She
by Sabyasachi Roy
Her apartment
For long we had been incising papers for the project work. Primary Education- the name of this assignment. The scissors are relentless. Slicing the papyrus into halves, quarters, fractions, chiseling the rough edges. Resonance- somewhat monotonous, sustaining hisses. Like a serpent meandering over the pages, swiftly. Is it conscious of the documentations in the newspapers? Responsive? It might just crawl into the news itself. And then the news would ooze out venom. Chances are Scissors. She is leaning over the papers. Emitting warm sweats. Reverberating a heat wave. El Nino. The FM Radio sings aloud- “Mona Lisa…” The power has returned. Till this point there was a lull before a storm. The electricity has intervened. A decline and fall of the squall. Thus, electricity is mightier than storm- another well-proven fact. Then she went out. Balcony. She is fondling some vernaculars. A sub rated hand on a top rated daily. ‘This much, and we’ll call it a day’, she said. She is whispering a hissing murmur. Is she calling that serpent? Will it enclose upon her? Crush her? Melt into her hair? The FM Radio continues its ballads- “O my love, my darling…” Unchained Melody, un-chained. Perennial. I told her ‘I’ll use this pad for my short. Won’t tear them now’. She cracks down an electric shock, ‘You’ll spoil them. What!’ Why? Reflex action? The cologne of her sweat is hunting me down. There’s a swing in the balcony. The fragrance is swaying it gently. Very gently. And she is busy over the printed pages, their pages and paragraphs and lines and words, commas, dashes, hashes. She’s busy! Or she is not? Pretending? Just trying to pass on the ball of activity to some other court, and lay down among her white sheets with her vacuum peccadillo? At this instant few sweat drops are approaching the edge of her lips with her whispers bewildered. Approaching at a pace that suites a man towards a cliff. To leap. Or to make someone leap. Are they synonymous- suicide and slay?
Magic show
Magic show. She is sitting by me. Though not watching. I’ve learnt a new magic. Cell phone. Light blinks on the LCD. Swashes on her breasts. A phoenix is caged there. I can perceive. Out of the theater. A junk-food corner. ‘Wanna have some?’ And seeped out what was something of a devotion or blood or both. The packet of chips is emptying itself fast. Diminishing with every passing step. Side by side. And the steps would be diminished at a familiar doorstep. Or an LoC, one relative quantum. Nothing ends in nothing, or does it? An emptying thought is chasing us long. We are waiting for the claws to clutch. Anytime now. And then my notepad muttered, “I gathered this strand of heather / The autumn remembers you in / We’ll not see ourselves on ground anymore / Odor of time, strand of heather / And remember that I awaited you” Why this? Why now? Is everything emptying itself? Is that emptying feel is chasing us to the end of an unfamiliar shade?
The staircase
It is only few steps from the bazaar, this staircase. I’m parking myself there. A plump woman passes by. A brunet. Masticating. Another one now. A girl of twenty -- twenty-two. Swinging black bag. Hoofed footwear. Unknown variables, naturally. Suppose I introduce them to each other… a storyline could easily be drawn in such circumstances. Maybe a mystery plot. But not now, later sometimes. Right now I’m not in a feel of it. An ice-candy man is right in front of me. The ice-candy man is oblivious of these verities. As all ice-candy men are by natural history. His lone apprehension is to summon all the human folks of the world to his feast of iced candy. ‘Ice-candy…cool candy…all candy…’ deconstructed word-forms. Reaching crescendos in a boring regularity. A loin rag around his face, like fear himself, as if to fright away the children. In this parameter I’m getting sick by the sight of a woman. The first passer-by was a fat pot; the other was a model like. A couple of ladies right now. They too. Nice ones. Nice, but too many. Too much. Too much women around. This cluster of women is making me feel sick. Like vomiting. If she is around at this time, chances are she would make me feel no different. If I do vomit ultimately on her face she won’t return anymore. That’s only very natural. Maybe she could just invent a new detergent to clean up my brain. There’s a deep sense of obliteration building up somewhere. For instance, yesterday I told her ‘I’ll suffocate you with my bare hands. And then I’ll savor your flesh. Such . . . hunger.’ But then, I’ll better leave the breasts and buns. Too much fat. Then should I export these fleshes to nations poorer than us? Are they starving? I’ll better sell them at a damn cheap rate . . . some one wrote “two thousand per month and a female like a fresh melon / I ask nothing more to start with”. Nonsense! Utter rubbish! Slogan. I read out this poem to her. Her eyes tickled. Maybe she was feeling the same sensation in and around her waistline. Her comment was, ‘ send the poet to senate’. Well! She really didn’t spoke out these words but might have thought it anyhow. Sometimes thoughts and spoken words do blend well just like a seed and its forthcoming foliage. Maybe this philosophy is a ten thousand years old antiquity, junk. But still I do need her for eternity, even if it’s a single night’s relish.
