Once upon a time

18:30
31/10/05

Sky-Light…

It’s 6:30 in the evening and I am on my way to Bangalore. I have not been able to shift my gaze from the sunset! With all the monotony of its repetition, I cannot look away.

At such a height, the magnanimity of things dawns on me just as a swarm of bees would when one disturbs its abode. The light from the sky spits into arrows of hope, cutting the horizon with visual delight.

There’s the lovely blue standing out like a peacock spreading its feathers, calling out to a soul mate. The orange brightening into a red seems like a gush of uncontrolled emotions; a contrast to the depths of the green blending into the yellow with sly precision. Then there’s the horizon that stands out against the sky, showered with wisps of pearl-white magic.

I wonder how insignificant we are, how absolutely miniscule! The horizon is the beginning to what seems like an end to all things familiar. We take recluse in the space within these boundaries of familiarity. Yet, if we were to delve into the depths of the explored, we’d get lost for eternity.

Numb...

Just the other day, I was thinking about ants. “The Ants & I”. Well, I picked up a black ant, placed it on my palms and sadistically held a finger firm on one of its legs. It pulled and tugged and struggled. The leg gave away… just like that… with an imaginary pop that only I conjured and heard inside my head. There were no screams… no tortured expressions of agony… just a tiny ant crawling away from the helplessness of its size.

If I were the ant with a human being’s giant of a finger crushed down on my leg and if I were the one tugging and pulling and crying and screaming as my leg ripped off of my body in a nauseous jumble of blood, bone and flesh and if I were crawling away writhing dizzy, I realized that my voice would just be mere sound waves that would reach only a certain point and dissolve before it gets anywhere close to the giant’s insensitive eardrums.

I am that monster who refuses to listen to the screams that DO reach my ear. I… the most intelligent creature on this planet... flying on this marvel of a machine built by my kind… am deaf and blind and numb.