Morbidly thoughtful and disturbingly pensive, she reacted to my umpteenth attempt in coercing a response. "I am doing well, busy and headed nowhere or somewhere that will be an open free space or maybe not. I have a feeling nowhere is a good place too," she reported. "I will write to you again, soon. I am too crowded yet empty in my head and heart, to write anything. I want to talk, just don't know how to say whatever I want to talk about." She abruptly ended, "I am fine, mostly." "Do you think you could combine emotions with tortuous legal procedures and find inner peace?," I enquired. "Are you recklessly determined on deviously messing with me?," she asked, annoyingly. "Do you have a plan? Should I be concerned about you?" she continued. I perched uncomfortably on the cemented floor with my chin resting on my cupped palms. Intoxicated with sleep, I asked her "What's keeping you up at night lately ?" I never really knew what prompted our conversations. Her frail frame paced back and forth in an empty parking lot, equally depleted of strength. She had the most inquisitive face, angular in a way that she could pull off any fashion or style. She ritually applied some unknown unheard of lotion that she didn't give much credit to, smiling slightly. That was her usual practice, not necessarily lacking refinement. In fact, it was remarkably attractive in spite of its terrestrial practicality. Her square plebeian nose and v-shaped chin had a deeply disquieting effect on most. It had been 15 years since we had met. It had been 10 years since we had shared the same time zone. It had been 3 years since we had a heart-to-heart. Its not like we shared a state of connectedness by blood or marriage or adoption, but our relationship was like an instrumentality that connected our souls. Suddenly she started numbering, " 1) strange weight of emptiness ; 2) desire to be alone and get haunted by loneliness and 3) a certain level of comfort with the concept of death." That's how she spoke, in fragments, in disillusioned phrases, never due to lack of vocabulary in the English language or content but almost always because she had too much to say. She always seemed to master unique first world problems that surprisingly I resonated with. We showed our years now but still had a child's innocent stare. It's not like we lacked knowledge of evil but somehow we fixated on an ignorant hope, the hope that we would find freedom from our inner fears. "I want to focus on making new memories," I said. "Why is it so hard anyway?" I infuriated. "What is so hard? Art of making new memories?" she asked, sounding baffled at this point. "Don't sound so naive. You can read me better than anyone, " I interrupted, slightly frustrated with how the afternoon was going. "Well, you got me! I don't know the answer," she replied as she foiled against her background. We had been static and unmoved as our conversation blossomed into maturity. We were not the types that indulged in self pity and yet here we were, trying to discover each other's unquotable grief and sorrow, sitting in the heart of chaos unfolding our lives. We were neither young, nor old. Some would describe our age as the peak of youth. And, others would unceremoniously dump us in bins labeled "mid life crisis: unstable mental health." After almost 10 years, we were finally returning to life. As we watched the sun appear and disappear in the midst of the random drizzle, we were, literally and not metaphorically speaking, aching. We were sleep deprived beyond words and annoyed with the transportation system, story of which has no home in this conversation. Yet, believe it or not, we could breathe. We were breathing a fresh start, not canned or otherwise preserved, impertinent like children lecturing grown ups, free from impurities. I was learning to let go of expectation and disappointment and she was learning to take in peace and happiness. The not so chocolate flavored coffee that the bartender served me, tasted as undesirable as I thought it would. And, the unwanted interfering drizzle interrupted her touristy escapade. Both of us should've been annoyed with all these mosquitos buzzing in our ears. But, we smiled and found it easy to breathe. Not far from this minute lay dynamical system of bedlam, aka pandemonium. Yet, we felt relaxed and satisfied with our momentary present, drawing in new life and manifesting a strange full flavored spirit after having being corked for years. How did we get to this state? How could we re-create this ever again? How could we hold it in place and keep it flowing in our veins? The pendulum clicked and kept the tempo of the music around us alive. I continued to breathe in, this air of extreme optimism, expecting the best of all best in this possible world. To her, nothing seemed to be out of place. Nothing felt wrong, to either one of us. Every puzzle piece fit right where it should. They looked at each other with infectious energy. "Life was so easy when we followed that boy Varun around! How we would go crazy laughing! Someday, we shall have a great laugh again, together!" She said, assuringly, with her familiar and comforting voice that was always music to my ears. "The mountain we wish to climb doesn't own a watch, you know. It's not in a hurry to go anywhere. I am invisible, understand? Simply, because people refuse to see me, just like the mountain we wish to climb." Sometimes, she drifted off in metaphors and similes. I enjoyed her, like a kid in a candy store. Bubbles and beads, lip gloss and frills, sprinkles and sparkles. Our creative spirits joined in celebration of our re-Union. "Do you miss having children?," I changed topics though I wasn't sure of either of the topics I was switching between, neither was I sure of this transition subject. "Well, I don't miss what I don't have. Isn't that just self inflicted torture?" she replied, somewhat confidently. "You?" She never forgot to include me in the conversation even against all my attempts of excluding myself. "Not really. I always dreamed of becoming a mother. It was as if being a mother was this profession, a learned occupation requiring special education. Ever since I was 25, i thought that that was my calling. But, I am not a mother now. And I may not be one, after all. Who can fight their destiny." Some people, you cannot dismiss from your mind. Some, just cannot be buried no matter how hard you try. They command presence. Their shadow lingers by your side years after they're gone. Their smile, a ghostly apparition at midnight, is like an inseparable companion. Don't get me wrong. I have tried. I have tried to dissipate the animation and energy that these people furnished my life with, but failed. I am not going to name them. That's no longer of consequence because they don't exist anymore. I also won't humanize them by narrating specific stories that link them to individual memories that might trigger emotions I have successfully placed in a grave behind the Kremlin wall on Red Square. You get the image. I am not in contention with my self awareness. Nor am I emotionally suicidal today. I, merely, want to bring to your attention how people can still dominate your life after they have left you. They possess the power to influence your sub conscious, concealing you with a gentle facade. Perhaps you are analyzing me right now. But before you sit as a judge at my trial, I would encourage you to get to know me. I am one of those 'used to be' directed outward, marked by external realities kind of a personality who recently folded inwards with my organs invaginated. So as we all lose faith in humanity and its immense powers, I contend that I often wonder about this ballet of life. It is beautiful, with its intricate characters determined to show every movement, but what use is it? We surround ourselves with energies we can dance with, making no secret of our designs, merely to answer our immediate needs. And one day, unannounced, just like that, all our stock assets vaporize. We seek fossils to provide conformation of the evolutionary theory, all along clinging to someone or something on which our expectations are centered. What happens when we suddenly find ourselves standing alone, like a lone skier on the mountain? You must think I'm bizarre, wearing a crazy hat, and singing half baked ideas. But you and I both demand reform. We strive for an equality of distribution. So just entertain me and my theories of the natural world. Close your eyes and think about a person that's no longer in your life. Think about a specific instance or a day of sustained elation when you were in a state of altered consciousness. It's not the big things in life that march aggressively in our memories. It's the little things that excite the cognitive process of obtaining and storing knowledge. The walk back from college at night as we passed a graveyard; or the song he played for me at a party to make me smile; the weekend we were like pieces of pasted paper without a care in the world.