Our balcony
Overcast. Windy. Gushing over our balcony. The nearby lamppost illuminates the balcony. The wind might blow away the remaining light to some distant terrain. It’s in absolute darkness. If I stoop down the balcony I’ll find bunch of darkness pouring down in dispersed packs. Through this translucent wall two little girls could be seen coming out of the adjacent door. They are having a nice time even in this soup. The elder one is spreading her wings and spinning fast on her toe like a ballet dancer. Her younger sister is trying to emulate her. They are playing peacock. ‘ Hello almighty, this is me. Please transform them into peacocks. Please, please…’ On such a day as this our physics teacher Sudhindranath passed away. ‘Paralysis Sudhin’- was his codename in our book. No one listened to his lectures ever. And our rowdiness scared the hell out of even the crows on the rooftop. And all these times Sudhindranath, like a permanently comet-struck person, use to gaze at the sky, as if his students are actually up there. Generally, this was followed by our Principal’s brief but anarchist intervention. Swinging cane like a post-modern Genghis. ‘You all would be reincarnated as sub-human elements’, he use to say. Sudhindranath use to say, ‘light is the darkest thing in physics’. He repeated this like an eternal hymn. The words became numb and melted along the ridge of his tongue. More like a babble in itself. I can still here this even at this distance. And each syllable is emitting a roar out of it. Spreading out like paper chips in darkness.
The television of a decomposed soul
She is searching for a collection of poems. ‘The television of a decomposed soul’ by Falguni Ray. And in the process turning my bookshelf upside down. That’s quite a collection. No idea why she is searching the television of a decomposed soul. And no idea where that thin book is either. She is bringing down bunch after bunch. And I’m gazing at her, as if watching television. The television of a decomposed soul. World Cup Final. India versus Australia. And then a continuous thumping sound. At last she held, ‘got it!’ That means Australia had won. If it is watched through the television of a decomposed soul, India surely cannot win. India’s soul is pure, virgin. Controlled. ISI Marked. Anti-acidic…
By-lane
The by-lane is just outside our News Room. Or the by-lane leads to our News Room. There we met. ‘Come with me’, she said. And we traveled more by-lanes and lanes as if we are unfurling tightly knit rope apparels, or opening up the lips of an onion one after another. We just now crossed a grocery shop, and then a corn shop. Today I didn’t mention about our fried corn supper. There’s nothing wrong about it. Having fried corn on a daily basis is but a ghastly custom. And we end up beside a park. ‘Shall we sit?’ she said. So we sat on a secluded bench adjoining the lake. We are sitting about four inches apart. I can see there’s a hobgoblin occupying that space. On a sleepless guard, and conveying thoroughly ‘Keep awake! All at guard!’ She said, ‘Let’s move on’.
Conclusion
Coffee-joint. We are facing each other over a hot cup. That smell is hanging around. That fragrance. The stainless spoon is creating a cyclonic effect to dissolve the sugar particles. And a resonance from this whirlpool is amalgamating with the fragrance. The fragrance won’t reach me any longer. It’s making love to that resonance. Both our rucksacks are on the third chair. They are touching each other. They are exchanging affection, or body- heat, or purely warmth. ‘ It might rain today’, or, ‘when are you joining your new job?’ Few words like these. And then like a brief interpretation of recurring decimal, ‘Let’s move on’ And we moved on. Along the foliage of the sellers. Across the borders of the asphalt sidewalks. Over to the rail bridge. She asked me to handover her yellow rucksack. I did. But a tranquil-yellow mint retained over my left shoulder. The bus terminus is at the end of the bridge. Now she’ll board a bus. Her homeward bus. Or maybe, she was home all these times, and now she’s taking a trip to some distant lands. Ignition. Wheel started rolling out of the terminus. And naturally so, the three characters- she, me and the bus are not visible anymore. But the vacuum we left behind is being filled up by an incorporated darkness of the evening.