back in the eye, and then at his, our reflections, billions of them now. He starts walking the other way, running the other way.

Now I stand here. This room of mirrors, rooms rather. All of them having two doors, entry and exit as I recall, they’re called. Now I stand here. My imprecise intellect starts to see, realize, and appreciate. A smile on my face tries to betray the sense of regret in my eyes. Now I stand here.  “The door was in fact meant to be pushed. The entry was the exit, and the exit, the entry. For when I looked up, I just looked up, for I don’t “look back”. There must have been a way out, a door behind me in the first place.”

Now I stand here. I decide, choose, under my own influence to turn back, to retrace my steps exactly the opposite way. I’ll run first, and walk later. Maybe the floor will crack this time, given the opposite pressure and fatigue from the previous time. Maybe the “first” door will lead me to another, larger room. Maybe I’ll get frustrated of the increasing size of rooms, and my decreasing speed. And maybe after traveling through another hundreds of rooms I’ll decide again at some point to head “back”. Maybe I’ll be back at this same point some time in the future. But I have to take this chance, I want to, for I have nothing to lose.

The new reflections, just formed, have started frowning. I choose to meet their tranquility with chaos, and their interest with apathy. And so, on this day I begin, again.

Alex and Alix

The original creation was done using different names so I've removed the portion wherever anyone was addressed by name. Let me know what you think.


Alex: Do you come here often?

Alix: Just when I need to get out, and I need to get out alone.

Alex: You mean when you are sad.

Alix: Not exactly, but yeah, when I’m quite a bit below the line and I can’t even remember why.

Alex: You’re aware that time has an amazing feature by which it keeps flowing…

Alix:...and instead of wandering around the city, if I would just go to sleep, there’ll be a new morning, a new beginning waiting for me. Is that what you want to say?

Alex: Not just that. I get your point, I know that everyone is aware of what’s right. The point is to stop running, step out of the path, jump off the tripod, and stumble on a different sight altogether.

Alix: Tell me something, if you were to photograph one thing tonight, here, what would that be?

Alex: I don’t know… Oh! Wait, I don’t see anything more beautiful than the moon at this time of the day.

Alix: Even though you know that you might get an exact same view, possibly in a fortnight and maybe a thousand other times in your lifetime?

Alex: Probably, yes. But how is that relevant?

Alix: You talk so condescendingly, so proudly about looking at things differently that you’re unable to recognize the beauty in the things so obvious. You oblige yourself to look for something different, something better in the very same things over and over again. THAT in itself is another obsession.

Alex: It’s so not true. If I’m trying to review a particular matter so as not to, as you said, ‘forget what I’m sad about’, it doesn’t mean that I’m unable to see other things. It just means that I choose to ignore other irrational things for the time being…

Alix: That is what an obsession is my dear, you know, you feel distracted when you are distracted. You haven’t chosen to ignore other things, you have grown habitual to you obsession, just because it’s easier that way.

Alex: Perhaps, you’d have noticed, given such philosophical knowledge of yours, that you have a tendency to project your feelings as facts. Not everyone is a fan of such acuity.

Alix: So considering this ‘everyone’ of yours or anyone for that matter, you’d rather prefer to be an object of appreciation than to be a subject of admiration.

Alex: No, it’s not for me or for you to be or not to be. It’s about how the world around sees me and the very creation of me as of now and any other time is affected by it. Self-righteousness as you know it can be most dangerous of all its kinds and life is, trust me a luxury for those who accept this.

Alix: A concept and an idea is all it takes to create something or someone, and if and when you set out to create something, you discover more than you could ever create. That is what, in fact materializes your mere being to what you want to be or to what the world around has made you. And then what most of us do? Choose the ‘luxury’ and deem ourselves as the reviewers of any other of such discovery.

Alex: I completely agree with what you’re saying, but just because something is easy it doesn’t have to wrong. The concept, the idea, the creation altogether is meant to be realized. Isn’t it? All I’m trying to say is that anyone, sensible, will choose realization over absolute abstraction.

Alix: Absolutely, indeed anyone will, but it’s going to take quite a few visits to this realization to actually part the half grown grass from the half diminished one, or a day will come when everything has faded away and you realize that nothing was ever growing. You however took an extra step each time to reach there and find everything somewhere in between…

Alex: And by then you’d have convinced yourself that the matter is out of control, and if only there was another line of sight to this. Oh! Wait, that is what I’ve been doing so far, and I haven’t been ‘sad’.

Alix: Yes, to some extent you are right, it does help. But there is always a tradeoff between the time you spend manipulating the situation for a desired ending and preparing for an unexpected one.

Alex: And whatever comes up, afterwards at certain point we always realize that it is never much different…

Alix: … from what we expected?

Alex: Yes exactly, not much different from what we expected.

Alix: Isn’t it vividly easy to disagree? You can disagree with someone, even if you haven’t formed an opinion of yourselves yet.

Alex: What can I say? I guess we are just two tough people who have a knack for easy things.