She is just ten years old. Talkative and curious by nature, she wishes to know, but only about the magical, the dreamlike and the pleasing.
Her world is of all the shades of pink. With the warmth of an honest, caring canopy overhead, she looks at the stars and floats in the Milky Way.
There is ample clarity in everything she sees and time’s her friend – blistering fast or dragging slow. There is only one melody she is tuned to and it is called life.
*
She is living in her own world, within and without. Image from Pixabay.
She is young and brave. Quietly, she observes the world and the world within her, laughs at her.
Battling the questions and transforming the answers, she moves ahead with every failure and tries to fathom the success.
A mirror walks with her; she has broken it umpteen times but they are still in a relationship. Her cries, her sighs, her laughs, her smiles, her ways and one life… all packed in a rucksack is her pride and joy.
The doubtful star burns with her glare and the rhythm of change trespasses the old.
She is living for others now and has placed herself on the top shelf, in a green trunk, under an old book. Close to many and far from herself, she is standing on the border – this way or that way… her life is slipping away…
She just woke up and whatever was under the old book, in a green trunk, on the top shelf she burned that rusted world to dust.
Walking on ashes, she turns black and grey until the mirror returns. It is not going to be joyous all through, but she doesn’t mind the sound of a burned guitar.
They say she is weak and crouched, that she hears less and that her wrinkles make her a puzzle. A puzzle indeed and a child from within, no one knows what a good time she is having.
Her old eyes shine like a starry night and things magically appear and disappear with her touch. The words cannot express bliss; she is singing, hear this – ‘La-la, li-li, o, la-la, li-li’.
She is extraordinary. She is over there, can you see her? I know you can.
It was blurry… but I remember it clearly. Old hands like my mother’s but she wasn’t my mother, then why do I see her? The place is cold and that is how I feel until I look at her, I feel cold and wet as if I didn’t run away from that day’s hard rain. Everything around was cold and wet that day and so was it in my dream. That day when I was strolling in the park I saw a black sparrow… Francis said he would rather be a black sparrow than fight in the war. I saw the black sparrow, and I left the park.
She is sitting on a wheel chair, she is wearing black. Today, when I picked up the burnt paper, I crushed it without knowing why; my hands can still feel the smooth blackness. But she was surrounded by a harsh blackness, she was in the sun, but everything was crude and dull. I hate myself for crushing the burnt paper, I can feel the crude blackness now.
Francis collected stones all the time, he had strange hobbies. Stones he said are beautiful unless we give them a shape. The old lady, someone’s mother, had an image in her eyes; a dull face as if sculpted, and I agreed with Francis that it looked utterly dead. It scares me every time I see the dream.
I am there to help you old lady. Who is it that you are holding in your eyes? What are you whispering? I can’t hear you? She isn’t looking at me Francis, she is looking somewhere else. Francis I can’t see you. I can’t see the black sparrow. I am tied to the dream. I see her eyes Francis… her eyes… there is fear in her eyes.
Standing on a vague platform, everything except me undergoes a peculiar kind of metamorphosis now and then. Bewildered, I stand in utter confusion, with a dazed expression and remain amusingly voiceless.
Waving madly for the train to halt or at least lazy down a bit, I am increasingly getting ascertained about the fact that either I am powerless or I am being considered as a crazy cheerleader.
Often, no, more than often, I have successfully boarded the train.
What happens then – settled quietly near the window, with a half-read great novel that I have tried to finish since one year, five months and two weeks, looking old and rich in my hands, I get lost in the dream world looking through the barred window; settled quietly near the window, with a notebook in front and a pen in my hand, I write down miraculous lines, tying down the strength to move the humanity and a saleable story together, staying humble myself throughout the reverie; settled quietly near the window, but loathing everyone around me and worshiping softly to reach my destination soon…
“My destination…” I say and I am kicked out of the train, back on that floating platform which dances every second on some idiotic tune and disturbs my balance.
I fall down, cry, raise questions, get answers, plan things and proudly compliment myself, with a touch of modesty of course.
And then what do I do? I go off to sleep. How much can the mind take? “So long, my friend”, says my mind and dozes off. Shut down! Power off!
Click!
Switch on and I am back on that platform. Trains have started passing me. I yawn, a full day of travelling to a gazillion places ahead.
The huge tree under a crimson sky. Image – Pixabay.
Papa said, ‘I am not a negative thinker’. I almost clapped in approval, but then I saw him drinking at 9:45 in the morning. I dared to speak and I did, reminding him of the 80% blockage in one of his arteries. Gulp! ‘No negative thinking’, he advised me.
His red eyes and newly ignited soul went into the garden to work. After a few hours, I checked the fresh hairstyle of the garden, it was almost bald. Papa said, ‘Plants should grow this way’.
Which way you must be thinking? Whichever way Papa wants to grow it, you fool. He replied so, I am just quoting it.
My sense of understanding is weak; I am the wrong person to walk left when the right is right.
I am also stupid if I don’t remind Papa, thrice, that he wanted to drink tea, which invariably loses all its piping hotness and turns dead cold by the time he returns from the garden.
Kindly ask everyone in the street not to stare at me. So what if I look like an outgrown, zigzag tree, my Papa will prune me.
I have the whole life’s agenda, second wise, installed in my brain. I am to wake up early every day and run to the office, work and be good in it and come back home to get recharged for the next day.
