A shadow in the dark

It is almost the end of November and as the end of another year approaches I grow older by another year. Winter is that time of the year with which I have grown a kind of love-hate relationship by now. I enjoy winter for the kind of thoughtful and deep feeling those winter nights leave me wondering about everything else but me, a certain kind of ecstasy and nostalgia like a cold-breeze which I know will leave my nose running the next morning but I am still drawn by its tenderness. I have been finally graduated, something I was longing for the past 4 years to escape from a hell-hole but I saw I was so badly obsessed with it I could never imagine what I am going to do once finally I am set free and this dilemma now eats me everyday ever since I passed out of my college trying to figure out what I actually want to do with my trifled life. Tonight’s is no exception but for some reasons unknown I do not know why I decided to take some time off from reading political and cultural turmoil and spend some time at the terrace in a cold winter midnight and it’s when I take my place at my newly placed couch at the terrace. I rest my ass down when my eyes fall upon you right across the street. I couldn’t figure out who you are except a shadow walking in the dark making her way on your terrace of your home and doing her rounds from one end to another. And it is when the whole thing begins to play in my mind like a intricate plot of some neo-noir drama. I somehow start to find it amusing as I keep going on, noticing you, thinking about you, trying to somehow make out your characters or imagining your face would look like. I might have seen you a hundred times all these years since you moved in the neighbourhood but I still don’t know who you could be among those many hostel girls you live with. As my eyes keeps following you from one corner to another I began to think of what would it be like if I meet you somehow somewhere, of the things I would say to you, would I even recognise you if we ever met? While you walk in that alluring darkness of the late November I somehow make up my mind to approach you and talk to you the next morning if ever I could recognise you. It’s almost a revolting thought and thrills me what would you look like if I someone happened to be there standing with you just few metres away. My mind shifts to her memories and her beautiful face. May be you look like her. May be I want you to look like her or maybe I don’t want you to look like her. After all she is nothing but a bygone memory and just a relic in my timeline. Yes I do not want you remind me for her because I believe it would be a great injustice I would have done to you so for the sake of both of us it would be wise to come across a new face never that I had ever came across. I believe you are completely unaware of my presence right across the street from you. The cold winter night is dark and beautiful to shroud me just to watch you take those swift walks. Or is it that you could somehow see me from your place, another figure in the dark looking at you but have decided to ignore my presence? And it is when all this thoughts are running sharply across my blunt mind I see the glare of your cell-phone fall upon your face. It is lit blue and reveals a little about your face and for the first time having my concentration disturbed by the lights of your phone I take a look upon the vast and cold night that has veiled over you and me and has somehow tied me to a blurred and ingenious image of you inside me. The stars are twinkling somewhere far in the cosmos, throbbing with grand energy of the nuclear reactions and yet they appear like a speck of shining light, fragile and intricate. I now look back at you again and your face is shining from the screen light exactly as the crescent moon which shines upon us tonight. And then the light goes off and you continue walking just as before but not really. It appears to me as if you are trying to make some gestures and motions in the air and it is then I realise that you are talking to someone on the other side of line. It is when all things begin to make sense to me. A girl walking in the midnight on a terrace alone and doing some random motions as if talking to someone. I feel like I have been betrayed. For the past one hour you and I were locked in the most peculiar form of emotion a man can ever feel, a kind of unusual bond which is naïve but still appears to be promising. I hate it and I hate that my mind has made this conclusion. I no longer feel like watching you anymore and I try to distract myself with anything that I could find around me to see and think about. But my attempts prove to be futile. I just cannot come to the understanding that I leave you alone in this cold- beautiful winter night. Somehow I just wish to spend some more time with you here and even though I know that there is someone else to keep you occupied tonight I will still keep watching you strolling from one end to another because after all, for me you are only a shadow in the dark and it is that shadow only I have fallen in love with.

The idea of death during College days

It was just another usual day. I couldn’t remember the date but it do remember waking up at 6.30 exact as usual, doing my stuff and getting ready for college. I took the walk to the bus-stop 15 minutes prior to its arrival given that our bus driver had a reputation to keep up for showing up as per his own temper. Anyways he did arrive about 20 minutes late and I jumped in. Everything else was same and still inside. The same old depressing faces and same age old beaten road. I have travelled so much down this way that everything now just appeared to be soaked in monotonous bleach and was so deeply engraved in my mind that I could recall every turn even while keeping my eyes shut.

