10th January, 2015.
All the Broken.
*the sleeveless white
floral skirt was billowing along with the blowing wind, as she stood on the
railing. The twilight color of the setting sun seems to be reflected off her
bare skin, back into the burning existence from where it had arrived, maybe
with a taste of a phenomenon inbound.*
“How does it feel to fly? To touch and soar the highest
clouds and return?” *she asks, resembling as a griffin, riddling
the unfortunate traveller of far destinations. Only thing amiss here is she is
no mythical entity, and there is no valid answer right now*
“Okay, just come down, get the bloody down from there!” *he
says, taking measured steps towards her. His arms are stretched out, trying his
best to outreach his physical limits. He really hasn't been much of an athlete
or anything ever.* “let’s just talk,
okay?”
“I think, falling is much like flying, only with a more
permanent destination. You just let go, and everything else takes it course by
itself!” *she says. Sometimes it is hard to ascertain where does the delusional
find their last limit? Where do they stop? The sun’s getting much closer to its
refuge, the horizon where it shall leave the world in the arms of night, when
the most of all will delve into slumber, and a few nyctophylls will be awake,
their tongues out to taste the falling dew*
“Just stop this, stop this bloody sodding stupidity and come
down.. COME DOWN!” *He screams on the top
of his lungs. His heart is fighting its way out of his chest, the wind is
helpless in drying up the constant bullets of perspiration. The t-shirt is
losing its color, growing darker and darker, like the sky losing its
light*
“Down? Yes, I've had enough” *her face stiffens, signs of contemplation appears on her visage. He
too stops. Slight relief, slight doubt, and a whole lot of complicated surge
lights his face* “I shall go down!
There’s nothing to do, none will make sense…*she looks at him, a wry lost smile gives away the final unsaid remark.
Uncertain fear clouds his heart, the time made its halt for that one fleeting
moment, the sun wasn't going to set.* “you be good! I love you” *she
speaks, her tone isn't what one can ever say normal* “I will miss you, goodbye!”… “No, NO!”
*gravity had done what
it is meant to do .Centuries ago, someone stated that nothing can endlessly
move in the physical plane; something else will be there to stop what has
started. She was right! Sometimes you
just let go, and everything else takes their course all by itself…
A dull thud on the
concrete surface below. Some horrifying shrieks and a swarm of shocked, curios
people gathers in, like ants near…*
It took Mrinal a few seconds to realize that he is still on
his bed. The heartbeats feels like that someone has let loose a jackhammer
inside him. The digital clock on his bedside table with its green light
victoriously shows 03.15 am in the pitch black room. Sleep has left for long
and wasn't going to return, yet he kept on lying, waiting his dismal heart and
racing breath to calm down, staring in the darkness. The bed is in a complete disarray, the pillows
are a mound of old cloth and cotton, drenched in rancid sweat, the bed-sheet
hanging down, on a brink of fall like a last leaf on a tree, waiting for a mild
wind maybe.
This has been a regular routine for him for a few months now.
Endless nights of insomnia or the horrid nightmares plaguing his sleep. He is
yet to meet the psychotherapist referred by Arjun, his friend and employer,
even a month long vacation was advised. Mrinal stood adamant, he can’t leave;
or won’t.
Mrinal kept staring in the dark. Maybe beyond the dark, at
the wall in front of him, where there should be a photo frame. 8x10 inches,
grassy green wooden frame, with a black and white photo in it, he regretted the
frame’s color choice though. He knows it is there, he can almost see it. He knows
because he hung it there, 2 years ago, when none of these nightmares were
there. He, them, no one had ever anticipated that there would be…
The past few months hasn’t been easy for Mrinal, it wouldn’t
be for anybody who might have witnessed such trauma. But against all the better
advice from his friends, he stayed. Sometimes he wondered, leaving wouldn’t be
a bad idea after all, from all this bullshit, but then, he knows too well that
these episodes, nightmares won’t leave him alone. People never recover; it may
just get suppressed, but not recover.
“I was late… only if I was there!” words echoed in his
vacant brain. “I was fucking late! I wasn’t there!” the echoes grew, larger and
clearer. It wasn’t an echo anymore; it was a voice in the back of his head. Getting
off his bed, Mrinal staggers his way to the bathroom. A sick feeling rises from
the deepest of him, and the gradual rise is much more horrid, unbearable. “It
was me… I failed to be there”; picking up the Jack Daniels, the staggering
continued, toppling a glass into shatters.
In a false hope, Mrinal takes a long swig off the bottle,
hoping that the bitter alcohol will press down the rising feeling. Desperation always
gives a person ridiculous hopes, despair is always a bitch in its own way. The mouthful
of the drink burns his throat, but instead of washing things down, it acts like
a catalyst in a chemist’s beaker, following a failed reaction… The bathroom
sink was floating with the food from his dinner, the drink and a resented chunk
of self disgust. The bitter taste of digestive enzymes and bile along with
failed drink left a trail of disappointment, anger. The man in the mirror is a
stranger to Mrinal, disgusted at him. The void inside him takes turn. There is
a point where people break.
