old tell

Don’t open your eyes for you won’t see anything. I told myself. Of course it was dark everywhere. Darker than any cinema hall and unknown of the direction of the screen. Screen? A door maybe…

Hence I went roaming. Hence I walked. Hence I looked. Hence I was tired. and so I came back to the gentler world of dark. Did I see the colors? I went out past that door. Again.

Almost at the top of the mountain but not quite there, I met some returning faces. Ever eager to hide my embarrassment, I smiled as graciously as possible to hide the urge of throwing a hard fist at them.

“So here you are again”? I nodded my smiling head. “You are consistently late as ever. We found him already and to save all your futile effort of near future, we will tell you that he is a fake.” I wanted to nod my head again and get rid of them with a grateful smile but somehow I got rid of my smile and they started nodding their faces.

“We knew you would be here. So we just dropped earlier to check the facts. It’s a waste of time really but since The Queen ordered it, we had to do it.” I was already at my not so large wit’s end deciphering what this asses were talking about and I take pride at being a chosen one (although by the grand jury comprising a single member ‘me’) in this republic to start and finish at my own whims and not by the meaning. (Is the revolution happening already?) “Looks like, he doesn’t even know why he is here.” And they started laughing. I took it as cue to part the company with those honorable gentlemen and started walking ahead. “Go and meet the man who helped achieve the last wish of the last DINOSAUR. You both will get along and might swim in the bucket claiming racing through the entire ocean.” Then they laughed making funniest noise I ever heard and put me to the laugh as well.

It felt nice sitting at the top. The debris of unused or demolished concrete can take almost natural shapes at the top. It did feel nice. The man sitting across me never bothered to utter a single word. But then nor did I. The silence can be eerily romantic for the virtue of being silent. What knows What not Who cares When doesn’t Why bother Whom matters Which explains all the bullshit. Hahahahaha…

“So what was the last wish of that DINOSAUR”?

“That? Last DINOSAUR”

“Yeah, that last DINOSAUR”

“The last DINOSAUR”

“The Last Wish of The Last DINOSAUR. What was it”?

“Sky cannot hide the spots which twinkle for their own merry. And it is respectful enough to let the sun and the moon shine most of the times. I wonder if you can be as passive as the sky and still spirited enough to play along little games with distant stars and the moons and the suns. They aren’t confined by your reach and out of your grasp but you have the responsibility of telling others the stories of their escapades. To be a story teller is a great gift for you can hover above your audience and peek in their lives but a great curse too, for you can never reach and never fall.”

I had heard those words before. In the black pits of my hollow brain. I had a reason to smile. That smile worked as a key and opened the flood memories. He went on talking then. In a very monotonous, expressionless voice he offered me his birth and the childhood. I returned some smiles, some nods, some raised eyebrows, some quizzical monkey looks, some hollow looks, some stinking yawns. He went on and on and on… I kept track… wandered… came back… kept track… lost… found back… kept track… got immensely bored…

Suddenly I asked him, “Where did you come across the last wish of the last DINOSAUR”? As if whacked on the head, he came out of his talking train. Looked at me. Then looked below. Far below the surface. At the core of the earth his stare lingered for a while. Soaking the heat buried within the massive rocks. Then he smiled, smiled as if learning hard to use those mussels again.

“It was the last DINOSAUR itself who told me the last wish.”

“that is impossible cause DINOSAUR left the stage long before it was all hogged by idiotic lunacy of human race.”

“how do you like to be the part of this beautiful farce”?

“don’t know… I would have liked to know how my performance is… how well have I adopted to the role and made it my own… but then there is no audience… everyone is a co-actor… how would I ever know if someone is telling me the truth or acting out his part”?

“audience is important. Even in the play itself, we seek for a temporary audience on the stage. It makes us live. A conversation, even if only an acted part makes us what we are.”