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.