The Trapeze Act
It was dark in there, even the corridors. I hate dingy corridors but I was not there to love the place.
” You can wait here”, said the grumpy lady.
Does she ever smile, I wondered. This felt like the longest journey of my life. This annual visit every year made me feel so nauseated. I dreaded the journey to this place. I feared reaching my destination and wished the journey never ended. I have felt so, long time back when I was in love, but that was not a fearful feeling, then I wanted to be with my love so I wished the journey never ended. This was not a similar feeling. Some feelings turn indescribable after an age and experience. Earlier there was an urge to label it all but now even that has come to a standstill.
The wallpaper looked tired and dull as if it did not wish to stay there forever. I wondered why non living things had no will , for that matter did we living things have will to execute? Yes we claim, but are we all not just puppets, situational creatures? Mom always told us that everything was written from above in the big guy’s book. Then why did she scold us when something she resented happened? How could we measly beings mess with the big guy up there? Was all that not destined? Weren’t all those unaccountable orgasms, filthy desires, untimely deaths and uninvited diseases and accidents written in the big guy’s book? or did he lose his books and all these are mis entered? what about serendipity? I don’t know, mom would never tell and now she never can for she has left us.
My mind and its questions are like peeling an onion.They go deep into layers till you feel saturated, yet there still will be another question waiting for you at the end. My days are filled with this game of peeling my mind. They say I am silent but I am in a game and they don’t see it.So waiting for him I continue my game.
I hate the iron bars which I don’t miss in between my game. His screaming years ago haunts me.There he stood behind these bars. Could I have saved him? No… the big guy must have decided this for him too. His destiny ended him there, or so I want to believe. That’s what all the dear ones believe for we all need to pay a cost for being a part of a sane and cultured society don’t we?
I wish we could all be unemotional too but the big guy divided emotions generously to some than the other. So here I am an impractical, moron wasting my health and sanity looking at those same bars year after year.
I open the pack I have. 2 out of 3 Hershey bars were eaten by me out of my anxiety for this trip. But the peanut butter and tuna tins were still intact. Birthday gifts were turning mediocre and tasteless as years advance. What could you gift a 58 year old anyways?
The iron gate opens and he walks slowly. He walks slow with a hump.
“Happy birthday boy”, I say. “So you turned 58? Which means I am61”, I say with a fake smile.
He does not look at me. That’s because I don’t look at him. He accepts the package and mumbles something which I think was thanks.
Should I ask him how he feels but then I have been asking it all these years. Would he want to go out on a parole? I don’t know for I can’t frame sentences anymore they just play in my head whole day. He never remembers that’ s his blessing and I always do that’s my curse. I tried recollecting his favourite song not that I could sing it anymore. But when I raised my head he was no where. He left 15 minutes ago said the grumpy lady. And suddenly I wanted to hug him, tell him how much I loved him.
I wonder why I come here year after year and then it dawns me after 25 years – maybe I am grateful I am out and not in like him. But then I laugh out loud for what mistake the world makes. For who can say who is sane the world inside the bars or we outside? For are we not counterparts both ways? Who defines who is right? I continue my game of questions and wait for my bus.
I dread the journey back, because I hate my destination too and that’s how life is sometimes just a journey with destinations you hate but are inevitable birth the starting and death the ending. The hanging in between both is the most unbearable.
And that’s exactly what I did – The act of trapeze
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