Cold Fusion

The cursor kept blinking back at me, insistent, like a mother asking you to tidy up the room. I looked blankly at the screen, pained by the empty white space challenging me. It's not that I had nothing to say, it's just that I had too much and these creatures in my head were waging a war against the walls of my brain. If I didn't do anything about them now, they would start making noises and oozing out of my mouth and that would be a very dangerous thing.

I must tell you about this fear I have of said, uttered and spoken. If anything goes through these three, then the results can be overwhelming at times. What if what was said, uttered or spoken turned out to be true and ruptured that false sense of security you had wrapped around you? These creatures have very sharp claws, I must warn you and they are an unruly bunch. They won't care two hoots before cutting down your heart and hopes into pieces and proceeding to self-destruct.

I don't know where my brain picked these creatures from, from which crazy god-forsaken corner.

It is at such times, when I'm at the brink of a nuclear war in my head and my fingers freeze in their cold war with my brain, that I feel the need to go for a walk. A walk won't necessarily stop the churning within, but it would help me get away from the burden of controlling it. I can just let these creatures do their thing inside, while my feet trace and retrace steps in an aimless wandering about the house. This sometimes leads to more chaos. The walls start screaming and shoving another set of creatures into my head.

And those creatures are even worse. I don't know whether they are alive or dead. If you mention, think, imagine or just even bring them up, they become the past, gone, and yet just hanging there. It is as if their lifespan runs on a clock whose each tick overlaps with the next so that a tick begins and ends together leading to the next one's immediate and simultaneous birth and death. If you had the living, the dead and the ghosts amongst us humans, then those creatures would fittingly fall within the ghosts.Those creatures would infest you and lie low and suddenly sneak up on you and unsettle everything. They can and will plague your head and rouse all these sleeping creatures into a riot of expression.

At times I wish to purge myself of all the creatures within, these thriving and kicking ones, and those haunting and tormenting ones. But it's like the Stockholm syndrome.. the creatures have started liking my brain. They have started liking me, my self and everything about and around and they refuse to leave. They fill me up. Every time I open my eyes, breathe, smell, feel, sigh , utter, they multiply. The unborn ones are waiting for a flick of light within and they shall start their own universe within. Imagine the Big Bang occurring every living tick on your clock in your head. More the explosions in my head, the more I do things that will create more of such creatures.

It is a vicious circle. I am them!! I have become what they are, whatever they are at any given time. I become their rag, and their pen. They can write me down on my own self and leave me to erase the marks. And each wiped out impression joins the army of those creatures, ambles off to a dark recess within, only to creep out teasingly from time to time and madden me. With the frothing madness comes a wave of intoxication that sweeps these creatures into a blur of excitement. And out they come spilling..

The cursor's still annoying me with that blinking. The empty white spaces have shrunk and given away to inert black ants on the screen. They seem to be a handful. I don't know where my brain's picking up creatures from again, from which god-forsaken ruddy place now!!!

Undone

Songs that shall not be heard
for they bring a scent to mind.

Words that shall not be said
for fear the silence be stormed.

Sights that shall not be seen
for the memories that be piqued.

Eyes that shall not be closed
for fear they would dream.

All this, to not be reminded.
To face and turn things undone.

- The Un-Written Yet.

Innominate

A name, a shroud of past
Only a word but, like ice
Sharp and stinging,
A name that reminds.

That which hid many lies,
And which lied many times,
Whose refuge you sought
While mine was refused.

A word that you wouldn’t spell,
But would still be on your lips,
That which wasn’t uttered ever,
For how long would it be veiled?

An entitlement did matter most,
And that which was left almost,
Yet an agnomen you’d take up
And attach and cling on to.

A truth that tastes bitter,
And smells of pity and envy,
Its sight makes me faint,
It is but a hard pill to swallow.

You, born with a name and
The bearings of a man,
Are but just that, springing
From a nameless father.

Chasing from name to bed,
Seeking comfort and chaos,
You ran and ran over an
Unnamed unborn result.

From baptizing you run away,
The aversion to define and call
But hang on to the straws, till
the name deserts you to drown.

Argentum Abbadon's Wall

Argentum Abbadon thought the world of photography and the art. He knew no joy other than having his own little universe of framed lives. People were his favorite subjects, so charming and delightful. He knew he liked the idea of people more than the actual entity of people. He also knew that they were best in that moment when light and chemicals froze them on paper. He travelled frequently, meeting people and getting to know them till they agreed to pose for his camera. Today he was in the countryside, waiting for his customers.

They arrived. Your urban happy family of five (that included the dog) visiting the countryside to have themselves shot against the scenic backdrop. The man stood with the baby cradled in one hand and the other wrapped around his wife’s shoulder. The six year old girl was on her knees with the giant of a dog, his fur gleaming golden in the soft light. The scene was perfect.

He said the c-word. The man, wife and girl said the c-word, the baby yawned and the dog twitched his nose. Cheese. Click.

Out came the photograph. The baby started whimpering and the dog was barking loudly. The man came forward but couldn’t walk beyond an invisible barrier. His expression turned into worry and anger and disbelief. He knew these reactions. Most people behaved this way in the beginning. They got used to it in time. They have no other option, and besides, they have so much for company.

He took the photo and hung it on its assigned space on the wall. He needed a happy family next to the sorrowful young woman. The old couple could also do with some company. This was his treasure, his collection of people, their smiles, their laughs, their expressions and their lies. He didn’t capture mere memories, he captured their lives. The wall full of portraits and people, smiling, staring vacantly, sitting glum, weeping, laughing deliriously.. so charming and delightful.

In an ignored column on the seventh page of The Times, one found the news of a family of four and their dog gone missing since Sunday afternoon.

An ordinary life

The heat was unbearable. The flame licked around and the blow was hard. And all their attempts to strengthen me by tempering and annealing only added to the agony. If my birth was such an ordeal, I wondered how difficult my life would be.

I’ve been here for some years now. Being the centre of attention for thirteen seconds in someone’s life isn’t that big an achievement, but I get by. There are times when some would be generous enough to spare me an entire minute from their life. Those come by, and come by few.

Today seems to be an inauspicious day. I can feel it within. There are too many people around, too many casual glances thrown at me. I never fancy such attention, callous and capricious. You know they don’t really want to be looking at you. You just happen to be in their line of vision.

One of them seemed to be different. He spoke to the mistress, said he found something intriguing about me. My mistress easily let him take me away. I didn’t feel particularly hurt, but a hint of sadness inevitably marked me. I had after all spent some years under her watchful eyes.

Once he got me, he didn’t seem to care much. He’d leave me in a corner, where no one came, no one in whose line of vision you could fall for mere acknowledgment of your existence. Dust had begun to settle on me like a shroud. The darkness was blinding.

Then one day he came back in drunken rage and fought with the wife. He picked me up with vehement force and threw me down. And that was my sudden, forgettable and absurd demise. The wife stepped on broken pieces of me and let out a scream. I’d made her bleed.

He forgot all about his rage. He rushed to her and went about tending to her. No one cared for the intriguing beauty that was now on the floor, broken. Most of me ground to dust. The maid was asked to sweep away the broken shards, the remains of my featureless form.

They thought about putting me together, but gave up on second thoughts. I was anyways in no shape for attention and effort. No point crying over shattered glass. The baby in the other room had started crying by then, too late for any repair now.