…That is how it looks on the inside, a partially frozen river that flows through this heart with snowflakes, hovering, floating, and a few drenched. These are memories that chime between the rocks. Some are carried forward; some are held back for a while and then eventually carried forward. But none of them has been quite like me, not yet. I may be just another snowflake in this crazy blizzard, but I’m different, painted in a unique color, violet. I’m silent. The temperature of my skin is lower than any of my white friends. And to this heart, as I dive in, I’ll be a memory, colder, sharper and longer.
Me and water, we’re gonna have a fight. No matter who takes the last stand, the heart where this river flows will be the one to suffer. No matter if this river carries me forward, or if I hold it back, it won’t be transparent anymore, nor will I hold my color. No one will ever be able to see through it anymore. And I’m about to leave my mark, about to haunt this heart forever, no matter how far it flows.
But right now, I’m descending deep, barreling through this thunderous sky. With absolutely no trace of the beginning, I’ve been propelled up to this point. It’s not the rattle on the outside, but the silence inside that empowers me. Those around me are staring, frowning, and a few ranting. I’m indeed the strongest of them all. I didn’t choose to be. I’m, no doubt, different than them all, even different than what I could have been. I didn’t wanna be.
I’ll be the one to make a difference, the only memory to cause this heart to feel surprised, obviously in a wicked way. I can’t help it, THAT is what I’m to do. I wonder if I will be strong enough to freeze my dominion, just the way it is for eternity. Though I can see it beginning to grow aware of my arrival, the currents are sharper, the river, agitated. Honestly, I don’t wish to hold a higher ground. Even I want to fade away, dissolving, melting slowly, and leaving behind a trail, a memory of a memory. But that is not the way, it’s going to be. I can see now, I’m stronger than this panicked, frantic and… well, transparent river.
Right before the touchdown, I realize it’s not just me. The river, it’s different, changed not like ever before. I begin to think I caused it to change, even before touching it. It’s pride of victory, and a fear of the final war. But it’s not fighting. The river, engulfed in denial, has refused to even touch any of us. A warrior afraid of defeat and still more afraid of victory has fallen on his own sword. It can’t have me hold it back, nor can it afford to carry me. It’s too scared, too scared of the unfamiliar color.
As I’m about to touch the surface, it retreats, further and further more. The deeper I go, the deeper it gets, the higher the walls become. And after a while they close in, from the top. I didn’t know it could do that. I’m trapped in a bubble with transparent walls. With my strength, sealed in with me, I’m a memory that this heart will touch no time soon. I’m gonna have to wait, wait for this heart weaken, wait for the current to slow down, wait for the walls of this bubble of denial to fall. And I’ll strike again with all my strength. I’ll freeze this river, seal it with its own sorrow. And even if I melt away and dwell in, I’ll change it forever. I’ll drive every last perfectly transparent drop into imperfection, into translucency, into violet.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
The Loudest Whisper
This year was pretty damn crazy, and probably, by far the best in my life. Now that said, it’s not because I got everything I wanted, ‘coz first thing, trust me I didn’t and second, it really doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s more about what changed, and still more about why it changed.
…Too much has changed. Too many minutes have run anticlockwise, skipped seconds, and awaited hours on an incomprehensible clock. Too many things labeled ‘new’, which I would have swore never to crave or cling to, lie untainted in my secret closet. Too many places from “where I’ve been” were unknown, and are unfamiliar. Too many of verbs built up and broken, too many words fluttered half-spoken. Too many seasons shuffled themselves in a day; too many days splashed themselves in a single rain.
I defined, redefined, and re-redefined myself, and am still nowhere to be found in the dictionary. There were times when I made a conscious effort to get distracted from the empty depths of melancholy, and then beat myself up for an inadvertent arrival of an overfed shallow wave of sanguinity. I night-walked the same roads over and over again with friends, with acquaintances, and sometimes, alone. I still am uncertain of the reality behind images that I hold in my head. Do I remember them for what they were? Did I imagine them for what they were going to be? Were they in fact what they were?
There were times when I couldn’t wait to see the end, and then were those when I could have given anything to go back to the start. I made choices that I couldn’t live with, and I lived through choices that I thought I could never make. Well, I guess, that’s how it works, that’s what time does right? When you make a choice, it just inevitably makes another choice for you, the choice for you to live with your choice.
I was flying, and sometimes drowning. If you’d ask me, I’d swear to have never touched the ground until now. Shadow boxing with the curiosity of fate, I made discoveries. With long talks, in monologues, I stumbled upon creations. I probably answered the few imperative, the “may sound stupid” questions.
As I sashayed through, I read too much into some stuff, and the rest, apparently I didn’t glance at. I was, at times persuaded of being precisely where I should have been, and moments later, convinced of being lost. And the best thing, no one else knew about it. I was nowhere to be found.
The things that I missed, I found in the partial reflections on the other side of the mirrors. Only when they held something in the top left corner, something that I didn’t have in my top left corner, I was scared to look to the right. What if something was missing there too? What if everything I wanted was a mirage, a nuance of an unattainable desire, something that the person behind the mirror already possessed.
‘Coz in the end it’s like this, if you call darkness as the absence of light, it’s fair enough to define brightness as the absence of darkness. And THAT is indeed as it should be defined, ‘coz at last THAT is what we remember, the opposites of what things are, and rather what they could have been. And someday everything will be different, everything will then be remembered for what it is right now, not for what it’s going to be.