"Lord, let me be the person my psychiatrist medicated me to be," I cried. "Why are you so Upset about the unfairness of the world? It's almost like you're angry with yourself for having so much power, guilty because you're doing so little," Aakash retorted. "Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense." I continued to defend myself in the midst of my maybe mid-life crisis. I didn't necessarily believe in the effectiveness of the prescribed medication nor did I have any impertinent expectation that my luck would suddenly favor me. I was just adequately content to celebrate my misery, confidently mocking hostility around me. Some called it, let's put it in quotes, "depression" and others labeled it sheer desolate laziness. I'm not quite sure what I called it, probably nothing because I chose to remain oblivious of my pained condition. Moreover, there was no point, again let's put it in quotes, "explaining" my particular state of existence to anyone. No one had any pertinent guidance or recommendation, anyway. They only loaded me with pity, feeling a fake sense of sadness for my misfortunes. "Have you thought about your future?," asked Aakash irritably. "I have you for that, right?," i said, smiling with glorified sarcasm. "Are you ever serious?" Aakash demanded, nostrils flaring up with annoyance. "I am going to quote something from this book I'm reading. This is how it goes: "Time. We only have the future to walk towards. Even if we could use our finger to move the clock hand to a certain time, that's really not something I want to go back to yet. The past, we can't go back and fix it, all we have is the now and we should do our best with it." "What does this have to do with you? You need to wake up and see your life passing you. Take matters into your own hands and think practically, not metaphorically or quote proverbs. But I'm done with you. You don't need my help, or anyone's help anymore. After all, you must learn to help yourself first before anyone can attempt helping you. Wallowing in self-pity will not fix anything but you don't really want to "fix" anything now, do you?" Rhetorically expressed, Aakash. "I don't see the world like you do, Aakash. I see black and white, not color. I see misery and failure and a frustrated sense of self-worth. My truths are a figment of my own imagination, now, because that is how I cope with sunrise everyday. I look forward to the sunset not because of its outstanding natural beauty and its ability to aesthetically please the human senses, but because it marks the culmination of the day, the day that I have no energy to tolerate. I live in borrowed time, struggling to often breathe. Do you not see my pain, Aakash? Your disregard for my suffering is loathsome. On a slightly positive note, and with the hope of digressing from my distress, today is slightly different. I am returning to life as I watch the sun appear and disappear in the midst of the random drizzle. I'm aching, literally and not metaphorically speaking. I am sleep deprived beyond words and annoyed with the transportation system, story of which has no home in this conversation. Yet, believe it or not, I can breathe. I am breathing a fresh start, not canned or otherwise preserved, impertinent like a child lecturing grown ups, free from impurities. I am letting go of expectation, disappointment and taking in peace and happiness. The not so chocolate flavored coffee that the bartender served me, tastes as undesirable as I thought it would. The unwanted interfering drizzle interrupted my touristy escapade. Yet again, I smile and find it easy to breathe. Not far from this minute lies dynamical system of bedlam, aka pandemonium. Yet, I am relaxed and content with my momentary present, drawing in new life and manifesting a strange full flavored spirit after having being uncorked. How did I get to this state? How can I re create this again? How can I hold it in place and keep it flowing in my veins? The pendulum clicks and keeps the tempo of the music around me alive. I continue to breathe in, this air of extreme optimism, expecting the best of all best in this possible world. Nothing seems to be out of place in my life. Nothing feels wrong. Every puzzle piece fits right where it should," I exhaled, completely confusing Aakash, the one person in the world who still cared for me.

