Chapter 6-Paradise Lost

“Elaina, I will call you in a minute.” The phone went dead. Alaina stared at her handset, an array of emotions coagulated in her brain. Agron had been sent on a haywire ride; ten cities to tour in three months; the man was basically living on the run. But that was not the only thing that concerned the perceptive psychic. Bunny had become Elaina again, Agron was visibly preferable to Rex; something was definitely amiss. Worry now permanently lined the youthful features giving an increased intimidating aura to the already proclaimed Vesuvius.

“Alaina! Your project! It is on its last stage, please ditch whatever idiocy is chewing your brain. I beg for the return of the Hitler!” Ashish knew he was the only one who noticed the subtle changes; Alaina after all was not one to wear her heart on her sleeves; but this definitely was not the lady he dropped everything to work with. Not that Alaina never day-dreamed, rather the type of creativity the fecund terra housed naturally called day-dreaming; the problem was, the day-dreaming sessions were uncalled and uncontrolled, which was a novel occurrence and it perturbed the young genius. Ignoring the nagging dithers, the eyes of the eyes set to work under the scrutiny of the now slitted brown windows. Alaina wondered how many others had noticed her wavering concentration. Ashish was not one to be taken into consideration, notwithstanding his antiques, the prick knew a lot and saw a lot more-the basic reason for his employment anyways. Shaking her head like a cow driving off bees, the black head dipped into accumulated graft. Agron had been a constant disquieting nagging presence in the usually vigilantly vacated mind. The man shouted at the mere mention of any emotion, be it towards even a dying puppy. Nerves were getting scorched everyday and it did nothing to please the already pissed salvo.

The dying paradise

Remember the desert I was talking about? And the oasis?

Well, unlikely as it might seem, the solution suddenly seemed to pop up;

Just like that, out of nowhere….

The oasis itself like a guiding force, drove the steps forward, again a step and another;

Fresh wet breeze blowing across the face…

Every breeze seemed to supply energy, doubling the discomfort yet comforting too;

Slowly the dessert seemed to fade away…

The greenery was like magic in this land of barrens, how could it be so alive otherwise?

How could it not go up in smoke too?

The still blue of the life bringer stared at the face like a knowledgeable saint

Taunting, relishing, yet appeasing the thirst…

At last the journey was over,  at last there was peace, there was serenity;

There was life…

Suddenly, the blue stillness seemed to crack with ripples, shudder with devastation

The life giver fighting for its life…

Even this peaceful heaven cursed? Can it be? Can that be the harsh reality?

Unmindful and distrusting, the scan yielded nothing…

What was gnawing away at this paradise?

Answer not known again…hence even this will have to be continued…

It was really a curse to understand everything. If you did not understand and could not find answers, you could easily blame the lack of understanding for the failure, but if you understood everything yet couldn’t find answers, you had only your own inability to blame. Alaina had lived with this curse for her whole life; always the one to understand, always the one to have to put things back together; and today when her own world seemed to be in peril, answers were like those distant stars, you could see them twinkle, you could almost feel their warmth too in a silent night, but you could never reach them. Words seemed to have gone missing from the usually flying pen. It seemed as though the darkness was evolving everything up into its embrace. Could nothing be done? Was she supposed to be just a by-stander and watch as every little illusion created with extensive care shimmered and puff…went up in smoke?

Thoughts

Do you see my meandering thoughts? So much confusion, so many blocks;

People at times call this writer’s block;

You could call it that; thoughts cease to form, feelings cease to be clear,

And the hands that used to write all by themselves refuse to move;

It is not like the ability to express one gets lost; it’s just that the wish to do so disappears;

Not a very comfortable position for a writer yeah?

