On the Kill

She had her hands on his neck; he had his hands on her neck, not in a way to form a loving embrace but in a way to suffocate each other and free each other from each other’s life. She had blood in her eyes; he had blood in his eyes, they both wanted the blood of each other to adorn and color their hands in red drawn from each other’s skull. She was groaning in pain; he was groaning in pain, but the groans of each were falling in the ears of the other and were pushing each of them to go further and bring the ultimate wish true – the death of the other.

Blood was already flowing before the penultimate match began, she had ruptured her lips; blood was spewing out and had colored her mouth and her teeth, making her look like a lioness after a mighty kill. He had cracked his head; thick, dark blood was flowing down smearing his face as if a clown with a colorful face is up on the stage for his last performance.

Like every war, the world has witnessed; like every fight, the eyes have witnessed, this war, this fight was no different. It was replete with destruction, with devastation, with loss, with stubbornness, with arrogance, with pride, and a point of no return. Everything that was created by their hands; the love, the bonds, the home, the beauties and even their most prized possessions has been destroyed by their fighting hands. His best ever gift from her, the twelve string guitar is in pieces and beyond any redemption and restitution. Her best ever gift from him, the painting of Salvador Dali has a gaping hole and oddly splashed in color of red.

Like every small and big landmarks of their lives they had Pink Floyd played for themselves. No different was this gravest moment, Pink Floyd was lucidly playing at its best. They met when Pink Floyd was playing at a concert in London, they dated when Pink Floyd was played at a Bar in India, they made heaven and alongside Pink Floyd was played and now when they are making Hell Pink Floyd is again played. So much is the contrast that the greatest ever Pink Floyd song is being played now, “Wish you were here”, fitting to their lives, where David Gilmour sings –

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil? ....

Now that everything is lost, there is nothing more to lose, only a trifle that is life, is needed to be lost. This will be lost too, in a moment’s time. The life of each is firmly in the other’s hand, it is just a squeeze away. The grips are tightening, the faces are turning paler, the brains losing sight, muscles starting to twitch, there is no breath to breathe, the chest is empty and the hearts are beating faster and faster and making its last leg of the run on the mile. And with perfect co-ordination, with perfect timing, with surgeon’s precision, and as if they were on a countdown they pull out the life of each other at the same time.

With Pink Floyd still singing in the back, slowly was soothing their departing soul. Nothing could have been more perfect than this. They sang each other this song when they were away and now when both of them away forever, the same song is being sung. Nothing could be more perfect than this. They lived for each other, they died for each other, and they died in each other’s hands as they had wished. And now when there is no life in the bodies, there is rigor mortis setting in, they had fallen in a loose embrace while making their final fall.

And I sitting on the high chair, the creator of the contest, the sole witness of the contest, await for their souls to come at my cove.

Faces

I see faces, faces everywhere, good faces, sullen faces, dark faces, fair faces, lovely faces, and faces which do not say anything. I see faces when I am asleep, I see faces when I am awake, I see faces when I am in a crowd of people and I also see faces when I am alone. I drink to drown the faces in a pool of drowsiness; I smoke to hide the faces behind the haze of dense clouds. But besides all these antics, I still continue to see the faces, faces which form shape in the clouds of the smoke and on the layers of the alcohol that I drink.

Then came a moment, a time, when I decided to live with it. I see both familiar faces and unfamiliar faces. Sometimes I feel joyous and quite exactly overjoyed to see the familiar faces and sometimes they make me morose. Those familiar faces which make me morose are the ones who in a distant past I liked the most, but now all of them have left me only visiting me in my hallucinations and I whispering to them, begging to them and shooing them ignominiously to leave me alone and let me live in my loneliness.

I had been seeing faces all my breathing life, both when I am conscious and when I am unconscious. I never understood whether the faces are in pursuit of me or I am in pursuit of a face(s). Over the years the difference has faded, like the fading breath of a dying man on a sick bed. There wasn’t a day that I haven’t seen a single face, and now, there isn’t a day that I would miss seeing a single face. Now, it has become an obsession, it has become a recreation, it has become a reason for me to live.

I could never speak about these faces to anyone. In my tender years, I was scared of being reprimanded; in my innocent years, I was scared of being put in an asylum; and in my mature years, I am scared that no one would believe. I could never understand why I saw the faces. I thought, I read, I analyzed, I wondered, I meditated, but, whatsoever I did, I never lost a face and I never understood the device for which the creator made me to see the faces.

Until one day, sitting in my cell, seeing the faces pass by my eyes and I taking a cursory notice of the images in my mind or in front of my eyes, I realized, I saw a face without a face at all. I concentrated hard on that no face. The no face as I would like to call was no way close to any of the faces that I have seen in all these multitude of days and nights that I have passed watching silently, speaking to no one. The no face’s face was without any life, it was as white as dead man’s face; it had two dots as eyes, with no expression in them; it had no lips, all one stretch of skin from head to the neck. No face was like a child’s craft, making a face out of a sheet of paper with his scissors by cutting out small pieces of paper from the middle for the eyes, nose and mouth. Why I call this no face and not ugly, because a face has to have a face to be called ugly or beautiful, this was beyond any compare, it was simply faceless.

Then whose no face is it? And how is this no face related to my ability of seeing so many faces all throughout my life? It only took me a moment to realize that it is compensation, a consolation, a divine intervention to compensate something which I never had. I am the man with a no face. It is my face without a face. From that moment on I stopped seeing any more faces, everything vanished, like the coins in magician’s hands, vanishing, vanishing forever. And I, continue to live with the memory of my own face, the no face for the rest of my life.

Perspective

This is not just a feeling; this is more than a feeling. This is not a moment’s feeling; this is the feeling of a lifetime, where even the age of the Earth would fall short, and would make it look as if it is in its infancy. The past is big, the future is even bigger, but the present it is just a moment. We take decisions in the present trying to interpolate from the past and extrapolate it to the future and all standing on the ground of what we call is present.

In the jungle of the past, in the wilderness of the future and in the garden of the present, it is the present which counts the most. This is where the birth of everything happens. The past and the future all originate from the present moving equally in both the direction, something similar to a stone dropping on a still water and the ripples moving outward. There will be no ripples until the stone drops on the river and there will be no past and no future until there is a present. As the ripples on the water grow, we humans grow too, broadening the past and the future but the present always remaining the same – a moment, a point.

In this stage of growth we come across many vistas, many people, many events, many addictions, many frustrations, many successes, many failures, many joys, many sorrows, many laughs and many cries. Some remembered some forgotten forever and that what accumulates entirely to be called as Life. Then life again is an accumulation of memories. It is replete with memories. Memories, which never go, it only goes deep inside the layers of more recent memories. Memories behave always strangely, remembering an old memory which brought tears in the past brings smile in the present and remembering an old memory which brought smiles in the past brings tears in the present.

I am confused; I am not able to understand where to go. Shall I go to the past? Shall I go to the future? Or, Shall I stay put in the present? But I can’t go to the past that will be retrograde. I can neither go to the future that is utopia. So, I am left with present, and if I have to live, if I have to be happy, if I have to be satisfied, if I have to trust, if I have to give, if I have to love then I must choose the present and I must live in the present and broaden my wings like the wings of the Kite, flying high in the sky.