I was at my usual window seat at the left hand side of the bus which I once claimed to be my parental property and another day my birth-right, listening to my songs, my head slightly tilted and resting on the window pane. The whole route from my bus –stop to the college was so dreadfully morbid and dreary to the point even a sight of a nude porn-star trying to hitch a ride would go unnoticed. The summers felt like the wrath of a thousand suns determined at burning every splinter of biologically- degraded specimen that would dare to walk under them. But on this particular day and I couldn’t have imagined that a sight like this and the event that followed would leave an imprint which although was not disturbing but could be described as terrible and unforgettable.

As soon as the bus crossed the Rau tri-junction reaching in front of IIM, it slowed down to a huge commotion ahead. Not that something like this was unusual but what followed next stirred some disturbance across the bus and I could hear people murmuring with a definite hint of shock and perplexing tone. Suddenly my eyes rolled on the road as the bus rolled forward slowly and I see countless fragments of plastic fibre lying on the road and a big black twisted frame which tells me that it was a motorcycle few moments ago. But what really freaked me out was the blue and silver gloss fragments of the plastic fibres shining bright under the early morning light as if they were already burning and melting under the might of an early sun. I could feel a sudden chill running down my spine and the chill disturbing itself throw the vast network of the veins in my body, right from my vertebrae column to my ribs and through my wrist into my scrotum. And those fibre pieces now piercing my eyes with the intensity of a thousand suns conveying me something I was trying hard not to imagine but something that was inevitable like a dark truth which you try to avoid from confronting or hearing, the one you don’t want to believe but no authority on the damn planet could deny its existence and no amount of ignorance will change the fact that it is in-fact the ultimate truth. Yes, I recognised the motorcycle from the shards within a moment and I knew whom it belong to and so I was trying my best not to think about that person who could be riding it but life has a way of surprising us from the many things which are obvious but you still act all stunned. Just few meters ahead of the wreck I saw my Richmond sitting on the road, his legs crossed, holding his left arm with another and staring blankly into the glittering tarmac of the road. The looks in his eyes with fear that it appeared like he could see the very core of the earth. He didn’t move, neither was reacting to any stimulus from anything that was happening around him. I was two of my faculty at the site. One was standing next to Richmond talking to someone on his phone and the other was discussing something with the cops who arrived on scene. As the bus rolled away further, I felt that moment like a tragic scene in black and white with a slow moving frame and me looking at this guy who was just hit head-on from a oncoming vehicle as the bus drives away. The gravity of those few seconds was such that it felt like hours.

The news had already spread like a wild fire till I reached the college and one of the staff member asked us to wait in the reception area before we proceed to our classes. Soon the whole reception was jam-packed with students of all the 4 terms and everyone else was looking serious and whispering. The principal showed up 5 minutes later and informed us that one of a student from my class has been in the accident. He further continued and informed that a guy from the junior class who was riding with him died on spot. Because my classmate was wearing a helmet it saved his life but the other guy was not so lucky. The news was followed by a two minutes of silence and we were asked to proceed towards our classes.

Not that we have never seen or heard of any, especially at this particular road which had a reputation for freakish accidents, but the fact that something like this happening to someone you know is more frightening and disturbing. Not only Richmond was my classmate but we also shared a common first name and he was also among the very few people I really liked talking to in my college. He was a funny guy who goofed around a lot but was damn critical on his grades and often could be seen licking the teacher’s ass during the final terms. He wasn’t actually bad but his reputation of creating a ruckus and then still getting caught preceded him as did his retorting attitude.

For the next two months Richmond was not seen. He went back home in Allahabad to his hometown so that his parents could help him recover from the shock. By the time he came back things were back to normal. No one tried to bring the topic of the accident in front of him neither anyone inquired about what happened. But he would often talk about it to Vaibhav and me how he feel himself to be accountable for the death of this other kid who was riding with him and how the god saved his own ass but took away the guy who was the only child to his parents. Vaibhav was not much on talking about such issues and I guess it was for his own good. He lowered the I.Q. of the entire class and he was too dumb to comprehend and comment on such matters because whenever he opened his mouth he would only shit bricks of foolishness which he used to build his rotting castle of self-loathing imprudence and harshness but was hard for me to tolerate and hard for Richmond to pacify himself.

