Speed -0 km/hr. This is just a beginning. I see the road
around me- black moist tar, silver splinters, reflections of the neon and a
resident beggar on the pavement. It had been raining since the evening and one
could still feel the dreadful flashes of lightening. The air is full of chronic
anticipation. I am inside my box, trying to be distant from this apathetic
world. I feel I am protected.
Speed- 20km/hr. Here I have really begun. I am in relative
motion. I think about the time when I was a little girl in my childhood….or was
it that I was a boy?....I can’t seem to remember. I think about the time when I
was little and I was sitting in the drawing room, waiting for the father to
come home to me. I had a red crayon. My mother sat beside me. I felt pangs of
hunger and I looked at my mother for some food. But there was none at home. We
had no refrigerator and everything was a rot. The only bout of fresh air was a
mile from my place of birth. I close my eyes, the steering in my hand, and
recall the crayon. Somehow I feel in
control and I am cruising alone in this apathetic world. I give twenty credits
to that childhood of mine.
Speed- 50km/hr. I feel as much air on my face as the dreary
weather can allow. The city is in a blur as I am depreciating downward. I see
tail- lights in front of me and I want all of them to turn off. When I imagine
all of them turned off I want them to remain the same. And then I come to love them…their
flitting movements….as if a lullaby of lights. For some moments I feel unwound
in this dark world. I am in control of my light. I can choose to cruise and I
can choose to shine and choose to fade. The others only fade out and fade in. How
would that dance be? I think more and I see my emotional attachments- the sister
or the brother, the father and the mother, the ghost of the family, the ghosts
of the families to be, the ridiculed spirits of the friends and the preserved intimacies of distant acquaintances
and at last, myself, bigger than any of them. More money, more clothes, more
food, more wine, more cigarettes……...more money, more clothes, more food, more
wine, more cigarettes……..more money, more food…..
John Mayer sings- maybe I’ll tangle in the power lines….and
it might be over in a second’s time….
The buildings have grown bigger over my head. I am hungry. I
need more food. I have been circling round in the city. I am tired. I need more
food. All those buildings won’t feed me though….those are meant to feed birds
in the sky. I am the worm underneath, or so is their belief.
Speed- 0km/hr. I get down in a friendly environment of the
derelicts. The place is ablaze with dark matter. But I am familiar with this. I
am familiar with the carcasses, the carcasses to be, the hyper-active mites and
the forgotten furniture. This is the murkiest picturesque setting. I am leaning
on my car, eating and my eyes are on a beggar….no, a person who is begging. Our
eyes meet, and I see the dance of the ghosts. It feels I have talked to him. He
is my brother and sister. I feel unprotected and perishable. I see my
reflection….no money, no clothes, no food, no wine, no cigarettes. I see his
angry eyes. He comes to me and I go to him. We meet halfway and he stabs me in
the chest. The air and blood gush out.
Speed- unknown. I go out as a light. Me and my beggar are
travelling to a distant place. A place where money, clothes, food, wine and
cigarettes will be so much that they will stop to matter. I reach there in no
time. This is just a beginning. I see
the road around me- black moist tar, silver splinters, reflections of the neon
and a resident beggar on the pavement. It had been raining since the evening
and one could still feel the dreadful flashes of lightening. The air is full of
chronic anticipation. I am inside my box, trying to be distant from this
apathetic world. I feel I am protected.
