Voyage: An Introduction

He had made a small hut beside the sea. On days of the tide, the sea would stretch to the place his home was. He had made two doors on the opposite sides of the wall – one from which the sea came in; the other, it went out. On these days he had plenty of sea creatures passing through his home. Some of these he really loved to watch whilst he sat on his bed – like the gray crabs, jellyfishes, fishermen and a few ships from the distant land. He had learnt quite a few languages from the foreigners on the different ships; found a few friends in the sailors who would pass in through his hut every now and then with their ships.

One day it started to rain and it didn’t stop. After a few days or perhaps, months, he found a huge ship coming in through his door.

“Which land are you coming from?” he asked them in different languages.

“Land?” they replied, surprised,  “There’s no land. The rain’s taken it all. We live in different ships. Each a country.”

So, the world started coming in through one of his door and going out of the other.

After he died, people claimed he was the greatest voyager of all times.

Victory, Reclaimed

Whether they spoke the truth no one could tell. Blindness covered their tongues. They were neither be found on this side of the red. Some claimed they had left. Others claimed they were still hiding in their basements. Still others claimed they had seen those melt like ice.

Their disappearance, the only certainty, revolved about their head. Drew crisscross lines on their feet. That’s where their skin started to crack. The crack took turns – up their stomach, in through their chests and reached their forehead. All at once, you could see the glowing lava called blood, under their skins. The infinite tears of the body. The final vacuum. The deconstruction of their last hopes.

Identities were nor to be found on this side of their skins.  

The Fading Dancer

Crippling on the recurring times, he left. Not aware of the song that she was playing. These days he had come to believe that there was nothing wrong with his leg. Must have been a growing tumor in his fading head that caused him to cripple.

“Crippling is nothing but a writer’s block meant to be faced by the dancers”, he told her.

She shan’t dance until his head burst. 

Insomnia

The first raindrop fell in his eyes as he lay awake in the field.

The second raindrop fell in his eyes as he lay awake in the field.

The third raindrop fell in his eyes as he lay awake in the field.

The fourth raindrop fell…

 

And later, when it was quite late, the fountains rolled down his cheek. His tears lingered in the rain; his corpse about to catch cold.

Vegetable

One fine morning, I was dropped out of a tomato. It was nothing new. I had been dropped several times before, from various vegetables. For some strange, unknown reason people always believed that I belonged to none of those.

For those of you who have never been inside a vegetable, it’s hard to tell. You must be feeling whatever I had written till now, is plain nonsense. Nonsense. Now, that could be a very misleading term. Nonsense is a genre in itself. A man called Lewis Carroll had played with it in “Alice in Wonderland”. From this I’d like to draw the following conclusions:

1. Fools can’t write nonsense.

2. Not all nonsense is true

3. Not all things true is good

4. Not everything that’s good qualify as creative.

5. Therefore, fools may or may not be creative.

6. Fools may be creative

7. Fools can write nonsense.

Now I’d prove the virtue of nonsense by your reactions. You may have five reactions to this.

1. You are awestruck by the argument: Because the argument is nonsense itself, you’re helping me carry it over that extra mile.

2. You want to refute the argument itself. It’s not valid: It’s nonsense. Therefore, it’s not valid. Thanks for accepting that.

3. It all went over your head: Things fly over our head when they make no sense. And therefore, you know….

4. You were and are indifferent to the entire article: It doesn’t stir your emotion… doesn’t stimulate your senses. It’s nonsense

5. You think there can be more reactions and options and whatever I tried to prove over here is total crap. Well, need I say more.

In the same way I can prove every writing in this world to be nothing more than nonsense and that we have actually been writing nothing but nonsense all this while.

So, where was I? Oh yes. I was dropped out of a tomato. And the reasons they gave me for such. You won’t believe this when I tell you. I had given them this very argument, as I had done in every other vegetable before. And they still thought that it was all nonsense.