Missing you

As I consider all the possibilities with their permutations and combinations morphing into something bigger than you and me, I find myself in peace even in your absence. That suddenly becomes the most beautiful part of our friendship. I realize that I will miss you always, even when you are right beside me. It is calming when you can separate each distinct emotion and dissect its core knowing that as each emotion comes to life, our time apart finds a new meaning. There is no feeling of longing inside me, baffling and perplexing as it may be. My clamorous mind forms a strange attachment to this placatory feeling of an extreme sense of trust. It is liberating, this freedom from the physiological condition of emotional dependence. Missing you, I feel at home. It is chromatically pure, free from discordant qualities. I remember everything you say and register them with a sense of pride, pride in our friendship as I watch it grow like a beautiful flower that keeps growing. As you find yourself safe with me and I find myself content in your presence, we seek forgiveness for dramatically changing each others' world views. Whether you call it radically distinctive or monstrously uncanny, missing you is the best part of my day. 

Trial Friendship

"Red or white?," he asked her. She looked at him as if he was delirious. A mad whirl of pleasure went through her head as she wondered his intent. Unrestrained, she said "white!" "Tilapia or Salmon?," he continued to probe.  "Tilapia," she answered, a tad bit miffed. "We have opposite tastes when it comes to fish and wine," he continued to nettle. "I wish he had a 'stop analyze' button on his forehead," she thought to herself. They had been friends for 1 week, give or take. They were friends on a trial basis. It was like a club where they had a 30 day free membership. Possibility of renewal existed but they were both ambivalent about the future of their unspoken, unverbalized relationship that seemed to be in a hollow globule of emotion drowning them as they interacted. Their friendship, on the surface, seemed like an impracticable and illusionary idea flowing against a noisy, irregular current. They had practically nothing in common and yet they had a fascinating rapport that colligated their lives quite naturally. Their relationship subsumed all other relationships around them, not eliminating them but in fact making them more comfortable in their own instantiation in the world. She, often, wafflingly, intervened his everyday routine without postulating reasoning. He paused his present to entertain her concerns, without hesitation. That interaction bound them in spite of their differences. As an outsider, I wonder if they will renew their trial membership. I am amazed at them as they continue to seek interest in each other. I must stop to observe the uniqueness of their friendship and start to excogitate a way to make sense of it. Till that happens, they will continue to float in each other's worldview embracing each facet of life as they uncover it. 

Single Diaries

Like any major tragedy, I accepted my state of anger, denial and then bargaining. Infused with the disappointment of a loveless future, even fashion magazines entertained a sense of persistent expression of grievance. Odd and irrelevant, I felt sympathetic toward my sudden singlehood. I pretended to crunch ice with my back teeth if anyone investigated the demise of my epically long relationship, a self preservation tactic I had mastered. 