It took almost a year for him to recover mentally from that accident but he never forgot it and neither did I because just yesterday while looking back at my college days the image of that accident came back to my mind and I was somehow compelled to think about some dark and grim question of our existence. The question born out of the mass effect of the part memory and partly because I was reading “Looking for Alaska” and have just reached the point where Alaska is dead in a car accident. The question of life after death and why do we often try to avoid this reality even when we experience it every day around us and even though we are aware of the fact the someday we will all end up dead, broken into molecules, atoms and neutrinos, decomposed and reduced to the same dust from which we were born, gradual rotting mass or a burned-up pile of flesh and bones which breaks down into the fundamental element again. Then why does the very thought of death is perceived as gloomy and seen in a negative luminosity. Why can’t it be discussed like any other normal talks just like we talk about latest fads, our recent crush or some materialistic shit that we recently brought? Why can’t there be more of scientific temperament developed and theories and equations be evolved regarding the structure of death and its nature. Why does the answers regarding afterlife if it is there, are doomed by doubts and misconception. Is there an afterlife or is death nothing but a bleak end dangling in infinity, just another dark and thoughtless void of nothingness.  We claim to have achieved optimisation by evolving into much more intelligent and rational beings than our ancestors but then we forget that there has always been a difference between achieving scientific intelligence and intellect. If death is certain and all that exists on earth is meant to die why cannot be regarded as another normal transformation or a progression to much higher astrological level if that is what pacifies the common mass.

Civilisations ends, their great monuments turns into dust, the once famed and notorious mortals dies and all that remains of them is a memory lost somewhere in the emptiness of our thoughts and the vast ever-prevailing darkness of morbidity or the shining light of exultant thoughts of our own construct. There is no beginning and there can be no end. All that exists is a continuous cycle of transgression and compliance transforming us from a single atom to fully-functioning biological machinery and then again disassembled into its fundamental components and this goes on forever. We are all nothing but only an inconsequential cog of a gargantuan space-ship floating across space on a sea of memories and portraits, watching and contemplating as each of them passes by.

The Captain's medal

Staring into the hushed darkness of their barrack, sipping through the last rounds of intricately blended malt Roark spoke to Col. William in a deep thoughtful voice. This was the first time  Col. William was hearing Roark opening his heart out to someone with so delicate profundity and thoughtful genuineness

 Capt. Roark said to Col. William, “How many medals do you think you had won in your high school, Colonel Strickfield?”

“Quite a few I guess. I can’t give you exact number but I can say I had my fair share. I excelled in sports if not my academics which earned me a good reputation.” Colonel replied.

“And how many men do you think you have killed by now??”

“I don’t know Captain. It is not our job to count how many we have shot. All I do is pull the trigger at the man who is in my scope and whom I know is trying to hurt my men”

“It’s funny Colonel. When I was in high school I never won anything. Though I have always maintained and tried to convince others that I had all the potential to win, the thing is I never won. However I did participate in many activities but whenever it was time to perform like in a finale of any race my heart stopped beating and my mind would go blank with fear and I couldn’t move. But today when I shot that man across the street, I feel that this is the first time in my life I had achieved something I always longed for. Something I feel that was missing and now I feel completed.”

“What makes you say that, Captain??”

“It’s simple, Sir. When I walked to that man I just shot I did not see my enemy. I did not see a man who stepped on my land to inflict casualties. I wasn’t bound by the moral dilemma and ethical ambiguity of killing a man like many officers in my position go through on their first assignment. But rather I saw an accomplishment which delivered me a gratification I had never felt before. It is as simple as that, Sir, You see a man in that body, I see my medal”.

And in those last words the Colonel knew all that had to know.

