Chapter 7-Defection

You could many a times feel a presence nagging at the rear of your psyche couldn’t you? Many of us term this as instinct, co-incidence, chance, luck, fate…so many names. But this psyche was not one you would chance upon every other day. Honed by one of the greatest psychics in the vicinity, co-incidence, instinct, luck, fate or whatever other rubbish meant little here. Everything did have a reason, a valid reason at that; if anything was without reason, it was just that the reason is too subtle to be noticed. But does the dismissing of the sun diminish its luminescence?

“Alaina! Alaina, will you courtesy an appearance at the lunch table today?” Mother’s voice was literally dripping sarcasm. No wonder actually; the lady had been may be shouting herself hoarse from lord knew when. Alaina had found herself drawn into her thoughts a lot these days, she evaded all company, segregated herself and even shunned meals as a security. It was really no great discovery that her mother was behaving like a tigress ready to pounce. Alexia, a lady Alaina had befriended in the past week; there was something definitely creepy about this woman. She had impossible claims, an attitude that did not go with the intellect and a connection that radiated power while she radiated none. It was this mystery woman who had been precluding her mind when the bellowing blew it over. “MOM! Why do you have to shout? I was musing!” The eyes behind the spectacles blew fire despite the protective covering. “Stop glaring at me. You have not had anything since yesterday, and if this goes on you are going to be down within weeks then sit in the hospital bed and think. Oh by the way, some Agron had called on your phone, you didn’t seem to notice.” Agron, that was another man who had somehow managed to give her Neptune worth peace and turn it into Mercurial agitation. Alaina furrowed her delicate brows as the sparks started to cackle behind those shining obstacles. “Get moving you fool I have been calling for about an hour now!” The sparks flying from those identical brown but unprotected orbs immediately made the little ones back down into their protected space. “Yeah mom, down in a minute.” Deciding to let things play out a little more the princess paraded herself to the court. “Ashish? What are you doing here? When did you come and why didn’t anyone tell me?” Alaina stared at her favorite cameraman who found it entertaining to grin cheekily at the once muted tempest. Ashish had been planning this visit for weeks now and by the reaction Alaina’s face, he was certainly overdue. “I announced an audience; you failed to be of service and stop gaping like my favored goldfish, it doesn’t appreciate competition.” The famous photographer couldn’t help the amusement and mirth that flew through his system. No wonder the Hitler spewed derision; like seed, like harvest. “Huh? Lost your mind old lady? What-“”Harrumph!” Alaina ceased her vocalizations to glower at the spring of disturbance instantly reflecting the sunset al fresco. Ashish had completely departed her psyche. The curiously impressed but amused expression on the master conspiracy theorists face worked miraculously to congeal her temptress. “The project had been covered and we needed to add the finishing touches right Alaina?” The lady who had once personified royalty heaved a burdened sigh which made the observant observer’s wheels of perception start rolling.

An hour had flown by as the gathered clips and chips were being feverently sorted and bundled together. Two pairs of hands and eight pairs of eyes jumped, clipped, sorted and shuffled as lightning. “I rest my case madam. Please Alaina, I am unlike you only humane; my mind can only take this much. Can’t you please cease the hurricane for a few scanty minutes?” First time in the hour, a dry laughter rang out as a deep heavy silence settled over. As soon as the project had been isolated for the blinker, chills of a graveyard descended the duo. Ashish wasn’t one who worked in close vicinity to many people, basically he preferred singular toil; but Alaina had worked with him numerous times and through their differences the anarchic pair had developed a reluctant respect for the converse. Alaina had veils, shutters and daunting proud castles Ashish had seen refuse to let go at the most turmoiled references. The unearthly freeze prickled at the geek. “Alaina, what is tro-“

“Remember The Last?

Hello there, depending on someone again, remember the last?

I don’t like depending on people because they all leave

Because at the end of the day you have only yourself

Friends, confidants, dear ones all become strangers

I look at you with hopes of a smile, at least acknowledgement

But you walk on with your head down as realization comes

This is why I had built the walls, so many, so strong

Why ever did I have to lower them, even if it were a few?

The pains, sorrows and grief’s never left me at peace

But I always hid them well, behind the secure walls of a fortress

I have to acknowledge, sometimes loneliness makes us stupid

Even the smartest and the most cautious ones fail this flaw

I thought that you knew I was there, but may be only I was

May be you preferred not to be, maybe it was always my calling

Why ever did I have to call you, why ever did I have to give in?

The way sadness works is one of the strangest riddles in the world

Even when you know it could come, even when you are prepared,

It hits you so hard that even the highest mountains could stumble

I wonder what gave me the courage to divulge myself to you

I have always smiled, brightening the days for others

When I could not brighten my own, but then I flew to your light

Why was I pulled by the promise of light when the dark was so secure?

I have been there for people for I know what it feels like

To have no one to turn to, no one to trust or lean on in your weakness

But I never gave in to this longing myself; that was before you though

Thankfully, I had just started to lower my barriers, just started to let you in

I guess I have a little less construction at hand at the moment

Given the other walls are still intact; thankfully it does not hurt much

Only why does my chest constrict so when I try to breathe?

Would it really make any difference to you if you knew I still love you?

The friendship we had? The secrets we shared together are still there

The laughs, the easy passing of the hardest times; I don’t regret

Strangely, even after everything, I cannot bring myself to wish

To wish that I had never met you or befriended you at all, I laugh at myself

I seem to be happy at the cost of my broken heart just because I knew you

How hard is it to understand how much you meant to me?

Hello there, depending on someone again, remember the last?”