Six hundred thirty eight google searches later, I realized that even the preppy and confident high school crush must've moved on. I waffled, nervously laughed, not ready to auction my number to men yet. I did not want to be compared to a rancid trollop, glowing surreptitiously as I held a more serious slush puppy that Claire had made for me. Claire was fanatically convinced that I needed to take seduction 101 as I obviously was out of practice. She was, now much to my shock, on the phone with Ivan scribbling numbers down and making arrangements of some sort that would've made me blush a decade back. But, today, it made my disheveled head hurt in style. After all, the transition from the happily ever after with framed family portraits to traveling around the world "alone" with a backpack had to be done in small stages. But my personality demanded me to mask the physical evidence of my emotional turmoil. You could've wrapped me in cellophane and I wouldn't have internalized the horrifying image. Claire's persistent involvement in my so-called social life didn't leave me with much of a private life. I was far away from reality. I was suspiciously questioning the meaning of life and building rapport with my lulled existence. If you could miraculously interpret the whispers in my head, you could participate in the constant monologue that continued to analyze  all my relationships even though some were geological era ago. 

Dividing temporal goods, empty future apartment, motion sickness, sudden fear of darkness, introvertedness, desire to scream were part of my new normal. Static buzz of nerves, I groomed with elaborate care as I crushed the blooms with regardless tread. It was my first day as a single survivor with a single serving in a single occupancy home. A single thought struck me which was to escape. But I was not going to do that. Not this time. This time I planned on facing this, invulnerable to fear, prodding along, colored and showy. 

The Two Friends and their intersecting lives

"Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive," exclaimed Charlotte Bronte. So in her head crying had a rational foundation on which every tear could be granted remission. Her outbursts celebrated the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man. Her circumstantial new friend was able to read her mind and that had a ceremonial effect on her condition of disrepair. Everyday she essayed a few wobbly steps towards her conceptual state of facile felicity, an undefinable lightness of manner. Her fantastical mind convinced her to take the easy route, casual and unrestrained. Her heart performed adroitly, readily exploiting and tricking her mind, inflicting corporal punishment unable to fall out of love. It was not that she felt betrayed that adversely weighed on her conscience. It was more that she ridiculed her bittersweet fate as it indiscriminately massacred her only hope of a picture perfect family. She had never been the type to care about her fashionably elite social group of so-called friends that joined golf clubs, formed lunch societies, and staffed soup kitchen just to put up a personal facade pretending to prototype good breeding. Why then she held on to this dimmed ray of hope with bleak prospects, blows my mind! Perhaps it was founded on deliberately obtuse and lusterless wispy memories of happiness. But could she continue living in the moment with her anchor in the past, remained to be seen. 

She had read recently that science had been trying to correlate happiness and chocolate. She reflected that the pseudoscientific forerunner of chemistry today could support the hypothesis that chocolate affects the brain by releasing neurotransmitters. A mysterious alchemy brought her in proximity, however, to an insubstantial mirage on the horizon that made her not care about scientific knowledge. It's the pugilistic spirit inside her that wanted to live freely, functioning merely in a subsidiary capacity, quizzically exclaiming: "Even if science never quite figures out what chocolate does to our moods, does it really matter? If eating chocolate makes you happy, go for it." 

The truth of the matter is that she really couldn't find the bandwidth to reason the sudden jump from sobbing with inarticulate sounds to feeling an aggregation of placid emotions. She didn't really feel that it was appropriate to key-out this state of contentment. It was probably a fleeting sublunary pleasure and would be terrestrial to simplify it into user defined, user customizable building blocks. She disposed her mind to simply relishing it and basking in its glory. She also acknowledged that she needed to harmonize her 'happiness' with her current milieu instead of resonating with the classic 'grass is greener on the other side' progression of chords. If only she could stop her thoughts from occurring, she could achieve this balance between her mind and heart and freely vacillate between intense emotion and a sedative state. 

Today was special. As I mentioned, she had found a friend who in her own skin and own set of faintly related problems, was a well-chosen and well-placed addition to her 'not established beyond doubt' life. She looked forward to her substantive interactions with her friend. They were both the same age for all practical purposes and shared an indistinguishable small sad feeling that coincided exactly when superimposed. They had selfsame and yet unnaturalized stories and coincidentally shared same space in one of those mundane weekly meetings that no one cared for. They were sharply contrasted in character with their hopes antithetical to their beliefs. She grew up in the western world accustomed to her current way of living, whereas her friend was nurtured in one of the most populated nations in the world. How they managed to find the centroid of the unlimited expanse of their lives, intrigues my mind. 

