90 Seconds

Once, a beautiful dream weaved its infant in my sleep. And it lived for ninety seconds in my sleep. I was twelve years old. But the picture it portrayed was of a seventy year old hangman’s. His job was to hang people. ‘Death’ was his only disguise. He wore his proud mask to commit his brave job. They say, ‘work is worship’. They add to support the very same lines with, ‘Every job has to be done proudly’. The pole that was kept alongside the fort had many victims. Every heart pounded when he ended up with many lives that way. That was poignant. And he wasn’t really ‘proud’ of what he was committing.

I met him at the edge of the town a decade later. He was then eighty two. He nearly lost his eyesight and his voice was hardly heard.  “Hello, brave soul, I remember you”. I said. He stooped on to me and whispered, “Have I killed your spirits?” I replied “Yes, once”. And he nodded with his bravest mask and shuffled off towards the east where the west touched the shore, to bask and see his life for one last moment.

Everything you do has its emulate. For all the time spent in that cold shell, struck by the paintings, and the blues songs, he held his heart close to the box that she gave him long time ago. The moment of freedom occurs when we pursue what we love. His love gave birth for many paintings. Paint the wall, the dry draft from the north comes to soothe your soul. He heard it, felt it, and copied its waves with those canvases. The box… That box… That black box had a letter… The only thing in that box was a letter… A white letter written with blue ink… And the note is incomplete… The ink must have run dry. But her heart was on it. She was his special friend, the one who whispered fairy tales to him. They dreamt together, and woke up every dawn with a lovely smile. He was in love with her smile. There were then no blues songs. The nightingale as she sang for him every morning. When the shaft swept the street towards their stay, thrusting warmth through the pane, they rose up, with their endless love.

A sudden fall of distant ray diverted from his thinking. His eyes shed tears. He felt good. The shore is crowded with strangers. And the grand fort lured the hitchhikers. The gates to the entrance has been locked and sealed. No one is permitted to witness the mighty pole that hanged many people. Its stood up on that stage, like a devil, to lure and squeeze the wanderer. Even the sun dies away when it appears behind its huge clock. Time is life. Life has nothing to offer beyond time.  Stay away, step a step back, or sideways, but stay away. Echoed the spirits surrounded by the rock made fort.

Once, a beautiful dream weaved its infant in my sleep… It was “I”. And he hurt my feelings in my sleep, in my dream’s dream. I was ‘He’. And the dream was incomplete… The dawn has led its way to the dusk… The shore has buried the sun… And the moon has come out from its shell… And the pole… The starry pole… That stood up on that stage and has become history… And the way to the hangman’s house has been glittered with myriad stars… And he, for once, smiled for the very reason that he cried… He is free… Free from pain… Free from his proud work…

And the moment he stepped inside his house, and opened that black box, the letter… Her faded lines… Memories… And the background music from his rusty radio, the skies poured inch by inch on his roof… For the letter said, “Remember, When I am away, you are so close to my heart...”