For once the most chirpy throes you could come across for a geek had their barriers clamped shut. A flood threatened the secure edges. Words had been spoken of the unknown yet it felt known, the riddle was new even smelling of the unwashed starch yet it was that riddle again. Humans; the greatest maze ever to have been created; and women, the greater of these great mazes. The eyes that could scorch to ashes, flooded with the Nile, the Atlas was lost. Women have been the topic of investigation for ages, eras rather. But none had ever been able to discover the depths of the pool that provided both nectar and venom, that burnt and healed, that gave life yet killed. Ashish had always prided himself in understanding people and rarely had he misjudged. But this titan that presently sat wavering before his planetoids disintegrated the pride to dust. As contemplation continued, the voice continued too. Words magically creating the spectacle that raced and thumped, that beat with your very beats. Silence taking over and groveling it into an electricity that took over your senses, guided focused and channeled them, took you to a world of their own where it was only them and all you could do was stare at the spectacle.

“The Red Water

Drip drip drip drip…..the constant dripping was now getting on my nerves,

I tossed over and covered my ears with my quilt trying to block out the noise, to no avail…

The more the sound the more my discomfort increased….

Stop that noise! Stop that dripping! I wanted to scream out loud…

Why is my throat suddenly dry though?

No sound left my open mouth; staggered, I closed it again….

Please stop was all I could think, but even my thoughts were smudged,

Coming from the end of what seemed a rusty old radio,

The thoughts were so slow, one could almost feel the waves…

But that was not what I wanted to think! I wanted this noise to stop, but why was it not?

Breathing hitching, I tried in vain to coax my sluggish body to move,

To help me locate the puncture and mend it,

To let me sleep in peace for once….

For all I tossed, turned, huffed, beat myself, but my senses it seemed were not in a mood to cooperate

The dripping continued, increasing in rate….the red water…where was it coming from?

The more I pleaded the more it picked up pace….

Slumping back onto the soft pillow, I tried to clear my mind, where was the perforate?

In my mind? Well my thoughts seemed pretty mushy, so might be….but still it was working wasn’t it?

Well lungs then, they seemed to want to force all the air out at once, but no I was still breathing…

Tough yeah; but even those were working….

Slowly I placed my hand on my thumping and fighting heart…..

The maniac pace proof in itself of the ailment….

I closed my eyes and let them go blank as the dripping continued to increase, the pacing with it…

No longer wanting it to stop, I welcomed the darkness as it engulfed me,

Drawing me into itself as the dripping continued….

Drip drip drip drip…..the red water continued.....a drop….another…..another….”

“Enough! Here get to work.” The voice that had always sounded so childlike and carefree suddenly sounded so confident and over bearing that Alaina was kicked out of her trance. “Huh? Work? Channeling Agron are you?” Ashish groped through his miniscule storehouse; within minutes an elegant steel ash Laptop graced his lap. Not bothering to the fumbled scattered query, the fabled mind set to work on his beloved beau. “Come on, I don’t even know the name darling, move your sweet butt and help me help you.” The brown orbs grew even rounder in incredulity. What exactly was Ashish playing at? The jerk didn’t even know anything yet somehow was channeling a very convincing know-it-all specter of Agron. Pulling in the strings of her eluded mind, the supposed boss deferred to the boss. “What do you want? Hold on, what are you doing on social network?” Gray eyes sparkled with enthusiasm and knowledge behind the thin rimmed glasses; “Social networking my pet is the easiest and most dependable source for classified data. Of course so long as you intrusion stays classified. Oh, by the way, I thought your mother already informed about the non-competitive spirit of your pet gold fish?” Clamming her hanging jaws, the black head dipped to the steel; contemplation was an easy and fast process, but the surety and consequences posed an impressive barricade. “You think this will work?””What better way to find out than give it a try? What do you say, are you game?” Ashish could literally hear the wheels turn in the skeptic mind, the pros and cons being weighted, consequences sorted according to priority. “Fine, lets to it. I think it is better we start with a profile study.” “Why would you study a profile? Lets start with the techies.””Ashish, please hold your horses, data always comes handy.” The livid photographer brightened up instantly; this was the supervisor he was used to working with; this calculative manipulative stubborn fire that could char you within ticks. “Aha, gotcha! But please stop channeling our beloved emperor, we are after all brewing treason.” And so work began, queries countered, ward slaughtered, locks thrown down. In the midst of the chaos, an organized song rang out from the lucid lips

“Forgotten forsaken

An old forgotten room, locked and latched for years innumerable,

Suddenly entices its owner…

Driven by its mystique, the antiquated lock is brutally torn down,

The portals are lobbed open and here’s the threshold to a new universe…

The room, nothing like its polished and well kept exteriors, radiates gloom,

Forgotten and forsaken for years, filled with layers and layers of odious grime;

Moved, the owner dusts down every last speck of dross,

Every specters of the elongated estrangement is evicted;

New fixtures, prized artifacts, priceless china now fill this exceptionally airy room

Endeared beyond every other place ever, the room now holds the life of the house;

Autumn turns, turns off winter, spring brings fragrance of the rarest blossoms;

Summer comes and rushes off and at last, monsoon stops by…

Torrential rain pours in, all wrecking storms rip everything apart!

Fixtures run down, artifacts soil and china shatter to dust at large;

The now left room is a place of utter havoc, ultimate chaos…

At last the importance of the now discarded lock seeps in,

Understanding looms of the shattered wards…

Soon, new locks are searched out, new warding enforced,

The room returns to its previous gloom, yet again with broken relics…

Chipped pieces of misplaced grace the only friends in its eternal wake…

Forgotten…forsaken…again…..”

“Down! The last barricade is down, we have done it. It is just this twenty four hours lockout now. After that…”