Batman, A.I. and the man that Nolan is and will remain

I’ll be honest with you that I will not exaggerate the facts this time. But back in 2005, when the first movie of The Dark Knight trilogy came, I was excited. Not because of Christopher Nolan whom I didn’t even know back then, but because it was Batman. I was 13 years old back then and not really much smarter for my age. I really did'nt know what Batman  trully stands for and for me he was just another superhero fighting bad guys with his high-tech and sophisticated gadgets. I was always fascinated towards the Batman but I wasn’t until the sequel (The dark knight rises) came out. I knew this is going to be epic in every sense. Not because it was Christopher Nolan at his best but because it had the most charismatic, disturbed and the most wicked villain of all time, The Joker, as they call him. By the time the third and the final part surfaced, I was already half way through my engineering, I was struggling hard to keep my personal life and academics together and it was during this time period I sensed a drastic change in myself. No sooner I came to a stark realisation of how this character, a fictional entity that was the brain child of Bob Kane and the legacy of Tim Burton and Bill Finger had influenced my life lately and how it had carved my ethics and morals. Even before I could see that what I was doing was walking along the line of an imaginary character I became completed indulged and in was drowned completely in the philosophy of Batman. And it wasn’t just the “The Bat” which altered the core of my soul but what completed it was the Joker himself. How often does it happened that you sympathise and feel a immense love for a psychotic madman who is adamant to destroy every form of order and instigate chaos just because he finds it amusing. Now that’s what I would call a real badass. Fuck automatic rifles or bazookas. This man held an entire city hostage just at a knifepoint. There was no point in hating this character even before Heath Ledger made him immortal with his portrayal. The Joker was to Arkham what Batman was to Gotham. And ever if you travelled down the dark and corrupted lanes of the Narrows you will come to know about a madman who had no definitive past or origin. The man came out of nowhere and went to become the greatest scoundrel the world has ever known. Yes greater than Lord Vader, Hannibal and T-bag. Another reason for growing admiration and love for batman was how every single portrait involved had a story line to back up the cause and the reason to act. However by this time I had really began to read about Nolan himself and all that he does with his movies. But that a flicker missing that was still to be ignited the immense respect and praise I had felt for the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Jackson and Francis Coppola. I need some fodder to make that happen, a robust push to make me fall for any title that carried the name of Nolan and that is when I came across The Prestige. Although I made an appearance just two years before The Dark Knight I had never heard of that. But my quest to find the shear brilliance and appreciate the true genius that Nolan is took me deep into the very dungeons I never tried to dwell into. The Prestige not only put forth two of my most beloved creatures The Wolverine( Hugh Jackman) and The Batman( Christian Bale) under one banner but also worked out a script that had twists and turns more than complex and perplexing then an Mobius Strip no matter how  plain and apparent it may appear. As one of the user at IMDb reviewed, “the secrecy with which the intricate story approaches them makes it impossible for the viewer to slot them in protagonist vs. antagonist positions, and indeed they are given almost the exact same screen-time and voice-over narration throughout, a subtle and brilliant accolade of Nolan's”.

As if The Prestige wasn’t enough to give me a series of sleepless nights and countless sessions of deep thoughts while sitting on toilet seats for hours the mind-numbing and an intellectually disturbing Inception was thrown to the world from the Nolan’s camp. More than Prestige or Memento or be it Insomnia this movie was so complex that it literally felt like a Limbo or some higher order of composite labyrinth. Layer within a layer as it continued this movie still continues to reveal a new hidden spot for many. The impetus and the after-effect of it were so intense that it still continues to resonates through the skull of Ishaan would often calls me in the middle of night whenever he finds something new in it which otherwise went unnoticed before.

By this time Nolan had became a regular name for every even a casual movie goers of a tier-2 cities and everybody would wait in anticipation what intricate mathematical equation bone would Nolan throws next to them. 

Last night, I spend hours watching, rewinding and figuring out the Interstellar. And it was the first time since I watched it last November, I saw a lot of doubts that were lingering in dark to be highlighted and made clear but I could still feel like there is more than I believe I am still to find out and learn from this beautifully crafted and a treat for eyes space-time continuum. 

A particular and note-worthy stuff that Nolan did with the Transcendence for which he was the executive producer was highlighting the theme of Artificial Intelligence which was yet again repeated in Interstellar. I don’t know how many people have really noticed it but I think the entire subject of A.I got shrouded beneath all those complexities of astro-physics and space travel. The rest of the screen was taken up by the stunning visual effects, the efforts and understanding put forth to define the correct shape and dimensions of anomalies such as the smart explanation about the shape of a worm-hole. But what I think went unnoticed was how Nolan elaborated to explain the man-machine relationship and how it is going to shape our future and aid us. Unlike his predecessor he projected the idea of an artificially created intelligence in an optimistic light of future where the machines like TARS and CASE will prove themselves to be an influential force while solving conflicting scenarios with logics. Again Nolan created a kind of contradicting situation with these two movies about the A.I.’s where at one hand a computer system went AWOL and determined to manipulate, transform and control every biological and machine aspect of the world the other continued to prove that no matter how rationally and intellectually advanced that get it is ultimately the man who has created him and even went ahead to sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity. 

