He came back early that day from office to complete the dream for the night. He has been doing this for the last many years. He gets up early in the morning, goes for a small jog, comes back walking with eyes looking at the toes, has some breakfast, goes through the front & the last pages of the newspaper, takes out a chalk from the drawer & starts writing a dream for the day on a blackboard, hanging close to the window where the first ray of the sun reaches. Standing there, with a cup of tea in his left hand & with the rays of sun reaching till just about his neck, he writes the dream for the day. But he never completes the dream in the morning itself. He writes something in the evening too just before going to bed, to include something from all that he has experienced through the day.
The length of the dream that he writes depends on how much of his soul has frittered through the day, how much of his being has been compromised & what part of his self has been lost that day. He gets so much frustrated with the day long outward manifestations that he wants to see the inward reality at the end of the day. By the end of every day he becomes less of himself and that makes him write. Write a dream. All the innocence, simplicity & purity that he loses through the day is made up by the dreams that he live that night.
He is an honest, loving & innocent person but fairly bore, introvert, impractical & impulsive. His emotions are not loud but they flow freely. If he loves you he’ll tell you with a plain face. If he is indifferent, you will see it. He hates no one. But my love, hate & even indifference is so loud & visible. I’m fairly melodramatic. But then what is life without being a little melodramatic. He is colour blind. He has dichotomized the world in black & white. He sees no other colour. He does not believe that the most part of this world consists of grey areas. The reason that explains his obsession for the black board & the white chalk.
He doesn’t understand that you have to let go some part of goodness, of righteousness in you to make life liveable, memorable & worthwhile. And neither the fact that all of us one day have to let go the black board & the white chalk to let the multiplicity, the choices & the judgements enter our life. His father had let go & his son will too. But he is not willing to.
He is neither happy nor sad. But once in a while screams in the night to vent out all that has died in him. Every morning he wakes up the same guy that he was almost 20 years back. The same childlike simplicity still surrounds him. He believes everyone & everything unless proven otherwise. Such is him.
Even his dreams are very simple. Most often they are about walking in a park which has lush green grass & no flowers, where some dogs bark frequently, where there are not many people around, where everyone denies the existence of the other & walks as if they are the only people left in this world. Some other times he writes a dream about running parallel to a railway track or about attending a gathering of storytellers from middle east or about teaching young kids how to learn tables of 13 & 7. It helps him get connected to himself & regain the part of the self that has been lost that day.
That’s all there is in his life, a black board, a chalk, few people that he loves, an old pair of track shoes, dreams & me. I have not met him much, for we share nothing in common. Though we have had a few brief encounters. But because the encounters were very brief i could afford to hold on to myself. But i might not be this lucky all the time. He makes me see all the chinks in my being. The part which is so vulnerable, so weak, i see the moment i look into his eyes. Even thinking about facing him does this to me. I become less of myself & more of someone else.
It is from the last few months that he has started knocking at my door, a little too frequently, with a little too much force. I denied it for some time. I thought he will get tired & go back. But he does not seem to give in. With each passing day i’m becoming him & that’s what bothering me. And this is the reason i have destroyed his black board. Now he has to see the colours other than black & white. And this will make him let go some part of his being every day & he has to. And this will make him more worldly. And that what he will lose each day, will be my gain. I have to be what i have always been. A few months & an encounter cannot change much. It can’t.
I almost had killed him many years back, but his eyes stopped me or possibly there was something in me that wants him to be alive, up & kicking. But not this time. He must die now.
That day after destroying his black board, I went to the nearby market & bought a knife & waited in his room for him to come.
He came back from office a little early that day & went directly to the kitchen to make a tea for himself. He came to his room with a cup of tea in his left hand, took the chalk from the drawer & reached to the corner where the blackboard had been hanging for years. But he could not find it there. He looked back & saw me standing in the corner behind the door & asked me furiously “where is the board?”. “I have destroyed it” said I. He yelled at me “Why”. I said nothing. “Why?” he shouted. I smiled. And then he started screaming. His face became red, his eyes swollen. The scream was so loud that the moon would have fallen down in some time if he would have continued like that. I tried to calm him down but in vain. And just then in a fit, i took the knife out & stab him on the right side of his chest or may be somewhere around the umbilicus. The screams subsided in some time. And some water hesitantly left my eyes.
With water dripping down from my face, it passed my neck, cleaned my heart, went past my waist & then knees & just when it reached the toe of my left leg, he cried, “that was my home”. And I asked in damp voice, “Is that where you used to live”. He said with the same poised voice, “ Yes, so as not to disturb you . I knew that you never wanted me around but I also knew that you need me. But tell me why did you kill me? I’m still young & worthy of living”. “Because I have to” said I. He again asked me “But why do you have to?”. I could not gather thoughts, my brain suddenly conked off, I started feeling dizzy & my heart started beating faster than It ever had. And then, with the force of the world around my throat, I conceded “Because I don’t want to become you”. He smiled.
I left him dying there in the room, took his old pair of track shoes, put them on & stepped out of the house. There was this cafe just outside the house which had a nostalgic air around it. They had those chairs, made of some old Sheesham wood, emanating oily smell. You sit there in the cafe & before you will get your coffee, you’ll be lost in some old childhood memory.
And just outside that cafe there stands the most pious soul. The soul that if you reach within its radius, you would be absolved of all your sins. The soul that i wanted to kiss on the forehead & that would have made me immortal. But i did nothing of this. For i was not me, for i was not even him, for i was someone else. But still my heart walked towards the soul standing there, my mind went back to the room where he was dying & my legs dragged me towards the nearby park. The park, which has lush green grass & no flowers, where some dogs bark frequently, where there are not many people around, where everyone denies the existence of the other & walks as if they are the only people left in this world. And I run!!
