Departure
The sixteenth day of my seventeenth year. I knew my age from the feelings i could not express. I looked at her through my hands. The smoke from the memory train was choking her. I covered her nose with a blue lemon. She counted my fingers with her lips. Ten. With my tenth little finger, she painted my nose. I could smell the acidic whims of blue. I realized then that i was sitting in a compartment in that train of hers. I wanted to get out. She gave me a note book with blank pages. At the bottom of each page, there was a full stop. Did she want me to stop? What did she want me to write in these pages? Did she want to decide where I should stop? I decided to write. The myth of feelings told through my own nose. It was time for some self-indulgence. The writer has to move away from the subject. In what form should i write this love story? As a novel, short story, essay, movie script, personal letter, newspaper column? Or in the back of the tissue she used to wipe her face on our first date? or in the form of a philosophical inquiry - is true love real? is real love true? which is higher, as an attainable human standard - truth or love? Or science fiction - is love neurotic? Or a comic book- Imagine a superhero who protects the laws of attraction. He continuously saves the world from marriage. His arch enemy would be marryme.com, a website that constantly injects the venom of marital bliss in people. The superhero would pounce on priests, registrars, catering agencies and event managers who are agents of the website. The train was going through turbulence and i knew i had to start writing.
I wanted to find her. If this was her train, she should be in it. I needed her to get a complete picture. For sketching the characters and detailing the plot. For introductions and conclusions. For censoring and revealing. For sub plots, villains and heroes. I started walking. I found myself walking on the first page of the blank book. Vast areas without any verbal vegetation. I was jumping with joy at the prospect of filling these places with word mines. Suddenly, i started to feel like her. Her feelings and emotions enveloped me. I tried unsuccessfully to open my mouth. I could not feel myself. I was not there. She was there. She did not feel like. She walked along the edges of the page. She traveled from the mountains to the plains of the page without uttering a single word. As she approached the bottom of the page, i started seeing and feeling myself. I was suddenly pushed into a dark spot. I could speak! I started talking. I looked around the dark spot, felt its contours and realized where i am - in the full stop of the first page. I could talk and write only in that full circle of her life. I made it a habit.
(photo courtesy - http://www.galleryzooart.com/art/fantasy-painting-lady-of-moonlit-garden-woman-abstract-black-white-silver-blue-periwinkle-flowers-contemporary/)