And so it goes on. While I continue to walk the path Batman chose to learn and adapt to every ethical and moral choice he made, Nolan still continues to thrill his audience with the same deception and theatricality that his most pristine character employed, which now makes me wonder. Is Christopher Nolan the real Ra’s ul Ghul hiding in plain sight or is he the real Batman ???

Emily

There was discontent among everyone when I asked them to visit Butterfly Beach. As per the plans we had the liberty to pick up a beach of our choice where we will be visiting for the next 5 days we spend in Goa. It did took some persuasion on my part to take everyone to this beach which I was hoping to find secluded only to end up realising it wasn’t really as empty as the guy back at the resort has told us. There was people around, foreigners as well, but it was much better then Anjuna and Calangut which was just swarming with newly -wed couples, screaming children, the jet ski rides, parasailing boats and all other activities that could destroy a perfect gateway. While Andrew wanted to go back at Calangut we visited yesterday to find some chicks to flirt with, Ishai had a neutral stand and Amy was too obsessed with her book so she never cared where we’d go. Anyways we were able to find ourselves a peaceful corner on the beach. We rested for a while, had a little talk about stuff and then went quite again looking towards the horizon as the sun rays danced over the clear waters. Something interrupted Andrews gaze, probably some small fishing boat over a distance and he stood up and told he is going to search for some beers. Ishai joined him and they both said they will be back within an hour. Amy hardly seems to care about anything and went back to her reading. I was the only one left with no essential work so I asked Amy I am going to take a walk over the cliff to get a better view of the beach and ocean.

10 minutes of walking through a rocky side of the hill and I was almost at the top. I thought to myself it would be a hell of a view from up here, I am sure. Only I ended up to a sight which wasn’t really a welcoming gesture to my eyes.

“I wouldn’t do it if I were you”, I yelled at her as I took a seat perched upon a rock just few steps away from the edge.

She did saw me. She seemed scared but said nothing and turned her back at me.

“If you survive that fall, I assure you they going to looking for you for murdering me.” I screamed again, this time trying to be bit sarcastic.

“And why the hell they going to look for me for murdering you? Are you here for a thrilling experience as well as I am”, she finally uttered.

“Not exactly as you think. But I can say I had my share of what you are going through and I must remind you it isn’t worth what you are thinking of doing. And as far as your doubt is concerned here is why the cops will come looking for you.

Obviously my foremost attempt will be to somehow convince you not to jump. I had to make sure whatever I am telling you and beware of not making at advances towards you to prevent you from jumping because in that case you will jump as soon as I start running towards you. However if still my attempts fail and you still jump off, I will jump off after you, being a good lad I am, in order to somehow save you. Now since it isn’t much height to hit yourself at the bottom, I am assuming you will hardly injure yourself and will be forced to swim back at the beach while I would just drowning dead given the fact I can’t swim. So who do you think they will be looking for when they start?”

“You are the weirdest guy I have ever heard talking” she shrieked at me.

“Indeed, you are correct. And this guy is asking you not to jump because if you jump from here the fall is hardly going to cause any injury, forget about dying. So I suggest if you are so eager walk or swim towards Stairway to Heaven I suggest you to try Grandmothers Hole Beach. It much more secluded and at an appropriate height as per your requirements”.

She stood there for some time. There was an odd silence for a moment. It appeared like she had realised that I was correct but she wasn’t really convinced with all that and she proceeds another step.

“Can I talk to you for a moment before you jump? I promise I will leave you on your own as soon as I am done. I just need to speak for a moment”.

“Why?? Why do you want to talk to me? I don’t want to talk to anyone. So just go away.” She screamed loudly, this time sobbing.

“Probably because I think I deserve to know the reason at least why you are doing so. Think about it, committing a suicide without giving the world any prior explanation or reason why you did that. Don’t you think it’s kind of rude”.

“The world has been rude to me. Why the fuck I would care?”

“Ok, I get it. But if you are thinking of dying without any reasons I believe you are the dumbest person I have ever seen committing a suicide. Hell even Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain had a reason to suicide no matter how fucked up or conflicted it may be. But you jumping off this cliff for no compulsory motivation is just bonkers and that makes you dumb.”

“I’m not dumb or stupid. I am a graduate from Stephens. You are too stupid to assume me as dumb.”

“Doesn’t matter. You are still dumb.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“Go to hell.” She exclaims finally, only this time I realise she will jump.

“What’s your name?  At least tell me the name.”

She stood motionless for some time. I could sense some annoyance and dissatisfaction from her stance and then she speaks up finally.

