The Unnamed Story... Part 2...

This continues from the first part which was called 'The still Unnamed Novel I am writing'. I have renamed the series 'The Unnamed Story', so as to not sound pretentious. Everything else stays the same.

“As perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me: all things leave me: You remain” - Arthur Symons

I lay down again, on my bed. I was tired, exhausted, and worn out by sleep. I closed my eyes and waited, waited for the memories, her memories, waiting for the bitter sweet taste that they leave in my mouth, the same taste that her lips used to leave on mine. I longed to smell her close to me, smell the perfume she used to wear, a perfume which reminded me of treks I went for in my college days, which contained the smells of the wild, the intoxicating aroma of musk, a whiff of frankincense, the tears of Boswellia tree crying out in the unforgiving desert and the long lasting fragrance of sandalwood calling with open arms. I lost myself in the woods of her smells, closing my eyes, sniffing and following my olfactory sense to take me to her, letting my nose be the beacon of my hopes. I felt her smell close to me, so close that I could reach out and touch her, hold her and keep her. I was afraid to open my eyes lest I lose her, her smell and the orgasmic joy that it gave me. I shuddered with the sheer rapture of pleasure. I opened my eyes and there was no forest, there was no grass around feet, no trees surrounding me and she was not there.

I felt a sudden urge to smell her perfume, to find out if I remembered what it smelt like, if my memories were true. I knew that she used to keep a bottle of her perfume at my place. I started a frantic search for it. I looked around, the dressing table drawers, the bedroom cupboards, the bathroom, even the kitchen, but it was not there. Despair, bordering on wretchedness, engulfed me. I felt life slowly ebbing away from my body, like the evaporation of her perfume, like the sound of her footsteps on the stairs outside whenever she used to leave, like the slow decay of memories. I wanted to puke out this melancholy from my soul, like we puke out bad whisky, and feel alive again. My head was spinning, I closed my eyes again, but no memories swamped me, this time it was pitch dark. I was starting to lose my memories, with it her smell and with it my life.

As a child, I used to steal my mother’s perfume and spray it on my stuffed tiger and then throw it away. Then I would close my eyes and sniff. I used to get down on my knees and follow my nose to find my tiger. I used to bump into a lot of things during these games, my mother never guessed the reason behind the bumps on my head that used to appear with alarming frequency. But once she asked me if I knew why her perfume never seemed to last long. I was afraid she would scold me and I kept quite. Maybe my nervousness showed on my face, but she did not stress the point. She let me be. But I have always wondered if there was something else to this incident and maybe my mother did know about all this, maybe she knew that I was stealing her perfume, to use it to play my own version of hide and seek. Maybe she knew what the perfume meant to me, maybe she knew, long before I had any inkling of the fact, that I derive a part of my life force from smells, and my olfactory sense is as vital to my life as the other senses, and that my nose breathes life into me through the smells I love. And that is why I desperately needed to find her smell back, and with it reclaim my life.

I had to find her and the only clue I had was the note she left me, when she left me. It was a hand written note, written on the back of a restaurant bill, a restaurant where we had our last dinner together, written with the green ink pen that she used, written in her charming handwriting with the confident expressiveness of forward slanting letters, the pleasing consistency of circular strokes, but there was something different, the normally optimistic upward slant of her lines was replaced by a downward slant indicating exhaustion. She was tired when she wrote this note, she was tired when she left me, and maybe she left me because she was tired of me. Clutching the note in hand, I started out on a journey, a journey which was also a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage to find love and in love, life.

The Still Unnamed Novel I am writing...

This is the start of a story that i hope will some day turn into a novel... so that's why i have put it up here... to remind myself that i have things to write, a novel to finish... i will be only putting up the odd chapters of the novel, because they form a homogeneous story. You ask what about the even chapters, well, that's a mystery...

I woke up. Winter had not set in yet, yet I felt cold. I looked around trying to figure out why I felt so cold. I checked my forehead and throat with the back of my hand. I did not have a fever, not yet. The window was open, it was night already. A soft, gentle breeze was blowing, a breeze which carried it with a peculiar smell, a smell which carried it with memories, memories of long nights spent with her, memories of cold winter nights, memories of distant times and places, memories which reminded me of my stark loneliness. I got up. I put on a sweater, not just any sweater, but the red one, the one which she got me for our anniversary. Why did I put it on? I never liked it. I remember her face when she gave me that sweater; she was nervous, expectant, and anxious. I smiled at her, but something was missing, and she knew that. She realised that I was not very happy, she did not say a thing, neither did I. But something changed that day. We knew that the honeymoon was over; we knew that it will not be easy anymore.

I closed the window. I looked outside at the empty park benches, gleaming in the moonlight. It must be the metallic paint that they use, I thought. I tried moving away from the window, but I could not. I was under the spell cast by those silvery park benches. I saw myself sitting with her on one of the benches; it was another full moon night. Her face looked so radiant in the moonlight, so angelic, so pure, that I was afraid. I was listening to her, but I was lost, lost in her beauty, so unreal that I ran my hands over her face just to make sure that she was there. And she was, she was there, right beside me, smiling, talking, and laughing. I felt a burning sensation inside me, I did not know if I was sad or happy or if I was supposed to be one or the other. I was happy as well as sad. I felt pain through pleasure and pleasure through pain. There no longer was any boundary, or any partition between the different emotions. I felt all the various emotions at the same time, and at times none at all. Sometimes I would be burning with passion and at other times I would be numb.

