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.

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. 

…And They Lived Happily Ever After

When she walked out of his heart, she forgot to tell him where she kept the key to their cupboard. They had designed their cupboard to be airtight. To keep their memories safe from the fungus and bacteria. It was an alternative to their own hearts.

She had taken his alternative away, forever – he thought.

This morning, she had stepped down his heart and walked into the alternative. Their cupboard.

Alter

Right from his early childhood, he has been appreciated for his capabalities to lie. All his lies were so intense that even when you’d know he’s lying, you’d persuade yourself that the entire world has been a lie. Nobody really cared for the truth anymore. “Truth is relative,” they’d say “but the liar is universal.”

He became a professional liar when he grew up. He lied with such mastery of the art that all his lies seemed interconnected. Juxtaposed. Existing as a parallel realm with the reality. Elusive than the real. The liberation.

The heavens found real competition in him: ‘The Great Lie’ wasn’t meant to have an alternative.