Caged
He sat on the edge of his bed, his fragile body shaking vigorously as if under spasms, his mind, convoluted, pondering furiously over the options open to him. He was a man possessed, but he was vulnerable. Not that he doubted in his abilities to carry out the ominous task that he had assigned himself, but he was weak. He was seeking something. It wasn’t a parallel to fight unto death. Rather, a fight to gain. It is in these battles that you stand to lose the most. One wrong step could take him deep into the dungeons of obscurity and depression. He could not afford it. His win was far more valuable and he attached even more value to it. That could be his undoing. Execution carried out swiftly and diligently is the best course taken. Even a trace of emotion could backfire. You’ve got to be businesslike, officious, proficient and detached from the whole scenario. Do it as you would your daily chores. Plan each step meticulously, outthink your adversaries and then put them on the guillotine. Do the unexpected. Confuse them. It is the first sign of terror. Let them attack you, not in offence, but their own defence. That is when they will falter. In their fright, they will tend to overlook the facts that could bail them out. Use them to your advantage. Set up a reverse trap.
He retched. As all these thoughts raced through him, he felt a certain loathing for himself. How grotesque had he become? Was there a trace left in him, of the person he used to be? Will this really be the end of his agonies or the end of every feeling he had ever known? As the bed creaked from his sporadic, incoherent movements, he returned to his immediate surroundings, taking in the circumstances he was faced with, a submission to a fact he cursed he was a part of, yet a fact he couldn’t do without. It was this fact that had shaped his whole life, his being. It gave him a satisfaction, a feeling of achievement and a sense of being someone who could see more of what their was to life than others around him, who preferred to outlive themselves, in oblivion precisely. He was suffocating inside that room. It was a huge room, elite, furnished tastefully, grandiose written all over it. It would have wetted the buds of any connoisseur of art. Art was the last thing on his mind. The walls done in dull orange and olive green, the ornate sofa in mahogany, the table beside it with a glass top intricately cut in the shape of a broken heart, each crack in the heart clearly visible. The room was dimly lit, with lights of red and yellow flickering alternately. The lights were so placed that every time the red light went on, it shone directly on the cracks of the heart, giving an impression as if blood was oozing out. The yellow, in turn, illuminated the rest of the heart, as if in mourning. To say the least, the setting was eerie. Yet he did not care. His distant, vacant eyes were someplace else.
He walked, in slow, measured steps, towards the window overlooking the bustling street, the market across and beyond. He needed fresh air to realign his thoughts. Amongst the joy and cheerfulness spreading all around him, he felt grossly out of place. He always had. He had always been lonely, the feeling enhanced in a crowd. He felt vain. No, he did not feel vain. Everyone around him was driven by vanity. Not him. Really? He choked, realizing that he had been smoking. These questions of his would be his bane someday. The window was not doing any good. It added to his sense of loneliness in a caged room. Yet he stood there, observing people. He looked down on them patronizingly, as would a father on his year old child. He thought he knew that theirs was a short-lived joy. They did not understand the intricacies of life. He did. He envied them. His eyes welled up. He had once dreamt of such a life. Normal, happy life. It had all started perfectly, but somewhere down the line, things had gone out of hand. He had thought, to soothe himself, that this was inevitable. Maybe this is what fate had written for him. FATE? That is escapism. Why blame the fate or God for your own follies? He went back to the starting point of their relationship and realized that theirs was never meant to work. They were fundamentally different. The only thing that bound them was love. His. Nothing more. How could he even hope that it would work? At the time, he had been all masculinity redefined, the self sacrificing lamb, ready to do anything in love. When she had refused, saying that she did not love him, he had audaciously gone forward and announced, “My love is sufficient for the two of us”. From thereon, it had started, or probably ended.
He realized it today. He wished it had not come to this. All he had ever wanted was a girl who understood him, complemented him and whose love was silent, intense. Like his. She was nothing like it. But he was vulnerable even then. He needed to hold someone, to hug someone, to talk to someone, to cry his heart out on her lap. And she happened to be there. In his haste, or need, he thought that she was the one he was looking for. He was smiling. For a second, he was reliving those moment. Probably the best of his life. Reality was in your face, too harsh. He did not want to face it but there was no choice. He could not brood over what had come to pass. It was the future that he had to take care of. The immediate future. For there might not be anything beyond it. He turned to look at the wall clock, a miniature version of the backdrop of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower serving as the pendulum. It was barely seven in the evening. His hour in the glory was still hours away. Glory? Oh! His own, self defined, self serving, ego boosting glory. He had always looked upon himself as a survivor, someone endowed with the responsibility of taking care of everyone around him. It gave him something to be proud of in view of his insurmountable failures. Again, he had drifted away from the present. No matter how hard he tried, he could not focus on the situation at hand. His thoughts kept wandering back to merrier times, times when the world was a better place, when he was a better person, happy, a bright spark in his eyes. All that had been washed away with brutal force. He nodded his head and walked back to the other side of the bed that he had been sitting upon. Quietly, he sat down on it, crumpling the sheet below and slowly moved into a deep slumber, a trance like state, with his mind free from all thoughts. The wait was excruciating. He was at peace. Peace it was.
