Saturday, September 02, 2006

Free Man

Free-man and Bound-man walked on a piece of stone arbitrarily located at a rather unassuming spot of space in an inconceivably humungous stretch of space. And they both walked the stone everyday with an enormous sense of something in them, something that caused their dizzy brains to feign a sense of ‘purpose’ for themselves. ‘Purpose’ was the second umbilical cord that bound them to the piece of stone, soon after they stepped out into the open tearing their baby bodies off the original cord from cozy placental beds in motherly wombs and assumed the enormous responsibility of a ‘living’, without giving the rather treacherous idea, much of a thought. And then, the ‘walking’ began, soon after this umbilical cord matured and acquired its incredible strength. It was a bond that was to tie down man forever, very much like a mother’s love.

Interestingly though, brains weren’t as accidental as the stone was, and though they were bound to suffer from the inherent limitations of any systematic logical thinking apparatus, they happened to detect noise and randomness in the wilderness that IS, and the fundamental drive for consistency drove some bound-men to perform a feat, that defied the course of evolution and it was a feat the Gods were jealous of. These men ‘freed’ themselves of ‘purpose’ tearing off the fateful umbilical cord, and roamed as truly motherless orphans. They led a life where there were no nobler causes, no greater heights, no higher reasons and no sensible goals and as the cord broke, they were freed from the stone.

Free-man walked the stone and Bound-man walked it too. But, there was a difference. The Free-man didn’t belong to the stone, and hence, he really roamed the cosmos. He walked, not because he wanted to go anywhere, as to him, all directions were the same, and ends were non-existent. To him, existence was flawed and ‘wandering’ was an act of restlessness that was founded on the rational twitch that his brain once had and the consequent realization of a tragic truth that freed him off the final umbilical cord (Whenever you felt a mildly ontological rational flicker in your mind when you ‘wandered’, it was really this Free-man in you, who caused it to happen), and ironically, though being a ‘free’ man, he was sadder than the bound-man, for, he was now an orphan and he was carrying the whole weight of the tragic truth in him and he had in some sense ceased to exist. But for the walk, there was nothing real, and he sure knew that, with every step of his cosmic wander, the infinite hands of God’s great clock ticked and more importantly, so did His great ‘entropy’ meter, both in perfect unison, and so they would, till a time when all of what IS, would fade into a singularity disappearing back into the huge random fluctuation that spit us all out on one fateful moment.

JOEY

Joey lived with his F.R.I.E.N.D.S. for a time, which was so long, it seemed like it had always been that way, and that it was going to be the same way forever. He was happy. He was carefree. Life was a matter of living, in small pieces of what went by the name ‘days’. Everyday was the same. Everyday was different. He ate exquisite food. He loved to talk. He had no home of his own, for he lived with his Friends. And, their home was his.

Joey was something his Friends were not. He played the ‘dumb’ guy, the joker who went to great lengths to set people rolling in laughter. He dressed himself up in colors that were unconventional. Joey was a vegetable. He was material to laugh at. Joey, the joker, never understood the broader truths of life. There were no deeper layers of existence, and he made as much difference to the world as one broken chair placed in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere, did.

Days scrolled by.

And, one fine day, the friends were gone. To their own homes, to find the things they sought for, in vague attempts to justify their own lives, to a world, where, Joey was no more.

And, now, there was Joey. All by himself, in a new place, and amongst new people, and it was as if, the world he had been in, all this while, was all really part of this one big confusing dream, which faded off into a puff, as soon as he shrugged himself off a dirty bed, on a long weary night. He woke up to see around, and they were gone. The dream was over, and he had to get along with his own life, a life that he had never had all these years, and hence had to really search for it. He did not know why he was here, and what he had to do. And, he found himself lying on the cold bed, with eyes refusing to open up, and face the blinding light, that signified the long day that lay in front of him. He thought of his friends for once. He wondered why they had not called him ever since the last season was gone. He wondered why the world was now full of new people, and he had nothing now, that once belonged to his happy dreamy past.

And, so, he realized, that his F.R.I.E.N.D.S. were really a series of episodes. And, whenever it had gotten a little better, it only had grown up and stealthily eaten into a bigger timeframe, into wilder and crazier seasons, where nobody had a reality of their own, and one could only be defined in relation to one’s friends. But, the day would come, when one returns to one’s own homes, onto dirty beds on cold weary nights, and wakes up one morning to face the dizzy light, and the dream fades, the seasons had long since ended, and everybody had one’s own life to live for. And, the dumb joker ought to stop acting childish at some silly point of time, and better try to find some way to while his life away, in small pieces of what went by the name ‘days’. True, he had not a life of his own. But, days were real, and there is no escaping them.

He thought of all the new people in his life, the new friends, and wondered if they were all really part of more episodes. Episodes, that would start well, have its own charm, which would last for a happy little season of its own, and then fade away as part of one dream that failed to register itself in one cozy corner of the brain. Was he still in another dream? Joey, now sat on his bed, and wondered, if he were this butt of cigar that an unforgiving God, who had failed in His larger purposes, smoked out of a sense of dejection, and it was as if, he was simply waiting for the day when, he would be dumped down to the ground and crushed under His immortal feet to put out the fire which was Joey.