“Emily. Emily De Cruz.” She says.

“Ok, Emily Brewster. My name is Richie. Nice to meet you! Now why don’t you walk away from that cliff start walking towards me so that we can discuss whatever is bothering you. I am telling you again another step you make towards that edge and it isn’t worth. So I am requesting you to kindly step away.”

She did pay no heed to my request and was reluctant to step away.

5 years have passed since that little stunt Emily had performed. I haven’t visited Goa due to my frantic schedule. I left a piece of myself back there but brought back another that I will be cherishing for the eternity. Emily and I had grown older day by day in last 5 years. We don’t see each other at all. We never call or text each other. But we took to a rather very conventional and old- fashioned approach to stay in touch. We write letters. That was one odd condition she put forth when I asked for her contact. I receive letters from her randomly although I make sure I write her once every month. I tell her about my business trips, the pretty girl I went on date with, the alien looking food I tried, discussing my frustrations and anguish, my desires and my fears.

She would write back, which she did once in a blue moon and had a very peculiar way of writing letters. Emily never write about the usual and routine stuff but her writings although may sound eccentric they have their own way of telling me that she is doing fine. At times it did concern me why she writes letters in such an odd sense, which may read totally out of context and hardly made any sense. Once she wrote me a letter in which she described me how exquisite and big the moon would appear on a full moon night from the edge of the very cliff where we first met. She continued how greatly she desired to fly away into the vastness of the infinite skies of a thousand worlds over the silver oceans that glittered as if the stars are floating into the water. This is how she would often describe whatever caught her desire. She never did write about one particular nature and world but always mentioned multiple ideas of the land and realms that could exist. At first I thought she just meant it in a rhetorical way or she was trying to persuade me to form an abstract idea of her perceptions. At times I even thought if she doing any hallucinating drugs which became a concerning thought for me and which she denied in jest.

In the past few days, the thought of Emily’s family had been disturbing me a lot. I wanted to ask her about it but since she never mentioned it I never tried on my behalf to enquire. Maybe because somewhere deep inside I was afraid of losing the bound I shared with her and she knew it. When I was about to leave Goa she told me she will accept my friendship only if it was on her terms and there wasn’t any chance for negotiations. I was not allowed to look for her or enquire about her and not even to come looking for her no matter how compulsive and impatient my heart makes me feel. She had literally warned me that ever I came back looking for her she will know it and will never speak to me. So I never did. And though there was an air of certain mystery around the whole situation I never really tried to persuade the feeling of mistrust towards her.

What Emily and I had was more than any words of love and friendship can ever describe and no matter how strange and vague it may sound to everyone else I knew that it was real. We were not in a love relationship but we carried a bond which was no less than what a man and a woman are entitled to be in if they like each other. We shared with each other our deepest desires and our most haunting fears, our tainted secrets and cheesy jokes. We had built our own world with those letters in which we could wander off from the usual trails into the mystic woods and grasslands to the mountains and caves. There was everything I could have wished for. That image of her when I saw her last time is like forever itched in my memory and she continues to dwell in my mind even after years have passed.

The last time I saw her she wore a white floral dress with blue flowers printed on it. She always wore the white at least every time I met her for the remaining 3 days in Goa. I never tried to ask her the reason because she looked beautiful in it. Her splendid hair would look like as if they could summon the winds of the seas and as they fell upon her perfectly chiselled face as the wind blew. She would always wear a flower in her hair to compliment the ones on the dress she wore any particular day and a bracelet of white shells and gold. Emily loved listening to Nick Drake and told me how she felt bad about him never gaining spotlight as long as he was alive. She loved Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Johnny Cash, Fleetwood Mac, The Smiths and David Bowie. She had never carried off that smile since I stopped her from running off that cliff and would always greet with a smile that was enough to wear off all the anxiety at the end of the day. There was something really very exceptional about her. It would never reflect but it existed like a fresh breath of spring at her face and like the tranquillity of a summer evening whenever she was around. The day I was about to leave I gifted her with a tiara made of crystal jade flower.  She was reluctant to accept it but I convinced her to wear it as a reminder of our uncanny yet beautiful relationship. For the last time I saw into her blue eyes which reminded me of the same ocean on whose shores I walked holding her hands to say my last goodbye. Something tells me she inherited those from her father and I told her that she feels like a beautiful mermaid to me, trapped in the realm of man. She laughed it off.

