Two Days Ago, I Had Gone Up To The Terrace To Behold The Sunset And Breathe In Some Fresh Air. I Had
Two days ago, I had gone up to the terrace to behold the sunset and breathe in some fresh air. I had always preferred the setting sun to the rising one, for soft dusk ensues after one while the other is succeeded by harsh daylight. Ah, for a world in which it is permanently twilight! The view from the place was one that might be seen from any building over two storeys high in the neighbourhood. It was rather the stark contrast of the sky at the opposite ends that piqued me. The east at sundown was a pale azure, almost unnatural in its monotonousness, disturbed only by a hazy sapphire mountain, whose original crude bareness was softened by the distance, imparting to it a hue reminiscent of the shade the sea is often associated with, but seldom found in. In the west meanwhile, the sun was letting afloat his final banners, on which seemed written all the wisdom of the mortal world, in a language nearer to me that the ones I had ever heard spoken or seen written, yet at the same time utterly incomprehensible. What is to be the use of poring over Greek and Latin if they don’t impart to me a knowledge of these transfixing scriptures? Here was a cloud whose ethereal inhabitants had borne the harsh rays of the sun all day and were now looking down with relief at his long awaited departure. What are you doing little one, so precariously perched at the edge? What are your irresponsible siblings thinking of? Have they gone to make arrangements for your moonlit revels? Ah, there comes your mother. She looks quite shocked. The chances of you wildly wandering in the gentle realms of cloudland soon again are not so high, are they? Look at your haze! One would think there was a storm approaching! How lonely your dwelling looks, a storm scud in the middle of pastel drifts! Another cloud, situated at a higher altitude than the previous one, part of it softly illuminated by the rays of the now setting sun was drifting by, as if determined to make the most of the sunlight by moving unhurriedly as possible. All this, coupled with the music of unconcernedly fluttering leaves, punctuated now and then by the sweet trill of some bird, with a mild breeze blowing in my face, made for a very pleasant evening spent in the company of two curious squirrels, and in the way most agreeable to me.
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It has been raining all day and there’s just something so wonderfully refreshing about watching rain drizzle on red pavements and the calm, soothing sound of water trickling down the roads, Magic’s in the air! Let’s ask lone birds for directions to nymphland and embark upon a quest for magical toadstools!
It was a cool and breezy evening. Just the kind of weather you hope for picnics but never get. “I am going out on a walk”, I declared, springing up with an unanticipated swiftness from the depths of an easy chair where I had been perusing ‘The picture of Dorian gray’. “Where to ?” He casually questioned me. A mischievous smile crept over my face, “To rediscover a path to fairyland” I said. “Do you wish to join me?”
A quizzical look came over his face, yet in the depths of those dark eyes I noticed a spark of recognition. He silently closed his absurdly large volume of ‘the history of great poets’ and reached for his hat, “Oh,never mind hats!” I exclaimed, “The elves don’t care for your exaggerated accessories”. Still he remained mute, acquiescing to my impulsive demand. “Where is this forgotten path you speak of ?” was the first enquiry made, after rambling on for the better part of an hour. I, who had drifted off to a remote and inaccessible part of my imagination, was jerked backed to earth by this and answered, “Just a little while away. Strange, how time can diminish your sense of distance in such a fashion”. He knit his brows together in agreement and put his hands in his pockets. We wandered on, passing old fields whose sight brought a rush of nostalgia for the days of the past, when worries were few and sorrow unheard of. I stopped at a creek, christened ‘Troll falls‘ by some old phantoms, as familiar to me as myself. Standing there in hope of meeting them again, I fancied that I could see a sharp glistening of wings behind the rocks. Wondering if my quest had so easily come to an end, I tried to peer over the broad stone to see if I could coax them to grace me with a full vision. While engaged in this manner, I lost my footing on the slippery moss and would have fallen into the creek head first if he hadn’t happened to get hold of my sash and pull me back.
“Thank-you”, I said.
“What on earth were you leaning so far into the stream for?”
“I thought I saw some of the fair folk behind that ridge”
So far he had been relatively calm, but at the mention of the fair folk, his face morphed into a strange expression. “The fairy folk you speak of don’t really exist. You know that, don’t you?”. I was rather taken aback by this sudden statement and scanned my surroundings quickly to make sure that we were alone. The fair folk a myth!
“Why do you look at me like that? Your eyes are fixed upon my countenance, what do you try to read there?”
“No”, I slowly said, “I was wondering.”
“About what?”
“If you had lost the way to fairyland and forgotten it.”
He frowned.
“There are two kinds of people who don’t recognise fairyland when they see it” I continued, after a slight pause. “The ones who never knew it, the souls who belong to the world in every sense of the word. And there is another kind, the people who knew the faerie place at one point in time, when their soul was untainted by the crudeness of the world, their vision not stained with its ugliness. When their spirit had not been crushed by the repeated injustice and unfairness which is a part of every creature’s portion in life. When you are born, the goblins tie the key to your land on heaven onto an invisible string around your neck, you never realise what it means to you until one day the string breaks, and you have to search for the key. When at last you find it, you stow it away in the stack where you keep your most prized possessions. It slowly starts to rust over the years, and there will come a time when you are left with only a few indented pieces of rusted iron in your hands. Some vainly try to restore it. Some become resigned to the fact that the door is henceforth barred to them. A very few understand that the door would still open, even without the key, for the true power to open it lies in their hearts, and it mattered little if the key was iron or stone. For what faery land truly represents is the wisdom of humanity. The ability to dream without restraint, decipher the truth which lies below vain frills of delusion. I was wondering, if you were one of those who disguised their despair under resignation and had gradually become so ingrained in the world’s ways, that they retained no memory of what is pure and true.”
All this while he was standing with his face turned from me, but I could see he was getting caught up in my rambling.
“If so, you needn’t turn away, the gnomes never forget their playmates. And here is a damned circle of toadstools in the grass, will you step in, knowing that for each minute in it a year passes? Will you leave everything you know and join their dance, for eternity?”
“See the world melt around you,” I went on, losing track of what I was uttering as I gazed at the horizon. “your fine distinctions between the real and false disappear, you find yourself surrounded and entrapped by ghosts, spirits and animated phantoms. And before long, you will find that you are one of them”. At this he shuddered, yet not a word left him.
I was silent for a while, faintly aware of the glow of the sunset sky and the sound of crickets chirping.
A few minutes or eons later, the sound of the old bell at the townhouse reminded me that it was past seven, and it was time to head homeward. As we passed the elm tree, he stopped and looked up at the sky, and so did I. Bellatrix of the Orion, my favourite star, shone especially brightly that night. I stared at the constellations, remembering an old poem from somewhere,
“ They say nothing is wasted,
either that,
or it all is. “
And so ended the affair of the evening stroll.
Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.
Matt Kahn
I am blankness and emptiness personified. Everything falls, flows, into the empty recesses of the soul and shapes and wears it away with its continuous current. ‘I talk to god but the sky is empty’. Blue, beautiful melancholy. The overhead lamp casting shadows of disarrayed hair on the page I write upon. I stretch my hand outwards and upwards, and I grasp solitude with a clenched fist.
Loneliness sometimes takes strange shapes I suppose, there is a kind that the fervently wants recorded in word or image every thought and deed, an underlying fear of being forgotten, afraid of never being truly known. Perhaps the feverish words scrawled in the middle of the night are just intended to be a reaffirmation of your existence, even though no one might read it.
A fond insect hovering around your shoulder. I like Kafka, in case you're wondering.
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