He can smell the rosy flavour of your perfume. His eyes are fixated on your smile and your lovely dress flowing with the breeze. The silk undulating and thrashed by the soft winds. If he hadn’t known better he would have deduced that there were invisible angels tugging on your dress to help it flow with the wind. A perfectly choreographed dance it seemed like. He hears your voice calling out to him but the surreal images are confusing him. The sound of his heartbeat thumps so loud it drowns out your voice. He cannot make any sense of it. From that distance he tries to make out the image before him. Bright and beautiful it is, challenging his senses almost as though deliberately denigrating him. He attempts to reach out and hold you for fear of losing you. Those very fears that grip him time and again for as long as he can remember. But every time he reaches out he fails to grab you. You keep calling out to him with a voice so tender and loving that horripilates him.
Then something happens and the room becomes brighter. The darkness rudely interrupted by bright lights as bright as day. He looks around the room looking for a clue to make reason out of the suddenness. The annoying lights piercing through his eye lids and causing him discomfort, accentuating the discord already plaguing his mind. He opens his eyes and winces at the morning sun, preferring the darkness that allowed for comfort. It seems then that the darkness now holds more comfort. The apparition in his head was merely an illusion of his sub-conscious mind. It was a mere illusion of what he wished and hoped for but one that he is no longer worthy of. He collects his senses now realising the sour truth unveiled by the morning. A moment’s of pandiculation and the memories of last night’s events creep into his mind. He can still feel the dried tears on his cheeks. The salty taste lingers on his lips as his tongue prepares to moisten them. He can remember the sinking feeling within. The incisive words and cries still echo in his head like a recorded message being played again and again to invoke a sense of annoyance. He could remember every word you said vividly and it strikes him hard for he refuses to come to terms with it. How could he? Those were the very words that he feared. The interminable fears that clouded and clogged his head were now manifested and made reality. It wasn’t merely an argument of petty reason, it was a diatribe. Now which stone shall he crawl under and hide? His stomach burns, empty and shrivelled due to him having had no appetite for the past few days. Neither has the excessive use of pills favoured him in anyway. If it at all did anything was to add to the pain that was plaguing his gut. A vibrant and active self portrait now plunged into a state of inanition.
His body starts to shiver. He cannot comprehend if it was due to the cold winds from the incipient monsoon rains or the overwhelming sense of realisation that his fears have manifested. His mind races with thoughts. How much he has wished and hoped. All the words said before were now sentenced to be lies and manipulative bile. If it wasn’t for the sole comfort of denial, his life would have been one that has been condemned to the very depths of hell that MAN has so much feared. Her incisive words never held any mercy or remorse but was filled with feminine wile and contempt. It was only over time her nature as an epicure surfaced and he was made the machine that would feed her lust for materials and dirty paper that MEN greed over, money. He would’ve have mend his ways. He would’ve run to the ends of the world for all it was worth just to make her see the reason. But her youthfulness did not stop with her appearance. The mind was childlike and obstinate, refusing all reasons or pragmatism that words or actions would put forth. His mind was addled with thoughts that did not make sense to him. His mind was racing back and forth but never clearly erecting an image that would linger in certainty. The various images kept flipping in his mind like the pages of a novel. His body shivers in the fear of realisation. For once in his life, he shy’s away from that very state he pursued, realisation.
Something within tells him to move on. It tells him that perhaps his destiny wasn’t meant to go down that road. But is it only a consolation of a statement made by people who are unable to face their reality? To tell ourselves that, “Its ok, it was never meant to be.” Cliché as it is and maybe even perceived as the epitome of cowardice, he chooses to be a coward rather than a hero. Because to be a hero, comes at a price. A price so high he isn’t even sure if he’ll be able to afford it. It comes at the price of his happiness. A single moment of happiness that his heart desires and that seems too far to reach or attain.
He lays there utterly confused and dismayed at his reality. He has it in the back of his head that this has to be put behind. But the stale taste of tears on his lips keeps reminding him of his lost cause. He gets up today, to a bright new sunny day. He musters enough energy to tear away from the comfort of his bed. Taking a breath of fresh morning air from his window he looks down at the people walking by. They go about their lives in a haste allowing duty to run their days. Duty to their families, friends, relatives and to the big corporations that they work for. He knows he has a duty to fulfil as well. But his objective was blurred. He knows he has to look forward at what life has to offer. He knows. But then again, all he ever had was the knowledge but never the heart.
With a heavy heart and clouded mind he walks to his door, shutting the windows that gave no protection against the light. His hand on the knob, he closes his eyes, remembering that image from his dream for one last time. One last time before he shall forget it and walk on by. Or so he thinks. He will walk on, but not without the pain and memories. But he will forget and he has vowed. Forgetting is not about letting go, it is about embracing the future. He doubts if he has the capabilities but he has vowed and he will not turn back. With a falsified sense of hope he turns the door knob knowing full well that the emptiness that engulfs this room will only serve to haunt his desolation tonight as well. His heart may betray him, but never again his mind. He shall fulfil his duties henceforth...
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