Once dad taught me how to trap the sparrows that visit our backyard with a trail of grains and a shoe box. There were abundant of grains and a couple of shoe boxes always lying around in the house. He told the same trick could catch squirrels too if we use grapes or nuts. We were never short of them too. I once bought a parrot. Brought it home and opened the cage and set it free. Then my mom told me how their wings were clipped as soon as they were caught. I don’t remember what happened to that parrot after that. The memories are vague. Once when we had mice trouble in our house and the shop didn’t have the box trap in stock. So we had to get a clip one. And one evening a mouse, too stupid to crave for a piece of dried fish, got clipped in it. Being the man of the house at that moment, I took the trap to the backyard and tried to strangle it. Hardly. It escaped. No, I let it go. Once some random person was showing off his jewel beetle, swinging it around tied to a string. I hated that person. I never thought about a reason. I tied a string to the tail of a dragonfly once. I cut off the string a little while after I flew it like a kite. My neighbours had brought few fishes from their farm which were still alive and jumped all over the floor. It took an awful lot of time to catch hold of them. Never had the stomach eat it later that night. I never bought a dog because it had to be on a leash. I had pelted a dog once. Only once. Intentionally. I was sad the rest of the day. I didn’t think about it that much then. If I had to, I don’t take dogs for a walk. I take them for a run. I like catching butterflies by their wings. But I let them go. Except for this once when I put one in my notebook and closed it. I let it die. I love catching millepedes. I like it when they crawl on my skin after taking some time to uncoil itself. I prefer the red spotted one. The yellow spotted has a kind of camphor smell to it. I had killed a lot of roaches and other bugs out of pure despise. I hate mosquitoes. I have killed a huge number of ants, though I’m very much in fond of them. I have even eaten quite a lot of ants when it’s too much work to separate them from the sweets. I love chicken. I had watched a lot of chickens beheaded for me to consume. Even goats. I had seen one being skinned fresh too. I have had countless marine beings. I cook them all as well. Rather really well. I’m not going to stop eating them. But why did I write all this you wonder, in case. Well, It was all because of the one dragonfly that once I tied a string to. Today I felt like one, being tied to a string. Not rather like a dog on a leash. Though similar. And I wondered who would have tied that string and holding me captive. It took me sometime, to realise, as I struggled to pull away from the string, that I was carrying the other end.
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The menu
I’m lost in the variety. Happens every time I look at the menu. What should I order? Would it taste the same way I imagine it to be in my head? How would even anything taste like what I’m imagining? What is that even in my head? Is it something I have had in past? Or is it something I just hope to have? Something that would nauseate the taste buds so they don’t crave anymore, ever. Or should it all be about the ration of the needed diet? A portion of mind, a bit of muscle, and a little fire. Just to keep the ignition on and keep me moving. It sounds dull already. Should I just randomly pick something? That would be interesting till I order something mundane, randomly. You know what I really crave? Mere warmth of a hug. With a dash of lips. They never serve them on the menu. May be I’ll go with the…
One sunrise at Marina
The view
I need a window. Large enough to light the room. And a view to get a better perspective, of things to come, as life passes by every moment. My room isn’t that spacious. So I want the window to be an extension my room into the world. Into others lives. Just to understand how they cope with theirs. Breathe it in and could only take in what’s necessary and ignore the rest. Like a routine. I also would like to catch wind from the corners that we seldom pay attention to. The inhabitable part of the cosmos that still somehow seem to support life. I do not want a glass pane blocking the wind. Neither a window that I could shut. I have no desire to. I want to let it all in, overwhelm me, so I don’t have to go to the mirror to assert my existence. I want to keep these senses fed. I want to catch the stench in the air too, as the world decays, scavenged by us petty humans. The burning smell of desire that grew fiery into greed and lust. I want to wait till they all blow away as dust. May be I should get drapes, just in case. I have enough sorrow drowning this cube, I don’t want the rain splashing in. The drain doesn’t work all the time. And it helps me to be more functional when apartment is dysfunctional. So I can put them under the chores to do when I’m done gazing through this window. I like the window to be either north or south faced so I could catch the sun rise for a few days and set for some, from the same window. It’ll be just few days in a year. At least I won’t have to catch the sun at a regular time. I hate routine. But wouldn’t it be one in the long run. Everything is a routine, even trying to break from one. Now the night time is even more important. Just the skies, no lines. I wouldn’t mind the buildings during the day. But I wish they settle down at night. Better crash at sundown so people can go home and not worry about returning to work. No street lights. I want to welcome the photons that had traveled millions of light years alone in the vast emptiness just so they could fire up my rods and cones. I don’t want for something from across the street even hindering their way. I want to draw them stars in an imaginary plane where my glass pane could be in the window, for them to shine during the day. For a moment when I blink. Just to keep my hopes up. Just as I’m gazing at them at night from a distance too far, I wish to imagine what’s behind them stars. And is there a perspective, one opposing mine, one among those stars, behind that dark veil, where I shine. Momentarily, before I fall.