The cold jets of water from the shower-head burns through is
skin in a cold night, but then, when one is scarred in the inside, does it
really matters? Painful shivers cracks his bones, his spine aches due to the
cold water in one of the coldest night, but the one who’s broken in the inside
reckons these as banal and vanity at their best. The broken pieces of mirror
glasses glints, the shattered reflections of Mrinal mock him, as he empties the
bottle of alcohol with a stoic face, hoping that the night would end now. Small
pool of discolored blood from his busted knuckles gathered around the drain,
looking for a way out of this. “I am sorry… I wasn’t there… I…” a deep dark
surrounds him as the sky outside gains its first light. Alcohol, if anything,
gets lost sleep back, or at least a moment of solace.
Around 250 telephones buzzes and rings in equal pace, vying
to be answered first. Some are answered, some die away after helpless waiting. Multiple
voices, tailored and groomed to sound as calmer and reassuring as possible are
trying to keep up, answering the calls, stationed like soldiers in a warfront,
as if lives were at stakes. And maybe there were lives at stake. The 15 inch
flatscreens were glued to the eyes in front of them; light fast fingers ran
over the keyboards. A complete unavoidable singular baritone kept in continuity.
Through the window blinds of the cabin across the office
area, Mrinal kept staring at the off white office, or whatever was visible of
it. It looked like machinery with different minds, individuals united with
differences. “Ironic” he wonders.
The watery green tiled cabin was completely a contrast to
what was outside of it. Instead of vocal baritones and tenors, here the sounds were
distinguishable in each of their own. The ac’s deep wheezing tried it best to
dissuade the silences, as was the second’s hand in the table clock, ticking
from one eternity to another. The scribbling pen on paper stopped, followed by
a tearing sound.
“Here’s your month’s pay!” Arjun spoke at last, sliding the
paycheck towards Mrinal. “Thanks”, a curt but polite reply. A moment of silence
prevails, awkwardness wasn’t intended… “Look,
Mrinal, um, I know it’s all up to you, but being as a friend and not your employer,
will you please listen to me? Take the leave! Of all the others in this agency,
you deserve a fucking break! I don’t know why you are doing this, I mean after
Maya…” Arjun chokes. Mrinal, Maya and Arjun were college mates, and it was
since then that the romance between Mrinal and Maya was open and outright. It would
be unfaithful if one assumes that Arjun had no feelings for Maya, but he knew
it was stupid, Maya had a clear heart and that was for Mrinal only. Even then,
it never affected their friendship; the three were inseparable by unsaid
promises.
Maya committed suicide, jumped off a roof 4 months ago. Schizophrenia. Mrinal
was going to marry her.
“I am fine, Ajju!” Mrinal speaks, his eyes drifting from the
bookshelf at the back of the cabin, to the aquarium near the glazed window, the
high raised buildings outside and back to the dancing girl statuette on the
table. “I am good”, he says.
“The hell you are!” Arjun explodes. “You’re like my brother
Mrinu, I know you better than anyone! And I’ll be damned if you’re alright
after all this! After Maya’s suicide! Just stop the bloody lies! For her sake…”
Arjun jerks Mrinal by shoulder.
“Ajju”, Mrinal looks up, Arjun’s face contorted
with grief, patting his arms assuring him, “Ajju, whatever I am doing I am
doing for sake only. I lost her because I was too late to act, by the time I was
there, the damage was done. I let things go too far, she was gone long ago; the
jump was just the destination. She always said, her destination was permanent
one, it wasn’t her delusion speaking, not always.”
Silence prevailed, silhouettes of a man brooding at the
corner of his desk and another man slumped in the chair through the glazed
glass panel door went unnoticed. Mrinal stood up, folding the paycheck neatly, “I
shall leave, there’s work…” Arjun nods slightly, “if you need anything, Mrinal…”
Mrinal was out of the door already, towards his desk.
The telephone on his desk rang hysterically, like the other
incessant phones in the office.
Among the other stuff on his desk drawer, there’s a small
photo-frame, a smaller version of the one back in his bedroom, a black and
white photograph…
Conforming to the patterned tailored voices in the office,
Mrinal picks the phone, “this is New Life Suicide Helpline, and how can I help
you?” a slight silent second passes.
“I…” a girl, maybe 20-23 years old, “I, I want to live! Please!”
disappointment hangs from her voice; she is losing a fight that everyone else
is fighting.
“I want to live”.
“Then I won’t let you die. Trust me.”
Maya keeps on smiling in the photograph. And in his heart.
End
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment