An escaping ambition

This is a repost of one of my earlier posts. I am doing this because this is what I have been feeling off late. If you read this to the end tell me please if you ever feel this way.

An Escaping Ambition

Last night a silent whisper woke me up from my slumber. Out of the corner of my sleep filled eyes I saw a shadow trying to tip toe its way out of my room. Perplexed and still delirious I called out, “Who are you and where are you heading to?”

On hearing my voice the shadow stopped and stood with its head bowed. When I repeated my question, the shadow as if imploring me said “Sir I am a small ambition who lived in your eyes since ages and I was now leaving.” This shocked me and I could not do anything but ask “Why my old friend. What grave inconvenience could have I caused you which made you break this old relationship and leave?” As if I had embarrassed the shadow, it spoke meekly. “Sir, I have been with you as long as I could remember. You gave me birth and you brought me up. You nursed me in your heart. You gave me a place in your eyes and a place in your vision. You catered for me in your plans and you accommodated me in your sleep. Still after all these years and all this work I remained a black shadow. I could never be a reality and come and stand in front of you. I have hurt you, pained you and I do not want to do this anymore. I was leaving so you could live in peace.”

I was startled. My eyes suddenly felt heavy, as if something was filling them up. Tears maybe but I didn’t know. I was at a complete loss of words. It was as if someone had hidden all my words from me. I could sense them and see them as stars twinkling around me but as soon as I reached out with my hand to touch them they vanished with a pop like magic and the more I strained my eyes to follow the crisscrossed trajectory of these flying words the heavier my eyes became. I didn’t know what to say to this black shadow which now stood so humbly with its head bowed and arms dropped down to its sides. Perhaps an era or maybe a lifetime later I asked again – “If this is true my friend then why leave so quietly? Why not tell me and shake hands and leave? Why leave like a thief, as if you have something to hide or someone to hide from. Surely it can not be me. I have loved you and as you said, treasured you. Why then leave without a final hug or so much so as a handshake? Is our bond so weak that you can simply shrug it off and walk away?”

As if possible the shadow sank a few feet in the ground. It suddenly appeared smaller and weaker. With a sigh the shadow replied, “I was not alone in your eyes sir. A small hope lives right next to me. She is not very strong. She would not have survived if she knew I was leaving. She would have cried and insisted on coming along with me and had that happened, you sir would have been left all alone. I never intended that to happen. Farewell sir and please take good care of that hope. If anything were to happen to her you would be all alone.”

A sudden noise outside my room woke me up. I think I was dreaming. Yes it probably was a dream. Shattered pieces of a broken ambition still sting my eyes sometimes. A small hope still cries somewhere within sometimes.

Angel

image adopted from http://theurbanangel.net/home.html

I'm alone
Yeah, I don't know if I can face the night
I'm in tears and the cryin' that I do is for you
I want your love - Let's break the walls between us
Don't make it tough - I'll put away my pride
Enough's enough I've suffered and I've seen the light


Baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right

Song “Angel” by band Aerosmith

Lured by the melody of the whisper your feet move. You know naught where they lead you, you care naught where you are headed. All you need, you care, you bother about is the fading sound of those syllables which you chase despite your will, which call your name and take you away and you move.

You enter the chamber and the music goes strong. A whiff of her perfume allures you and eludes you. Eyes closed, curtains drawn, senses dimmed you keep moving and groping your way around to reach her, to find her, to hold her, to kiss her. You open your eyes and it still is same. The darkness, the whisper, the calling, the scent. Hands outstretched you tremble with anticipation yet you never stop moving.

A voice booms “Let there be light” and you are blinded by the piercing flash of light that suddenly fills the space around you. Big bang and your universe begins. Your eyes flicker madly trying to adjust your iris to this sudden revelation. Your hands that were aching to touch her skin suddenly and invariably are drawn to your face trying to shield your eyes.

The sound begins. It is not a whisper anymore but a rumble. Something else is moving in the space around you. The hmmm goes stronger and so does your eyes. You finally make a small window from your cupped palms and sneak a peak. It’s the walls! Damn it’s the walls!

You are in a 10X12 space. The walls are moving, coming closer like a lover to hug you and caress you. And then they are not just walls are they! Spikes are embedded into them. Long, strong, deep metallic spears projecting out, pointing towards you and as many as the pores on your skin. You see them approaching slowly, firmly drawing near with your each breath. You try to stop breathing, maybe that shall slow them down.

And it does! Yes they have stopped.

And you can hold your breath, this should not be a problem for you now my love, should it be? No it would not had it not been the scent of her skin. You still want to inhale her, feel her filling you from within, floating within you dimming your senses as if a shot of heroine. You want to breath damn it. Yes you want to and yet you can for every breath that you take somehow pulls those spikes those spears a tad bit closer. It’s a bargain, what do you chose my friend, where do you put your stake?

You breathe.

Yes you do. You breathe and you breathe. Inhaling deeper and harder, pulling those horrendous devils close and that elusive temptress closer. Every breath is a curse and a blessing. You can see them coming. You can sense her coming. If only you could draw her close before your soul is punctured by these tools of devil you shall not have any regrets. If..

If..

They come closer. They start elongating. Like a lover’s tongue trying to reach you, to lick you, to taste you before she bites you on your lips. They stretch out, reach out to you, trying to touch your skin before she can, while your conscience still is virgin, while you still are pure. Its her versus them and the only thing my dear friend that you can do is breathe.

You breathe harder and faster. They accelerate. Just when you thought, the battle is over, that they are almost here and you look up towards heaven mumbling your final prayers you see her. Agile, petite she floats rapidly down towards you from the space up above. Dressed in white, her hair flowing all around her she looks like an angel. And your heart knows no bound! You are elated, overjoyed! She is here, you are saved. It is all going to be over. She would be with you in an instant and you would hold her and touch her and kiss her and somehow you know that these approaching bearers of doom shall be stopped dead in their tracks.

She comes further towards you. Your arms are outstretched. You want to catch her before her feet touches this doomed ground. She is almost there.

And she stops.

Floating just above you with the smile of a white moonlit night she stands there and watches over you. You call her name. “What’s wrong my love, come down. Am here am waiting!” She smiles further. The spears edge closer. She opens her rose petal lips and calls out a name. No its not yours.

And you see him. He steps magically from the wall right in front of you The spears simply pass through him. He bends his knees jumps up and in an instant is standing right beside her. His arm reaches out around her. She rests her head on his shoulder. They both stand there, just outside your reach smiling down over you.

There is a sharp pain. A burning sting that arises from somewhere deep within. You look towards the walls. There is still some distance left.
Your arms droop, your gaze drops down to the floor. You lift your face once more to look in front of you. One of the serpents has reached. It flicks out its tongue and touches your skin drawing out the first drop.

You are breached.

You look up once more and they are gliding back up, swiftly, softly. Another serpent has come, time for yet another prick, another drop. And they come now, in dozens, as a flock of hungry ravines touching you, breaching you, piercing you. More blood, more slime, more drivel….more pricks.

And you stand there; breathing till the last one comes and stabs you right across the heart. There is a sharp scream. Sound of a heart being broken and they stop for a moment in their flight, look over their shoulders…..and fly away.

Baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right

Song Angel by band Aerosmith

I walk a lonely road

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me

'Til then I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

Song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day

If I were to ask you how much time do you think you will take to recount your entire life, to visit your past again in your mind, to ponder over every decision you ever took and wonder if it was right or wrong, to visit every heart break you ever had and relive every orgasm, to think of all the people you loved and forgive all those you hate. What would your answer be? An hour or two? A week maybe?

One second.

I remember walking down a lonely road and it has indeed been the one I have ever known. It takes me to my office and brings me back. It is my solace, my haven, my escape and is much more closer to being me than anyone else since it is in real terms of the word-“lonely”. No one takes it but I. Yes I indeed remember that road.
I also remember a warehouse on the road. A deserted colossal structure with shattered windows, broken wrought iron gates and high walls. It is along one of those walls that I walk. The sun is out on my right shinning brighter than ever on my face as if trying to burn me to ashes and the huge wall on my left trying to make me feel dwarfed by the sheer virtue of its height while I try and take each step quicker and quicker not in my haste to get anywhere but just so that I am able to escape the combined onslaught of these two forces governing my psyche one of which is natural and the other man made. I trot with my head resolutely bent down my feet pounding on the asphalt one after the other with such precise rhythm as if they are not my own but pieces of a machine moving in tandem one after the other. Sweat is eventually beginning to pour out on forehead and would soon dance its way along my face and start dribbling down on the road just ahead of me. How fascinating this is. My sweat pours out of my body and drops on the ground just ahead of my feet. That ground that I have not yet traveled, that part, which is still to come under the pounding of my feet, is yet to be explored by me, to which I do not owe anything right now. Yet before taking my liberty to stomp onto the freedom of that virgin I first must make my due payment, my tax to trod on. What is more amazing is that it is not some one whose making me pay this tax as I would like to call it but just my body and that blazing hot red mass of matter in the sky both of which I can not try to reason with. I drip and I walk and I simply can not do anything about it.

How fascinating indeed.

Neither can I do anything about my companion. Oh yes! I do have a companion, someone who is walking right along me, making sure I am never alone. It is my shadow. It always walks besides me. I can always find it right here. Though it does not talk to me or amuse me or share my laughter or my tears or for that matter even my sweat yet it is always here-my dead reflection on a dead wall. Dead? Of course dead, for it speaks naught, it cries naught, it laughs naught. It does not have a face I can remember, it does not have eyes I can see in, it does not have heart I can share my pain with.

Conscience and Desire are perhaps a man's worst enemies and best of friends. One would make you do such forbidden acts that you can not even dream of doing and the other would make you feel so miserable when you are done with, that you just want to somehow kill yourself. And yet again these two force you to give up your seat to a lady carrying a child in a bus and propelling you sometimes to do something extra ordinary of such magnitude in your life that you end up as Mahatma Gandhi, Kennedy and even Bill Gates. The desire to explore shall carry you to the edge of a cliff where your conscience would subtly push you off.
Lost in my thoughts I must have taken some wrong turn for I do not know where am I wandering to. Somehow the wall is on my right and the sun is on my left. I am perplexed! I don’t know what is going on. For though I was not paying attention to the direction my feet were carrying me in but I am so used to this road that I daresay I can take a wrong turn.
Something didn’t feel right. I had a feeling in my stomach intensifying with every passing second. Something was just not feeling right. I was looking left and right trying to make some sense of what was happening.

And then I saw it running-my shadow! It was sprinting along the length of the wall running way ahead of me. Yes it was mine, yes I am positive for there is no one around me till miles. I could do nothing but see it run ahead on the wall, sprinting and jogging.

I had just a second but I felt it. I felt the rush of the wind coming towards my hair, I felt the cold touch of the butt before it made contact with my skull before it knocked me out.

Time passed. Some hours or maybe some weeks. Maybe a life ended. Maybe I died and got reborn.

I am lying down. Someone is screaming. No I do not want to open my eyes or wake up. I am comfortable, cozy. I wish to Lord they would stop screaming. The voices are getting louder and louder. Oh damn! I can not take it anymore. I stir breaking the comfortable position my body had become so used to from lying down for so long. The first wave of consciousness hit me and along came deafening noise which rattled me right down to my soul. I jerked and sat up. I am on a stage, there are gothic figures screaming and dancing all around me. They are playing music.-hard rock, metal, deafening music. The screams are shrill and high pitched. Jumping and dancing all around me pointing at me and singing in a strange tongue which I can not comprehend these figures resembling monsters straight out of hell are entertaining a huge crowd. There are bodies as far as my eyes can reach. Everyone is using the same tongue. I do not know what they are chanting. My sitting up straight seemed to have enthused a fresh wave of energy throughout the crowd. Everyone is screaming, jumping, pointing figures at me.
And there I saw it-my shadow. Mute as ever it was jumping as hard as it could. and though there is no face, eyes, features that I can remember or recognize it by I am still sure it is my shadow. It is weird and the oddity of it was never clear to me until this point here. If I were to draw an example it would be something like picking your cell phone out of 3 other cell phones of the same make, model and color from a table. You just know its yours. You don’t need to check or to make sure.

I knew it was mine. I saw it and I had a weird feeling it was looking straight at me, right into my eyes. The meaningless babble of the crowd began to take shape, as if a picture is emerging by itself slowly out a pool of colors which were dribbled on the floor. I could make out what they were screaming. It was repeated incantation of just one word-Kill.

Kill, kill, kill.

I felt like a gladiator in an amphitheatre. A gladiator who has been thrown in the middle of wild savage animals and for whom the crowd is bursting with enthusiasm to see some flesh ripped of and blood being poured. It is like chattering of a sacred hymn in a temple. Everyone is on the same page, everyone is united and everyone knows just what to say at any precise moment in a singing tone.

Kill, kill, kill.

The chattering is getting louder. It is filling my ears and reaching my brain. My brain which is already thumping with a frenzy of activity from within. There are questions floating all around like sharks in an angry ocean, and my conscience is like a lost sailor amongst them.

Kill, kill, kill.

I looked all around me in a haste. No one I know but my shadow, which is now being hoisted on the shoulders of these gothic figures. Fresh energy is seeping throughout this menagerie. My shadow is on some shoulders. It is hopping and jumping and making way towards the stage where I lay. Everybody wants to touch it, to give it a part of their shoulders to step on. It is like the plate carrying sacred incense in Indian temples which is passed all around the devout participating in the holy prayer to touch and be blessed. My shadow is advancing rapidly towards me.

Kill, kill, kill.

A final hop and it is on the stage, facing me. The crowd has gone silent. The silence is so thick I can hear my every breath explode with a bang right in front of me. I do not know what is going to happen. I wish my shadow had eyes, eyes to give me a hint to let me know what is coming next. But no, that is not to be. Here we are facing each other. My shadow raised its right hand slowly pulling it up bringing in front of me clenched as a fist. Am I to take it? Grab the fist, bend down and kiss it? What am I expected to do? What is everyone waiting for! Torn as I am in all these confusions and questions the thumb popped up from the dark clenched fist in front of me.
The fist turned and the thumb pointed downwards.

Kill, kill, kill

The crowd erupted! The verdict had been passed. My shadow whipped his hand like a blade and the next thing I was looking at was a 9mm barrel of a revolver staring right between my eyes. The last thing I heard was the cocking as the trigger was pulled.

One second.

One second was all it took for the bullet to leave the barrel and penetrate my sanity. One second was all I had to live my life again. I had flashes, flashes lasting minutes, how I don’t know. I could see everything again. I as a child, I growing up, I losing my loved ones. I felt the pain of all my heartbreaks and relived all my orgasms. I hugged all those I loved and said good byes. After a long time I thought of God and said my prayer. I felt the chilled wind of London freezing my lungs skin and scorching heat of Delhi burning my skin. I lived every second and every year of my life again.

And I was happy, truly exotic on leaving the world finally.

The alarm went off and I realized I am late for the office. Damn! Cant even die in peace. Better get up. I have to go to the office and a road to walk. Maybe as they say my morning dream would turn out to be a reality....

An escaping ambition

Last night a silent whisper woke me up from my slumber. Out of the corner of my sleep filled eyes I saw a shadow trying to tip toe its way out of my room. Perplexed and still delirious I called out, “Who are you and where are you heading to?”

On hearing my voice the shadow stopped and stood with its head bowed. When I repeated my question, the shadow as if imploring me said “Sir I am a small ambition who lived in your eyes since ages and I was now leaving.” This shocked me and I could not do anything but ask “Why my old friend. What grave inconvenience could have I caused you which made you break this old relationship and leave?” As if I had embarrassed the shadow, it spoke meekly. “Sir, I have been with you as long as I could remember. You gave me birth and you brought me up. You nursed me in your heart. You gave me a place in your eyes and a place in your vision. You catered for me in your plans and you accommodated me in your sleep. Still after all these years and all this work I remained a black shadow. I could never be a reality and come and stand in front of you. I have hurt you, pained you and I do not want to do this anymore. I was leaving so you could live in peace.”

I was startled. My eyes suddenly felt heavy, as if something was filling them up. Tears maybe but I didn’t know. I was at a complete loss of words. It was as if someone had hidden all my words from me. I could sense them and see them as stars twinkling around me but as soon as I reached out with my hand to touch them they vanished with a pop like magic and the more I strained my eyes to follow the crisscrossed trajectory of these flying words the heavier my eyes became. I didn’t know what to say to this black shadow which now stood so humbly with its head bowed and arms dropped down to its sides. Perhaps an era or maybe a lifetime later I asked again – “If this is true my friend then why leave so quietly? Why not tell me and shake hands and leave? Why leave like a thief, as if you have something to hide or someone to hide from. Surely it can not be me. I have loved you and as you said, treasured you. Why then leave without a final hug or so much so as a handshake? Is our bond so weak that you can simply shrug it off and walk away?”

As if possible the shadow sank a few feet in the ground. It suddenly appeared smaller and weaker. With a sigh the shadow replied, “I was not alone in your eyes sir. A small hope lives right next to me. She is not very strong. She would not have survived if she knew I was leaving. She would have cried and insisted on coming along with me and had that happened, you sir would have been left all alone. I never intended that to happen. Farewell sir and please take good care of that hope. If anything were to happen to her you would be all alone.”

A sudden noise outside my room woke me up. I think I was dreaming. Yes it probably was a dream. Shattered pieces of a broken ambition still sting my eyes sometimes. A small hope still cries somewhere within sometimes.