Short Story – Irreversible: Persistence of vision and Synaesthesia
Photo credit: hyperlux from morguefile.com
** Persistence of vision can be defined as the optical illusion as the result of successive after images, which were retained & then combined in the retina, making us believe that what we were seeing is a single object in motion.
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which two or more senses are paired together to create a completely new experience- In the following story I’ve carefully chosen the songs that goes well with the story it will be preferable if you listen to the songs and read.**
As the cars exploded into shards of light, the group of friends taking selfies, ran toward it. Just as they reached, Blue boy’s phone rang, oh baby doll it went. He answers the call, “C, you won’t believe what just happened here! Two cars crashed & it’s all up in flames, will update you @skype.” Looking at the bloody accident, two tatters mannequins beside a couple and a man- a little far from them, a sense of primal, overwhelming horror overtook him.
Aaaah! Aaaaaaahh! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!
Startled, I wake up owing to a familiar scream. I realize, its Robert Plant’s. Oh! It’s the ‘immigrant song’. Who puts that as their ringtone? Is it an alarm tone? Why doesn’t it stop? Finally, it stopped. I open my eyes. It’s blurry at first, then, blurriness subsides. I look at Queen, ‘F##k! Where’s your arm?’ I hollo like a scream queen at her.
// Darkness follows with Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?//
In whirling confusion, I find myself asking in stupid bewilderment, ‘Are we dying? Is this the flashback of our lives? Will we see the best moments of our lives? It can’t end so soon. I haven’t lived yet!’- This array of questions. Queen has her dafuq face plastered.
Soon we are at the mall. It’s where we spend most of our time. It’s where we work/live.
Awww! Look at that cute little kid holding her mama’s hands. Her Daddy’s close too, they’re picture-perfect together. This sight fills me with penetrating warmth. I wanna hold that cutie-pie’s hands; I wanna own that cute little thing. I think this so hard, Queen’s piercing gaze with her grumpy cat face turns into a shout, “Every time Manny! Every fu##ing time!”
They enter our store. I am hypnotized by the sparkling splendour of mother’s persona. She has a versatile grace and unique personality. Just to make a perfect first impression, I perfect my fish gape face. She checks out my jacket and I’m glad she can’t read my thoughts.
“But I can!” snaps Queen. “Don’t tell me now you wanna be her. Why do you always have to do that to yourself- Get lost in weird fantasies that are far away and never gonna translate into reality?”
“I know, but just look at her. She’s got a perfect pear shaped body that accentuates her radiant glory. She has a kid and a companion and we have none, just each other. We have a friendship of sharing bacchanalian desires, they have companionship of intricately weaved trust that I aspire. She’ll have a Pizza, Cola or whatever she wants without a care, even if somebody stares. It’s her confidence that allures, phrase- Yasss Queen is custom made for her.”
“All those things you can never do or be,” mentions Queen.
Pensieve cloud takes us to the sight of pretty girl, with her nose fixed in her book. The waiter arrives, she orders with a smile. He serves her Irish coffee and a choco-chip muffin. She clicks a pic, with occasional snacking carries on her reading.
“Don’t even! You probably wanna be her right now. But you don’t know half of who she is. What she cares for, what worries her, what she loves, what her dreams are, what makes her happy, what makes her wanna cry and you will never know coz you aren’t gonna make an effort to go to talk to her, nor will you reply if she comes to talk to you.”
“Why do you have to be such a deal breaker?”
A momentary flicker of vision and we are watching two guys sitting beside each other, playfully teasing and flirting. Then, the one on left got closer to the right one’s nose and rubbed it, as if saying, ‘Kiss me.’ The right one looked him in the eye, then, at his lips, he then rubbed his nose too, as if saying ‘I’m ready.’ Then, left one bit his own lip and took a taste of right one’s lower lip. Right one suckled his upper lip and this went on for quite some time.
“We don’t have such a thing her, do we? They are #goals!”
“Don’t even bother! That passion, that kinda intimacy is as far away from you as the world from achieving peace. You can’t have a conversation, nor are you aware of the sensation of touch. You’ve created your world with bacchanalian desires and abandoned actions. So even if I’m rude, I’m right!”
// Darkness grows Caught in a landslide No escape from reality //
Is that all my life was- A series of desires, dreams, followed by inactions? My actively passive is about to end? Was my role in world’s stage any different than the curtains or a stool that stays in stage? Life, is it still life, when you never lived?
“F##k! How did we got here? How did you lost the bloody arm & I my leg? Why’s nobody calling the doctor?”
“Our designer had a deal; he was waiting for a year. He took us in his SUV along with his designs, for his clients, whom we were to meet at his city’s office.”
“Yeah! I remember now. The car was thumping looking good and feeling fine.. slay, slay– and with those words came the bang!”
“Yes.”
“We are screwed.”
“Yes, we are!”
“How does that song end?”
“Which one?”
“The song that was all over our flashbacks.”
“Nothing really matters,
Anyone can see,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters to me
Anyway the wind blows.”
That trenchant phrase hits me. “F##k! That can’t be it. Is that all to life- nothing really matters?”
“We are mannequins. At least for us it does- It means to do the role we are assigned to do. We are here to serve our designers. We move the way they want us to move. We dress to please the, We are created for them. That’s what life means to us.”
With smothered sob, I manage, “Nothing really matters to me!”
By the time doctors arrived, the video Blue boy took went viral on social media. People mistook mannequins for real people and couldn’t see the actual couple that were dead and that caused a whole lot of counter-arguments. The guy/designer on the other car was somehow saved.
–END–
