Behind Eyes Closed

‘Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if we were a molecule of water?’ she asked me. I shook my head, looking down at our reflections in the puddles as they quivered with each drop of rain that hit them. In my hand was a wet cigarette, soggy with its unfulfilled destiny, and in her hand was an unopened umbrella. 

The rain was unrelenting. We walked on nonetheless.

She took my hand in hers, with the one that was umbrella-free, and with the umbrella she gestured expansively. ‘We could see the whole world. We could fly with the clouds, swim in the rivers and streams and lakes and seas,’ she said. I smiled and nodded. I hadn’t seen much of the world. It would indeed be good to travel. I hoped I left the rest of the cigarettes at home.

She leapt, trying to reach for a couple of leaves that drooped lowest from a tree. I glanced down at the footpath, wary of stones that jutted out or of missing pieces that betrayed the gutters underneath to the eyes of the world. I could hear water gushing, meandering, indifferent to the path it couldn’t choose even if it wanted to. It flowed to wherever it could, from high to low, from full to empty.

We found a bench. It was painted green. Its metal peeked in places, black as night. We took a seat. She put the umbrella aside and put her head on my shoulder. We watched the clouds for a while.

‘Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to kiss in the rain?’ she asked me. I kissed her. She tasted of strawberry chap stick. She tasted like tears. She tasted like the sun appearing between darkened clouds.

After a while we got up and walked again. The rain seemed a little hesitant then, a little uncertain perhaps, as so many endings began. Leaves hung down trees like a sodden green beard of a giant. Our clothes were soaked through. My shoes made squeaky noises. We didn’t know where we were going and we didn’t care. Her umbrella lay forgotten on the bench.

I looked at her, her long dark hair plastered to her face, and felt strange for having thought of forgotten things. She looked at me with brown eyes so dark were almost black. I put my hands into the pockets of my jeans.  

‘Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if you were someone else’s dream?’ she asked. I clutched my wet cigarette tightly, my chest ached, and there was a lump in my throat. I heard her words, I felt them, but try as I might, I couldn’t understand them.

I hoped I left the matchbox at home but I knew somehow that I would never know. She looked at me, with tears trickling down her face. I wanted to comfort her, to tell her that when she came back I would be there, but suddenly I realized I didn’t know if I would. How could dreams know?

She closed her eyes, and all was light.

   

  

A Soul without Windows

My prison has two rooms.

One of them has four white walls with no windows and a floor of Italian marble. This room has a teak bed that creaks, a table with books piled on like skyscrapers reaching for the starless sky of a city, and currently, me. While there are other objects in this room, none are as dear to me as the teak bed that creaks, the table with books piled on like skyscrapers reaching for the starless sky of a city, and, well, me.

The other room consists of a shower, a toilet, a sink. There are other objects in this room. None of them are dear to me, just as the shower, the toilet and the sink are not.

Now, we return to the important room of my prison. The objects that I mentioned as being dear to me, I regard so for very specific reasons.

The bed is an heirloom. It holds my past like a time capsule that none other can open. In each of its grains it holds a memory. It has been passed on through a great many generations of my family, until it is now in this room, here with me. The bed is where I dreamt, you see, and that has seeped into its teak. In my bed, there is safety, there is solace; there is the comfort of things gone by that shall not return. Precious and sometimes ugly stones in the rough ground and polished by the wear of time. This is the bed in my prison.

 

Now we come to the second object in this room. You see, reading, to me is like breathing. No, not because it is indispensable to the cause of keeping me alive. Well, it is, half the time. What I mean though is that often it is something I do out of habit rather than of desire. Every thought that went into the writing of a book becomes fuel to the engines, and the trains of my thoughts move along the tracks anew. That is just the way it has been, is, and will be. The table holds my books as it has done for a long time. It bears the burden of their weight, as do I, and when I do so indifferently, I find the kinship I share with the table. This is the table in my prison.  

When you read this, you will perhaps wonder of the other things that I have in this room, the room of importance. What of that glint of metal you see there, in the corner of the room, isolated and shunned? Yes, that is the key to my prison, and yes, the door is locked from the inside.