Painting – Office in a Small City by Edward Hopper
As the night grows
A candle burns to light up the dark. What if there was a candle that could disperse darkness? It might not be photonic, not like a cloud hovering over your head on a dark rainy day. It is not even the like the dark black liquid that might flow through your vessels flooding the brain. Not even the slimy black mass that oozes through the grey matter. It is the scathe of smoke, ash and the charcoal that’s been burning the light to emit darkness that is found covering your skin like a scale, inseparable. Like the salt residue of hard water. It needs too much effort to be taken apart. It has to be ripped apart with the skin and yes it is terribly painful. But leaving the black dry matter there unperturbed doesn’t seem to hurt but presents you with a sense of pleasure. Not from within, but superficially. Like a protective coat, a knight at arms to defend you. Keeping you warm from the cold and cold enough on warm sweaty nights. It spreads like a second skin and eventually becomes one. It grows upon you and before you know it engulfs your inner self, but you’ll hardly notice. Slowly you become the dark mass, a black matte covered monster emanating darkness from within and around that it is indistinguishable. You can’t tell apart the monster from the dark mass. You become the black mass, though you physically exist within. You become invisible and with it your persona. You become one with the dark mass without even the knowledge of being. Oh for the monster you are, you are not that bad looking. You just lost the organic curves of your body and the black keratosis had seemed to crystallize and formed like an armor around you. They just keep growing. What is the need to stop growing when there is no reason not to? They cover your face and neck and body like single coat, it is hard to say how you move around in that thing. May be you don’t even find the need to move. They cover your arms and fingers too. And they keep growing around the edges and protrudes from the tips of your fingers, pointy like a sickle, hardened. Sharp as though you can stab with them. It wouldn’t need that much force, just a gentle poke could drive it deep into the stones. No wonder you go around poking people with it. Like it was its only purpose it needs to serve. And the people, your friend and family and strangers alike are unaware, stand mute as you approach. They are not blind to you, but the unnerving darkness around them emanating from you make you invisible. And it may seem as though they were waiting there just to get your fingers slicing into their body and get their heart infected with that black salty substance you carry. They don’t seem to be in pain when you cut through their bones. Oddly they seem to be experience an extreme pleasure. Like the orgasm they never had and never will. It seems the malice caused was providing the pleasure, that they know they’ll never experience again and would end up searching for it their whole life. But there are other plans that would make this look like lick rather than a bite to the neck. The touch of the darkness in their heart slowly spreads from within. Very different from how it started out with you. But nevertheless they ended up the same. The same dark black mass emanating darkness around making it unrecognizable. And slowly the darkness spreads by what looks like a gentle touch. No one is aware of any of it though. It all seemed to be part of normalcy, an everyday act, and you go around and poke other people in their hearts until they become one with you and your darkness. The people with the black hearts, and that’s everyone by now except you, are not self aware anymore. No one was even aware of the transition. It was not as fast as a blink, for a blink could be caught easily. Rather it was gentle, slow and engulfing the soul bit by bit and every part of it without leaving any memory of their living. As though as the transition completes they don’t exist anymore. Just a monster like you. But nothing like you. You still have flesh underneath. You still have that beating heart pumping that blood through your veins. You still move around looking for some living heart to poke with, as if it’s your purpose. And then one sacred day, you stumble upon a mirror. You are facing yourself in a long time and the monster, the demon, is staring right back at you in the mirror. But you can’t see it with your eyes as it is dark all around and you are one with it. Only thing you can see is your eyes. It’s not as pale as they used to be. Just a black mass. But you know something is staring back at you and you recognize your own eyes. And you look within hard to identify what you are, and you realize what you’ve become. You see yourself in the back of your eyes. You see the demon within it. And now there is just one thing left to do. You just drive your fingers forward towards you, your heart. You have no control over the action. Not like you want it to stop. You didn’t have any opinion attached to it. Void of all instincts. And as the black fingers sliced through the glass of the mirror and cut through your bones, for a moment you become aware. And then you cry.