…Too much has changed. Too many minutes have run anticlockwise, skipped seconds, and awaited hours on an incomprehensible clock. Too many things labeled ‘new’, which I would have swore never to crave or cling to, lie untainted in my secret closet. Too many places from “where I’ve been” were unknown, and are unfamiliar. Too many of verbs built up and broken, too many words fluttered half-spoken. Too many seasons shuffled themselves in a day; too many days splashed themselves in a single rain.
I defined, redefined, and re-redefined myself, and am still nowhere to be found in the dictionary. There were times when I made a conscious effort to get distracted from the empty depths of melancholy, and then beat myself up for an inadvertent arrival of an overfed shallow wave of sanguinity. I night-walked the same roads over and over again with friends, with acquaintances, and sometimes, alone. I still am uncertain of the reality behind images that I hold in my head. Do I remember them for what they were? Did I imagine them for what they were going to be? Were they in fact what they were?
There were times when I couldn’t wait to see the end, and then were those when I could have given anything to go back to the start. I made choices that I couldn’t live with, and I lived through choices that I thought I could never make. Well, I guess, that’s how it works, that’s what time does right? When you make a choice, it just inevitably makes another choice for you, the choice for you to live with your choice.
I was flying, and sometimes drowning. If you’d ask me, I’d swear to have never touched the ground until now. Shadow boxing with the curiosity of fate, I made discoveries. With long talks, in monologues, I stumbled upon creations. I probably answered the few imperative, the “may sound stupid” questions.
As I sashayed through, I read too much into some stuff, and the rest, apparently I didn’t glance at. I was, at times persuaded of being precisely where I should have been, and moments later, convinced of being lost. And the best thing, no one else knew about it. I was nowhere to be found.
The things that I missed, I found in the partial reflections on the other side of the mirrors. Only when they held something in the top left corner, something that I didn’t have in my top left corner, I was scared to look to the right. What if something was missing there too? What if everything I wanted was a mirage, a nuance of an unattainable desire, something that the person behind the mirror already possessed.
‘Coz in the end it’s like this, if you call darkness as the absence of light, it’s fair enough to define brightness as the absence of darkness. And THAT is indeed as it should be defined, ‘coz at last THAT is what we remember, the opposites of what things are, and rather what they could have been. And someday everything will be different, everything will then be remembered for what it is right now, not for what it’s going to be.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
…Anything, anymore…
…And as I land my first step, as my left foot touches the very first grain of this red sand on this very ground, my mind is flooded with innumerous believable names for this place. But of course none of them stays too long. Each one fades into a more complex, and grows into a more erudite one.
There’s snow on the leafless trees, trapped within crystals of ice, but none on the ground. The sun is just over the horizon shimmering like a fireball, refusing to go down. Something real paranormal seems to be holding them off the ground; something or someone, probably that silhouette that I’ve been pretending not to have seen, since I got here. What else would explain its motion precisely symmetric and conflicting to mine, fastened hard to the sun, which sure does look like a halo behind it?
I remember being told that whoever steps in here, steps in a world of his own, invulnerable and impenetrable to anyone else from the outside. So I continue to ignore that figure, I walk on in search of what I came for. But how long did you think I could go on? It’s a glass wall, a freakishly tall glass wall, extending endlessly. As I touch it, I realize that its ice, weirdly dry and transparent leaf of ice. And after all this, the figure, the silhouette didn’t stop this time, it continued to walk on with me stuck behind the wall.
Well, what else was I to do; I locate something bulky and strong enough to consume the wall. I bolt it up against the wall, and no different than my expectation, it fractures, but holds up straight. Everything on the far side appears to be broken; it’s like looking out to the world through a shattered windscreen. But the figure holds on, and walks back to where it should have been, had it not kept moving forward. Well, the wall, it crumbles into splinters of ice, which once again do not touch the ground are blown away indefinitely by the wind. I stop to wonder if I could call it snow, but no longer could the thought keep me from noticing that everything on the far side still holds its cracks embedded. Everything, including the figure is still fractured.
The figure leans back against a grey brick wall. Does it expect me to follow? Yes, I do hesitate, I do try to betray my own instinct, seems easy for a while. There’s a war raging within me, a battle between the two longstanding rivals for prudence, my instinctive nudge and my experienced, incorrigible self. Another time, another overflow of thoughts, another overspill of feelings; does the figure see my world as fractured too? Why is it still waiting? What is it waiting for? Does it want to fix it? Do I appear broken too? Is it just me or someone else really there? And a few million more like those… I stay, I wait to wonder, and then contemplate the irony of the wonderment. Is it too late now, too late to walk, too late to talk? I feel jammed for some reason, unable to think clearly and with no desire to let go, unable to leave, and not wanting to stay.
The figure starts there, and I take my first step for the second time. I start to feel cold for the first time, but somehow manage not to care, not now! It has started to snow again. The pure white flakes touch the ground to turn red, and then melt away. This place confides in me for the first time, it beheld white sand all along, tainted by the blood of everyone who had ever been here. But I ain’t gonna bleed, not now! I brush against one of the trees in rush and find it not cracked anymore. Everyplace I go, everything I touch is not just unbroken but also tells me that even if, on any level, it’s a dream, I am not to wake up yet.
The dissonance, with a flicker, with a touch dies away to dwell into a deep silence instead. I remember having heard that inspiration always comes cloaked, and tantalizing like this, but I don’t remember being here before. This is different. I’m not looking for anything anymore, but something, I hope, is looking for me.
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