Well can’t be helped; even writers are humans

Over-worked psyches that refuse to function at times do provide a forced relief

A relief from the constant platter of thoughts that keep raining down;

A relief from the constant flood of emotions that threaten to blow us away;

But after a time, the blank space seems like a vacuum; ready to suck in anything;

Bit by bit it sucks onto the life force, the only thing about it that can be accessed…

The wish to live, the wish to see, the wish to learn…all vanish;

It might sound a bit like a post break-up syndrome to many of you,

I am sure many of you have been through that phase and can see all the signs;

Well, honestly, it is a kind of post break-up syndrome; a break-up with your thoughts;

A break-up with your own emotions and feelings…

The lack of locutions, the lack of introspection, leave you so vulnerable, so raw,

The world seems a scary place all of a sudden; the only wish there is to hide,

Hide away somewhere till the self that has been lost can be found,

Hideaway till the beleaguerments can be lifted; the barrage can be emptied;

You might be thinking why I am writing this, or worse what’s the meaning of all this…

Let me tell you it is precisely this mentality that puts us writers into this block,

This need to understand everything, this need to find logic in every work, this need for organization…

Don’t look for organization, don’t try to organize either; look at the chaos and see the organization there

Let the chaos make a whole new sense to you, a sense that is unique to you…

You must be even more confused by my words now, well like I stated,

There is so much confusion…so many blocks…

Midnight found a solitary figure sprawled out on the hearth. Sleep seemed to have claimed its over awaited due. Even in dreams, the young face was lined with lines beyond its age; speculations, qualms, well secreted insecurities making their presence known unknown to the proprietor. That night when the deal had been struck still reverberated off every wall that bore testimony to one horrendous vend. Endearment merchandised, concern catalogued, worship enumerated. The brown pools had since been regular night owls; work had over flown, the project had progressed by leaps and bounds, but the pen had deserted the parchment. To dream of a dream in a dream had become a dream. As the petite body lolled and tossed, words rang out from the bottomless wells well inside some distant fantasy yet so aware, so receptive…

“It is strange

It is strange that the person I wanted to get my mind away from,

Should feature in my dreams so elaborately and for so long

Every word you have ever said has been so etched into my memory

Your loving, caring way along with your sometimes rough attitude,

For a moment I thought it was real and not a dream at all

Reality came crashing down at the moment, you are too busy

I am holding onto something that was there, holding desperately

Hoping it will come back, hoping you will stay by my side

Hoping you will not leave me like everyone I love does; everyone…

We all need a person in our lives that we can trust completely,

Whom we can tell anything and everything without any unease

It is strange that whenever I find a person like that present in my life

Whenever I think things will slowly change now and someday,

Someday soon even I will be able to let go and cry, the same thing happens

They all leave one by one, leaving me even more vulnerable

Leaving me more breakable than ever before as I walk on the lonely road,

The only one I have ever known, I don’t know where it goes, but

It’s only me and I walk alone, like always with a steady face, a broken inside

I stumble a lot, though there is nothing strange about this, I should

Given the amount of pain that is blinding me at every moment

Sitting by myself in the wee hours of the night, I try to rock myself to sleep

Trying desperately to escape into another world of dreams away from you

It is strange that you haunt me even there as I jump awake suddenly

Unable to take it anymore, unable to bear the pain of being with you, yet

Yet so far away, yet know that it is only a dream that has to break at a point

Nobody knows what is going on with me and I sit by watching

I watch the steady rise and fall of my mother’s breath as she sleeps peacefully

Unaware that I have awaken or that I would be unable to sleep anymore

Another sleepless night, but this time not for the pressure from work,

It is strange, but I am scared to sleep again, scared that I might see you again

Smiling, laughing, playing with me as usual instead of the chasm I feel

I heard someone whisper your name and I looked around to see who

All I found was a dark room with the other living inhabitant peacefully asleep

That is when I realized, it was just my heart missing you, calling you….

I am sick of this loneliness, I am sick of this sadness; when will it be over?

Give me death if it is the only way to escape, I prefer that to this constant torture

It is strange that I should still have a wish, but I do wish for death, for the final escape…..”

Death was indeed the ultimate escape, may be even the greatest obsession, but it was definitely unreachable at the moment. Mountains did need base camps, oceans did need shores and lands did need peasants. The harsh arctic winds might bite through the crags, the insistent impressions might carry away sand by the tons with every new approach, the hard driven toil might turn the ichors transparent, but they all did persist. The mainstay still bore the draughts because the draught bore testimony to its self demolition. The shingles held unabating to collect every broken specter thrown abroad. The present persisted as the harshest toils bore the sweetest fruits even if the plantations obliterated their sepulchers. Agron had been right, he always was right anyways. The critical mind had in its always knowing fashion someday rightly stated, Paradise was meant to be lost…