She would always write about stars and trees, the birds and their songs, the clouds and their shape in each of her letter. But from the last few days I had grown relentless of her writings. I was now expecting more from her. There was no doubt about it that I had nurtured a feeling for her which was more than mutual attraction. She was perfect in every sense to me and she was all that I wished her to be. I couldn’t just let go of how I felt about Emily despite of all she had asked me. Despite her final words which came as a warning, “if I ever tried to look for her, I will be gone and never will you hear of me”.

And despite of all she warned about, I decided to take another journey to search for her and for everything she never told only this time I decided to go without telling anyone where I was going. On the next day, when I reached Vasco I tried to sneak around the address where I used to send her the letters. I ended up making a fool out of myself when two women I met in the street told that the address I was looking for didn’t exists and neither have they heard of the person I was looking for. I wasn’t convinced enough and so I decided to do a check in the Public Record Office. By pulling a few strings I wasn’t granted access to the library where they kept the records of every known resident of Vasco. I spent the whole day browsing through thousands of files but couldn’t find any which would lead me to her. I left the place in disappointment. Finally, I had some suspicion building up in the back of my head. I questioned the possibility of someone’s disappearance with no known record of his/her existence and shrouding it with such a great level of anonymity that no one had ever heard of the person before. Something tells me there is stuff that doesn’t add up. Nothing made sense. The day was about to end and I thought to do another reccee around the block where I was searching before. I kept on walking from door to door, searching every street and corner, sweating and panting when I finally ended up exhausted in front of a small yellow house. It was dark and there was no one in the street only a street light which was flickering occasionally. There was no nameplate on the gate which could tell me otherwise still I decided to see if there is anything I could find. I entered the courtyard, knocked a few times on the door knob but no one answered. I tried to peep through a window to check if someone was in but there was no one but only a beautiful decorated living room that was lit by a chandelier in the middle. I had an eerie feeling about all this but the relentless urge of find the answer to my quest was compelling me to look for more. Finally I gathered my guts and tried to force myself in through the window which was unlocked.

The house appeared to be grand and splendid from the inside. I never thought a place which appeared to be so old from the outside could be so well maintained and impressively done. The walls appeared to be newly painted. They were blue and yellow. There was a couch in the middle of the living room. A small television was kept in front of it like the one I had at my home some 20 years ago. The floor of the living room was lined with carpets which looked like hand crafted in some foreign lands. They carried some kind of inscriptions on them in a language I couldn’t decipher and the embroidery of fishes and corals on it. I tried to explore more and moved from the living place to the bedroom. Everything in there was neatly done, the drapes where tied on the windows and the sheets appeared like they had never been used. Adjacent to the bed I noticed a small table which had a drawer. Without any more compulsion I opened it to find an object that left me struck and staring into the darkness of that drawer where this petite object was glittering like a lone star in the darkest sky. I picked up the jade tiara and somehow it felt like I have been thrown back into the past when I first met Emily. I couldn’t just let go of this anxiety. I searched for some more clues but there was none except a pink crystal jade tiara, similar to the one I only gave to Emily. I started to lose my mind as nothing appeared to make sense. I couldn’t keep a record of time and it felt like I have ended into a void where the concept of time and space were non-existent.  I walked back into the living room and landed on the couch, tired and confused over the whole situation, Emily’s tiara in my hand. My eyes went heavy and I ended up lying on the couch itself. I could feel the breeze of the ocean streaming against my face which felt like a kiss from a lover and the winds carrying the scent of the ocean with it. The waves blared across the shores but it sounded like a contentment I derived when I listened to Emily’s voice. And slowly everything went still and quiet.

I could feel the winds hitting across my face tenderly. The sunrays appeared to be dancing as my eyes tried to adjust to the light of late afternoon. I tried to gather my senses and see if there was anyone around. I tried to draw some conclusion from the fragments of last night episode. The house was gone. There was not a hint left that could even tell if it was there. There was a beach down a broken track from where I just woke up. The cliff reminded me of something or someone from the past. Like if I had been here before. And then it all began to make sense. But it still doesn’t add up.  The house was real. Everything I saw it was real. She was real. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I had been dreaming all this time. I heard someone shouting for me from the beach. It was Amy. But was she really there? How could she end up here?  Or is it really I had been through some weird and vivid dream? Yes, I had just overslept and had been dreaming. I let a sigh of relief. But the tiara in my hand tells me otherwise.