I felt a strange sensation in my stomach, a sensation so familiar that I ought to know what it was but the fact that I did not, made it strange. I thought about it a while and then it dawned on me that it was hunger, one of the primal instincts. I felt a faint sense of joy on realising this, the kind of joy you feel when you solve a very difficult problem and are amazed and exhilarated by the beauty of the solution and your ingenuity. I must be losing my mind, I thought. I tried remembering the last time I had a meal. Was it this morning, yesterday night, yesterday morning, I did not know. I went to the kitchen. It was a in a mess, but then so was my life, so I felt at home. It was comforting to find a place where I could fit, easily and discreetly. I made myself a sandwich, not the chicken one that I liked but the tuna that she was devoted to. As I ate the sandwich, I could hear her munching her tuna sandwich, a faint smile on her lips, contentment writ large on her face, the strand of hair falling carelessly over her eyes.

I was back in our bedroom, my bedroom. Dark clouds were starting to take over the sky, dark clouds with silver lining. Silver was her favourite colour, not red, blue, pink, green, black or even orange. No, no rainbow could entice her; hers was silver, silver with its brilliant white metallic lustre, silver with its untarnished and pure radiance, silver with all the pomp and splendour of royalty, silver to fight thunderstorms, silver to relive memories, silver that symbolised the moon now hidden behind the dark clouds. I once tried to figure out the reasons behind her fascination for silver, I asked her questions, questions about her childhood, her parents, the house she lived in, the school she went to, her first love, her favourite TV series, her favourite plaything, her first car, her first job, even the colour of the condom to which she lost her virginity, trying to understand the choice of silver, and with it understand her. It was during this time in our relationship that I knew that something was not right, we were still the same but something was missing and I wanted to know her better, know her every move, her every whim and fancy, to find that missing something in her.I never realised that maybe the missing something was missing in me.

Origin of Life

Little Timmy (we don’t know the real name of the boy, so we call him Timmy) did not know why everyone was in such a hurry. His family, his friends, even Old Uncle who rarely moved out of his house, was packing.

He had heard people talking about ‘the Migration’, about some journey somewhere. At first he thought his father was taking him to a trekking vacation that they had been planning since long. When he asked his father about the trip, his father laughed and said they were going somewhere far away for a long vacation and everyone was coming with them. Timmy thought everyone meant his family and Old Uncle, but now it seems all his friends are also coming. This is going to be the best vacation ever.

Timmy was happy. First the school closes 2 months before the vacations and now this. It was not even summer yet and people were talking of vacations. Timmy was hoping that this could happen every year. When he told this to his father, he got angry and shouted at him. Timmy ran to his mother and fell asleep in her lap.

It was still dark when he woke up. The kitchen light was on and his parents were talking.

“Are there enough ships for everyone?” his mother was asking.

His father replied, “Not really.” His father was a man of few words; he rarely said anything more than barely necessary.

Mother said, “What will happen to those who are left behind?”

“There is still some water left. It will last a few months, a year maybe. Then…” his father’s voice trailed off.

“All these years, the government has been cheating us. I am sure they knew that this was going to happen, since long and now they tell us. It is a massacre that’s what it is. I am sure all the government people have got their ships and are ready to go, leaving the common people to die in this forsaken land.”

Timmy never knew that his mother could be angry about any thing. Perhaps living with father was taking its toll on her, he thought.

His father replied, “At least you can thank the government for giving us a ship.”

“That’s no reason to thank the government. You are important to them; they need your knowledge to survive out there. So they give you a ship. But my brother, because he is an ordinary clerk, he does not get a ship. They are a selfish lot; these government folks. I hope they all die in the journey.” His mother was almost shouting now, wonder what the neighbours would be saying.

His father was calm. He said, almost philosophically, “Many will die in the journey. These ships have not been tested properly. All this happened too fast, we did not have enough time.”

“I hear that only 2 out of every 10 ships will complete the journey.” his mother interrupted.

“It’s only an approximation. Maybe more people will survive, maybe less.” Timmy’s father had this ability to be casual about almost anything.

This irritated his mother a bit. She asked, “You know about these ships. You will be able to take us safely, right?”

“I will try my best. These ships are not safe. There are a million things that could go wrong. Just hope that nothing does.”

They were silent now. Timmy went into the kitchen.

“I am sorry, we have woken you up.” his mother said.

Timmy asked, “Why are we leaving?”

“We cannot live here anymore, son. There is no water left here. It is all gone.” His mother said.

“We can ask Mr. Faro for water.” Timmy innocently replied.

“No, no it is not like that. Even he does not have any water, no one here has water. So we are going to a new place, where there is water, lots of water.”

“Where is that?” asked Timmy.

Before his mother could reply, his father took him out into the courtyard and pointing to the sky, he said, “Son, you see the bright star in the middle of the sky. It is a planet, like our planet. It is the third planet in our solar system, and our neighbour. We are going to live there.”

“Father, what is it called?” asked Timmy.

“They are going to call it Earth. I must say, it does sound better than the name of our planet, Mars.” replied his father.

Timmy did not care about what it was called. He was just happy to know that there were no schools on Earth, not yet at least. He went back to sleep, dreaming of the vacation ahead.