Fall

The winding road to nowhere - promising so much, and delivering so little. I keep walking. On and on. I knew not where.

The light begins to fade. The birds return home to adoring children, chirping their approval of a day's work well done. And soon all is quiet. The forest sleeps oblivious to a lonely soul.


The road keeps going. Shadows lengthen. The path is cobbled by a million fragments of light and shade. The breeze picks up, carrying with it a thousand dead leaves that speak in a mute whisper. But I'm only human and cannot understand the strange tongue.

A light in the distance fills me with a sudden elation. There lay my destination! I start running towards it, not caring which way I took. Serpentine trails that become ever fainter, lead me deeper and deeper into the forest. The light grows brighter, but I'm no closer to its source.

The ground changes character, becoming more and more rocky. The slope becomes steeper too, making it harder for me to continue. But they were petty obstacles in the face of my determination, and I press on.

I was almost there, almost at the summit of the climb. My destination could not be far. The light was so much brighter now, I could almost touch it.

Whoosh!

All of a sudden, the ground gives way beneath my feet. In a split second the world turns upside down and I find myself hanging on for dear life.

The valley was a gaping chasm waiting to swallow me whole. And no one could save me.

A Vision

The road dwindled along. The light was fading fast. Soon there would be nothing more than a few smouldering streaks in the lap of the evening clouds. I quickened my step, trying to bridge the gap to my home, before the forest engulfed me.

My mind wandered. There was someone walking alongside me. Someone I knew so well. We walked together in silence - not the awkward, brittle silence that exists between strangers in an elevator, but warm, comfortable silence, like that between familiar souls.

She turned towards me and smiled. I was struck as always by the happiness she exuded from every corner of her face. Her eyes danced in glee and her lips curled in an impish grin. Seized by an impulse, I pulled her towards myself, and kissed her. A warm glow seemed to suffuse my entire being and for a second I felt free. Free of all the cares in the world, free of all the chains that weighed me down a moment ago. I had found her. And wasn't it about time?

I walked on but this time with a spring in my step. I had found my muse. But wait, there was no one beside me - an apparition had appeared and stolen my heart, but had vanished momentarily, snuffing out the straggling flame of hope in its infancy. I was deflated, forlorn - a bitter disappointment replacing the euphoria. But the vision was strong as ever.

Who was she?

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

There was not a soul to be seen. A soft rustle was the sheer backdrop of a chilly evening. The light shone golden from the street lamps - the backwash, eerie and yet so beautiful. The pitch-black sky was tinged with violet at the rims, a gentle reminder of storms in the distance. Nature had rolled out her white carpet for mortals on earth. And I stood there watching and marvelling, as time stood still.

The sidewalks were treacherous - black, invisible ice ever threatening to pull out the carpet from underneath. The cars had gone missing, or perhaps immobilized by nature's soft rebuke. The air was crisp - the smell of moist earth trickling in, awakening the senses like no other. The chill had almost disappeared, leaving sweat underneath layers of winter clothing.

And there she was, stepping daintily out of the thicket, stopping midway across the street, and turning her full brown eyes upon me. I stared transfixed, unable to move lest I frighten her away. Light glinted off her dark skin and stray flakes were brushed off with a cursory shrug. She was a sight to behold!

The crisscrossing shadows were playing tricks with my eyes and suddenly I had become the primeval hunter and she, my game. In a game of cat-and-mouse, I had emerged victorious. But one look had gone straight to the heart, melting the wall of ice, and I couldn't bring myself to ring the death-knell for such a wonder. So I gazed on and on, willing the moment to last forever.

Crack!

The hitherto frozen trees trembled and creaked under the weight of fallen snow. Birds awakened from peaceful slumber voiced their raucous protest. The woods had come to sudden life and shook me from my reverie, as nature welcomed me back in her midst.

But the spell had broken. She slipped away quietly from whence she came, and I walked on alone in silence.

Subconscious

A faint ringing floated in from afar. I followed the sound to its source. It was the telephone.

First light hadn't broken yet. Weird hour to be calling someone I thought. I picked up.

But the phone went on ringing, and it kept getting louder. I tried to turn it off but it wouldn't. I was about to scream in frustration when I got a nudge from behind and almost on cue, blissful silence! But wait. It wasn't a phone in my hand. It was the alarm clock and my senses still swimming, I sat up in bed to another day of my mundane existence.

It was almost psychedelic - the way things floated into one another, forming a myriad of fantastic shapes. Like someone had spilled paint on an empty canvas. Light played strange tricks as it trickled into sight, waxing and waning to an unreal pulse. There was a voice in the back of my mind telling me to be up and about. But caught up in this phantasm, somewhere between reality and imagination, it loses conviction and sings along to an unheard tune, a silent symphony.

I'm back home, relaxing on the sofa, reading a novel. It was one of those thrillers, the kind that grips your attention in a wrestler's hold, and refuses to let go until you've devoured the last page. The ceiling fan was turning, but the heat refused to go away. Sweat trickles down my nose, and my arms, and my thighs, and drips off the tips of my hair. But it doesn't affect me in the least - I'm used to it. The Indian summer.

The trees outside seem paralyzed. Not a blade of grass stirs. It seems the entire city is having her siesta. Busy intersections are quiet, raucous corners empty, even the policeman dozes in a shady corner. I remember how I loved these moments of suspended animation as a child. While the city slept, the young mind would embark on adventures filled with pirates and ghosts and treasure. A mere four walls were not enough to restrict the boundless freedoms of thought.

My mind grows wistful, ever fonder of times past, and I can't resist. The train of long-forgotten thought chugs by, offering a fleeting glimpse of bitter-sweet memories. It stops in a cloud of smoke, and I get on ...


A faint ringing floats in from afar. I follow the sound to its source. It was the telephone ...

Metamorphosis

The phone rings. I look at it and find the words "Mom calling ..." or Dad calling ..." blinking up at me through the infuriating din of the ringtone. A sudden mood swing and I find my hitherto cheerful demeanour being drained away suddenly to be replaced by something almost alien in its coolness - a shroud of impassivity engulfs me and I find a strange, mechanical voice, that I struggle to recognise as my own, answering the call. Conversation continues perfunctorily. Monosyllabic replies from my side do nothing to help matters, until a hurt, exasperated silence falls. I just can't think of what to say! Unable to fathom my apparent reticence my parents hang up and I do too, immediately aware that something had transpired that I could not quite explain.

It was not always so bad. When I went to college as a shy, nervous freshman, I had suffered the same pangs of home-sickness that I had only heard about till then. I used to wait on a call from my family and try and choke back tears when it did actually come. I was not alone in my weakness. Sudden shakiness in the voice coming through would tell me what words couldn't. Distance brings people closer they say, and so it did. At least for a while.

Things then got busier in college. I found myself caught up in the flow and propelled along, unable to resist. Those heartaches faded away into oblivion and soon I was a new man - revelling in the new-found-freedom of hostel life. Family ceased to become a first priority and those visits home became increasingly sparse. And I was beginning to doubt the truth of that old saying.

The tenuous thread of human relationships hangs on words and actions. One wrong word , one missed action can cause irreparable damage. Indeed these changes of mood often caught me unawares and after the phone call had ended I would be left with a bitter taste in my mouth. Something was definitely wrong, but I was unable to put my finger on the cause.

Perhaps it was the closed atmosphere in college. A certain claustrophobia acting at the subconscious level, making one want to break out with violence. An uncontrollable anger that leaps out of a dark corner like a malevolent Mr. Hyde, ambushing conversation and making life hell afterwards.

Or maybe I'm just a psychopath in the making.