From the Greenest of Grasses

Every six years; or every day, as an old friend puts it; we change; our perspective, our ideals and probably even what we love; and if there is so much of change around us, probably it’s not the change but it’s us, who change.

Ostensibly; it’s quite a sight from where he writes this; under the shade of thick trees, seated on a chair with his legs crossed on another one and some really fine grass underneath him. Then, right in front of him, across a tennis court, there stands an old but still imposing building in red; something so akin to the old British architecture in the subcontinent and all around the lawn, there’s more; there’s more greenery; from budding saplings to majestic trees and add to it, the background filled with some really melodious humming of birds. Then, it’s a pleasantly clouded evening and he sit with his laptop, above some of the greenest grasses you will find in this town; a town that has always been so close to his heart and at a time when most novelists would set the climax of their sagas of love in.

Doesn’t it all look so perfect? As if it were an evening purpose-made by a dreamer himself to spend some time in tranquility? But there exactly is the fix; it’s not just far from being a serene evening; the stillness in the air around this place is actually suffocating; the expanse of this greenery breeds insecurity and the dusk, being close to dark, is another frightening thought: the city whose aura was once close to paradise seems like coming to bite him: this is not a perfect setting: this is a charade; this is harbinger of a storm; of a bad news and of devastation that awaits him, every nightfall without fail, without reprieve and without peace.

Every morning, he wake ups from a dream – dreams of no one but her – and it went much farther, today, as this dawn it was about him getting to her, finally; of having been granted the permission; of being let in by the world; of having broken down the walls guarding her castle; of having won against the odds, of having closed in on distances, of him having melted her and of success but then again came the reality check, right there in apparently the coziest hotels of the town and from the nicest of beds; there came up the Sun, the noon and once again, like every Sun rise; the dreams shattered; piece by piece during the somber walk towards the shower: more of a magic glass that kicks you back from the charms of Andalisia to the wicked ways of this wild wild world: Check.

And that, that is followed by an even more dismal afternoon at work; a day that he spends fighting himself and his inner demons: fighting what he loves to focus on what gets him fed: a fight that begins every day and terminates every night when it has got the better of him and, there, he is worst off left alone, in those dark times. The day is a perpetual struggle between what he got to do and what he wants to do and he end up nowhere; nothing gets done; nothing quenches his thirst and nothing brings color to his courageous fight all along day; and finally, all this drifting gradually begins making him lose focus, control and rationale; taking him into those melancholic mood-swings that will hurt all those around him; further depriving him of any care, any compassion or any of those patches of support that he could still cling too – ones he was, already, so desperately holding on to – amidst the inevitable drowning.

Then, with all these despondencies, with all those emotionally exhausting thoughts and somehow finagling through the work comes the night. And that’s the saddest part of the tale; you know they tell you that the night is meant for rest, to find peace and solace and yet, the night comes packed with truckloads of gloom and the tears that begin flowing as soon as he opens the door to his otherwise splurge room and an enveloping feel of loneliness engulfs his very inner spirit to hit him where he is the weakest; where the heart is the most fragile and the exposed inner-self most susceptible to a break-down.

Is that fair? All this coming to hit you below the belt and tearing you apart right when you are in the greatest need of a shoulder? You know, at times like this, you cannot even light a smoke nor wet your pillow to your heart’s content; these times punish you like you won’t wish for your worst of enemies; these times cut you into pieces after tying you in chains and the whole night preys on you till you fall asleep in the fear that night will never end; that it will never dawn and that your heart will never actually beat again. But do you know what the irony is here? The fact that your heart never stops beating

This heart is such a heart-break in itself; and it is night now; this moment. The tale cannot really be written in any more abstract prose: abstract is all bullshit. The truth is just that he misses her; and terribly so. He just never knew how much he actually loved that soul. He has shattered down, piece by piece, only to discover more of himself and the more he looked into himself: He discovered her in the deepest recesses of his heart.

He knew that, right or wrong, he had loved without appreciation of bars imposed by religion, tradition or self respect and truth to be told, he had loved more after their parting; He has missed her much more in nights like this when really nothing could fill one percent of the vacuum left behind in his heart and he has tried to care much more than he has ever cared for anybody else in this world.

He may have failed miserably in rescuing himself and her but he had done many little things for her in life. He tried to love her is his own ways: and this may have at times instead caused hurt and may have actually alienated her. But he did not regret on that part for he knew he had these ways because apart from having loved her, he might actually have been obsessed with her and that he could not resist her, neither that exceedingly angelic side nor those demonic shadows. He had loved her without making calculations or predicting results.

But here, he stood mentally, physically and emotionally drained and was just so done, now: so done with himself. He had tried hate, denial and distractions but nothing had come as reprieve; not even any fantasy lit dreams or his innocent dalliance within some exaggerated imaginations.

Perhaps, this would go on till he got the slightest of life and warmth in his heart. It will only cease when the heart does stone and then probably, he, himself will stand quite irrelevant in the whole equation. This moment, all he wanted to do was rip his heart out for what was he supposed to do with a heart that had lost its rhythm: a heart that was so arrogant when it had her and so helpless; when it didn’t have her in it; anymore.

That’s all that echoed in his bursting heart, as the wind there slightly begun to pick up; and his eyes could make out a storm in horizon but then who cares, the greenest of grasses sometimes only beget a splendid ruin of pale, torn and mud-infested dry leaves.

Sometimes, the life just sucks way too bad. 

It’s not always summer!