Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Chunks of Crap and Pools of Piss

Heaving rain, or piercing sunshine, he lies there day and night. On that rickety roof over the chequered house on the corner of the street, he lies, bothering no one and being unbothered by anything or anyone. He has been lying there for a very long time, as long as he cared to remember, as long as I had known him. He lies there incessantly, surrounded by chunks of crap and pools of piss. All his piss, all his crap. He is unbothered. He is too lazy to bother, too tired to do anything. He lies there too lazy to move. He must not have moved an inch from the last time I saw him and it is unbelievable. In that air of disgust, which makes me wanting to throw up, he sits gazing into the unknown, without blinking an eyelid. Too lazy. The only movement that can be grasped from that illusory frame of stillness, is that tiny trickle of his fingers, that move about, scribbling something on a piece of paper that so surprisingly remains unscathed. That is the only thing in that scene that looks real. People say he is mad. I never rest my belief on people. "People". The word, that never has a face but always a voice. "People" has always got something or the else to say about something or the else. "People" is a sea of anonymity that is always waiting to gorge down whatever it can get hold of, whatever dares to sail against its waves. And he was one of those. The survivors, the fighters, who, unbothered by the direction of the waves, chart their own paths and destinies. The waves try to bring him down but he is least scared of the rumblings that go on around him. He displeases People. He disturbs People. He is mad.

Futile, is our existence. Futile, is every action of ours. Nothing we do is of any absolute consequence, and thus of any interest to either man or beast. I shake hands, futile. I walk, futile. I smile, futile. I wipe my ass, futile. Nothing bears any consequence, no action has an undeniable reason for its doing. I thought so much, futile?

I have tried a lot to find out about his past, although I have to admit, the variety of things people have told me about him fail to give me a coherent image of his. The jigsaws just somehow do not seem to fit in and give me the big picture. But still, nothing of those things of his past hints to anything that could have led to this present, to this roof full of chunks of crap and pools of piss. I can not yet, in the map of his still hazy and vaguely constructed history, point to that thing, if there was any, that could have triggered this existential dilemma. Maybe dilemma is not the right word to use, because he seems to be in no confused state, no delirium, he seems so sure of everything. He is making no attempt to get to know the truth because he believes he has already found it.

I am noone. I am nothing. I do not exist. I am a figment of my own imagination. If I imagined myself to be a hero, I was gallant, and that made me proud of it. I imagined myself to be a lover and I fell for her. I imagined that life was beautiful, imagined myself to be superior to those other ordinary beings, imagined myself as the know-all, to be a ruthless friend, to be scared of spiders, to be an obsessive lover. I imagined I was the misunderstood philosopher. I imagined that my favourite was the colour red, I imagined that I did not hate Hitler. I imagined that I had a troubled life and it was oh-so-courageous of me to face it with the perennial smile. I imagined I could do anything if I put my heart into it. I imagined I was the guy any girl will be lucky to have. I imagined that people wished they were me. I imagined I was the jack of all trades, that my unsupressible talent will one day be discovered and admired. I imagined that I was and I breathed. And I was nothing else. I walked through days and nights pretending to be what I had imagined myself to be. I imagined that I was happy and proud of being what I had imagined myself to be. I did not know who I was, let alone anyone else. They knew of me what they had imagined me to be. I do not know what they knew. I do not care anymore. Because then it dawned on me, the truth.

I pity him. I pity the state that he is in. Our minds play a lot of cruel games with us and we play a lot of cruel games with our mind. It is a dangerous battle. Now I know what they mean by 'losing it'. The battle, and he has lost it. I do not know why, but whenever I happen to catch his gaze, something inside me screams with uneasiness.Those unpresuming eyes beg me, they are an invitation, a temptation, a call that he makes from the other side. They trigger a battle inside me too, every time I look at that calm face. And every time, I have to try real hard to shake that spell off me. For everyone, he is just a coward, a pessimist who has give up on life. He is nothing to them but a threat, to their passion for life. Sloth is a contagious sin. And what I have in front of me is the epitome of this "sin". He has been possessed by that devil, he is the sinner. I wonder if he has actually given up on life, and thinks its futile, why does he keep on living, especially in the state that he does. Will not it be better for him and for those around him, if he just killed himself, to spare others the trouble. I shake myself again out of these dreary thoughts of death, and murder. But all my questions still remain unanswered, the enigma that he is, still sits there in front of me, making silent desperate cries. Its getting late now, and I think I should go home. I should go home to my lovely wife, and snuggle upto my kids, and kiss them goodnight. After this mental ordeal and drama I believe all I need, is to go back to the comforts of my home and the arms of my loved ones...wait a minute!! I think?? I believe?? am I just imagining that I love them??

I smiled at her but she just passed by me. Those were the days when I had begun to realise my vanity and the littleness of my desires and aims. I did not care anymore how I looked, what clothes I wore, and how much money I had in my pocket. My mother had already begun to dislike the fact that I did not tend to myself anymore. I did not see the point of doing all those things I used to do. Why comb my hair? what eternal purpose did it serve?? 'son u will look good'.. why should i look good?? 'because thats better than not looking good'...why and how is that better and even if it is, why should we always do the better thing?? and they thought I was just another rebel looking for a non existent cause. I held her hand and told her to stay but she laughed at my face and went away and I never saw her again.
That was the beginning. Nothing I did seemed to be worth doing. I thought a lot about this. I thought and I slept and I thought. I slept and I thought and I slept. I stopped bathing myself, too lazy to do something I saw no point in. I was being fed food by other people after sometime, and carried to the toilet. Everyone thought it had to do with some physical deficiency or weakness. I saw no point in wasting time over trying to decipher my problem. Stupid assholes. Open your eyes and find the meaning suckers, and discover that there aint no meaning. HAHA. You look at me and you squirm and turn your faces. What are you scared of?? the shit?? the piss?? why?? have you asked yourself?? no?? why?? HAHA. Losers. And dont be happy I am not going to kill myself, because I have no drive to do that. Killing myself is another futile thing to do, and I am too lazy for it..