Every hour I am to be alert; I am allowed even to worry about security. I again dared and asked Papa, ‘Security from what?’ ‘That thing… that… something…’ he said.
I understood zilch about it. Patience please, I am a slow learner.
Every minute of the hour, I am to relish the complexities of the present. It is to be like the dogs, they are so cute and hold only one feeling at a moment – hunger, aggression, love or anxiety.
I reluctantly told Papa about my opinion. He laughed and then shooed me away like a dog is shooed away.
For your benefit, I am sharing that it is not a wise thing to do. Homo sapiens sapiens can do better. I have read so in a book. Of course, I didn’t say a word about it to Papa. Do you think I am stupid? Ha!
Every second of every minute, I am to remain lost in whatever shit crazy thing I am doing. This will result in an unhealthy body, but a good position and a reasonable flat after a few years travail.
I am a middle-class being, this means to me what nirvana means to that mad ascetic I once met.
Do you know what the ascetic told me? He asked me to sit under a huge tree, pointing in the jungle’s (point decimal of what is left) direction. That’s it!
What am I supposed to do there alone, I shouted behind him and he shouted back, ‘Think’.
Confused, I asked Papa about it one day – a day that showcased crimson clouds from the window. He didn’t say a word.
I looked at the crimson clouds once again. Then I stared at Papa. I didn’t know there were four clocks in his room, one on each wall, until that day. I was sweating when Papa suddenly opened his eyes and asked me to get some water for him. He coughed badly.
He is coughing badly right now. From that day the crimson clouds haven’t left the window. I mostly stay near Papa and only occasionally go to sit under that huge tree.
Taking a step forward I see lightning as ‘the fast’ meets ‘the slow’. I am not injured; I can endure the lightning but not the confusion.
A beautiful path lights up as far as the mind can reach. Back and forth between a one-way; crashing becomes a certainty.
Quietly, I sit alive in the present.
I am understandably forgetful. Myriad revelations slip away like a childhood memory, leaving behind a warm aftertaste. The warmth turns into a glow and the rest I forget.
Infinity captured in a cage seeps away slowly. It is destined to do so. The two worlds are pulsating with this thought and I, in both.
But there is only one reality in me. The cube burns into a cylinder and the cylinder burns into a sphere.
The shapes finally unite and the two worlds are annihilated.
First there came a yellow flower, flowing like silk on a surface. The stream turned into silk. It told me a short story about the silk thread that draped the yellow flower. They swayed together with the wind. Then someone came and took the silk thread and threw the yellow flower in the stream. ‘A happy ending’, were the last words of the yellow flower.
Then a green leaf floated by and said, ‘I always thought where the stream goes… I’ll get to know it now.’ It danced away with the flowing water.
The stones quietly listened to the stream and stayed there for a long time. Now each stone, of every shape and size, carries a story with it. If heard sincerely, the stones narrate the stories beautifully.
A paper boat rushed quickly and embraced the whirlpool. It then lowered the anchor forever.
The stream is musical; I have been sitting here for a long time now and enjoying the melodies. I dipped my feet in the cool, clear water. Then, suddenly, the stream started talking about the flow of time. I got up immediately.
I am walking along the stream. Twists and turns welcome me here and there, but we are walking.
A foggy day paints the forest in white bloom. [Image by Ieva from Pixabay]
*
Gone are the days when a foggy day reminded of a short story that my Grandma read to me. It becomes just too awkward to step out for a walk and too dull to stay in. The wooden floor creaks when I don’t want it to. The stairs quietly sit there, only talking to me if I stop in between and wonder about something.
Gone are the days when I wasn’t acquainted with the ceaseless and fleeting nature of time; when I didn’t understand what the wall clock was saying to me; when I thought of going through the mirror and meet Alice and her friends.
Gone are the days when the bed side table light’s friendly glow helped me to make last minute changes in the Mothers’ Day card. I always picked colours in pairs and tried my best to keep the card neat. This tradition is now forgotten though whenever I buy a card, I look for myself in the printed words.
Gone are the days when that old song transported me to my dream world. Now, my mind always takes me to a vacuum and when I suddenly come out of it I realise that that old song is over.
Gone are the days when I wrote with an ink pen, confident about what I am expressing. My letters looked as if I had scribbled throughout, but the response showed that the love always got conveyed successfully.
Gone are the days when the grass, the weeds, the flowers and I counted the clouds together. Some clouds changed the shape quickly and some remained the same – thick, heavy, floating nonetheless. The floor and the walls in the house are cold though accurately warm for me but not for the grass, the weeds and the flowers.
I try to take care of a plant. It lives in a small teacup, sitting shyly near the window. The curtains know the plant better than I do.
Gone are the days when I wished and believed that it will come true. To see the plant in bloom just the next day after planting it is a silly wish wasted as a child but I am not silly anymore and so I don’t wish.
I am going to see how the plant is enjoying the weather. It’s foggy – I’ll say to start the conversation. Come along, if you want to.
Endless footprints following footprints/
When suddenly a few of them rise/
To bloom like a flower.
Greetings!
A storyteller, following the ancient tradition of cave chroniclers, standing in vrikshasana (the tree pose) on a hill top (it is sunny, but windy), breathing in and out stories (relishing it all, but at times overwhelmed), declares animatedly that she will continue to – tell stories, share rare story gems, and connect with the pacy universe while also keeping the website ad-free.
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Ya-hoy!
Chiming Stories (formerly Home Chimes)
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