Today, their scheduled exit from their abstruse labyrinthine was about to materialize. They were both resolute and unshakeable and yet impregnated with fear of the unknown that lay ahead. It's not like they could both disappear into an unfathomable bottomless gulf, but the fate of their legacy remained questionable. Every day they'd analyze their level of contentment in their lives and weigh the pros and cons of being able to commit to the feeling of 'good.' They were, however, dramatically so, smug with the glow of self-congratulation today. Today marked their freedom to speak and think without externally imposed restraints. It was their day to celebrate themselves and nothing would ruin it. As they shared their probably last lunch as married women, they were content to obliviously comment on their hollow victory variously commenting on their bold step forward in life. They apportioned and parceled their belongings as they ravaged through their disgruntled years, grateful not to have invited misery by procreating to this chaotic assemblage of well-chosen and not so well-chosen fortunes. They continued to sip on to their affordable glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, savoring every minute of this moment they had been hopelessly waiting for. 

They did not care to indulge in any realistic future plans or engage in mindless disposition of their energy by discussing their past. They clustered around their purpose of mere existence. They were hapless victims of spiritual healing and arduously believed in their way ahead into the unclaimed unknown. 

I envy them for being so hopelessly optimistic and being able to find one another. They can conquer their fears and take possession of their inhibitions. Their intersecting and yet parallel lives may very well sustain themselves in a dimension far too complicated for the human eye and yet for them it imparts vitality and energy, not canned for the rest of the society. My cryptic mind can't fathom their relationship and yet I theatrically pose for a deep effect on my psyche all the while attempting to feel their liberated feeling. I don't know where they are heading and whether or not I will be a part of their undefined lives but I know I will treasure them and how I feel when I'm around them. 

 

My Acquaintance

All the creases on my face narrate a story with some level of authority. You don't know what I've been through and yet you accept my eccentricities and unconventional behavior, like a circularity that has a different center. This instrumentality that connects us has an overwhelming quality to it. Perhaps not because you have mastered the art of tolerating high pitched monkeys or magpies chattering in the trees but perhaps because this cackle fills a certain nameless void in your life that you yourself are unaware of. I fail to catch with my senses the point of lamenting in your absence. It may peradventure be that without your support I'll be ruling in a vacuum, annulled by my own internal conscience as I float in an impalpable, ethereal space of ineptitude. I sit here, thoughtless, bickering my heedless self-interest in merely hearing your ludicrous questions or even merely seeing your shadow as it appears and disappears from the ground underneath me without being able to intelligently allot a specific sensation to it. You know how the sensation produced by pressure receptors in your skin leaves you with an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation. It can be compared to just that, it being this nonsensical feeling I so smartly attribute to the meaningless and yet dazzlingly heightened interest in your presence. 

Our relationship is definitely out of the ordinary, with a peculiar sense of humor, as found in nature in the elemental form, morphing each time we interact. I don't know what to call it yet, something I haven't come to terms with yet because appellative function of primitive naming ritual is a skill I proudly own. 

But I'm not setting out to write a bathetic novel effusively displaying emotions. You must see me as a hard-nosed realist, guided by practical experience rather than ideology and theory. That's a regrettable outcome of being an extrovert and having had first hand interaction with possibly million acquaintances. You learn to accept trial friendships, as I call them. It primarily entails a preliminary competition to determine qualifications, and then successful candidates must participate in a trial of skill. A skill to test connectedness between two individuals. Preferred usage of this skill would be in a more long term relationship between these individuals, in other words friendship. The absence of fences creates a mysterious intimacy in which no one knows privacy. But to get to that point, you have to learn to trust with your heart. In today's geological time where people have overcrowded and cluttered lives, I just cannot seem to find that favorably disposed face. 

Let me come full circle and close the loop here. I'd be an intentionally untrue, mendacious child if I told you I was comfortable with my new, cheerfully irresponsible, harum-scarum, youthful uncaring disposition towards you. You are still very much a part of my life as I agitatedly wait to hear from you without being prompted. I will continue to think about you as I have those victorious moments with my deranged career aspirations. On one end, I cherish knowing you with unreasoning fondness and on the other I realize with complete confidence that if I ceased to exist tomorrow it would make no difference to your life. And hence bafflingly, I will not name our relationship because that would be quotidian and commonplace and even you know that I'm everything but that.