MY TREE ON THE BORDER

It was years before they captured me loitering around the border.

“Hey! What are you doing here? Don’t you know, this is supposed to be a no-man’s land?”
“I just planted a few seeds here, right on the border. The rainy season is around. The heavens will water the seeds, and I am sure, some day one of them will grow up into a huge tree, offering shade and shelter to people on both sides of the border in this arid land.”
“Borders are supposed to have barbed wire fencing, and not trees; fencing so high that, not even birds can fly across.”

They arrested me and dispatched me to the jail, but not before digging up along the border, a couple of miles both ways, to throw out the seeds. They could not.
I laughed, and they tortured me. I laughed more.

Years passed by. They kept me rotting in the jail, which really did not make any difference to me. It was same for me on this side of the border, or the other. I had nothing to lose or to hate on either side. It was the same sky above, the same earth below, the same wind around, and the same seasons caressed me.
Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw my tree on the border growing day by day, shoot by shoot, season by season. I saw the tree swallowing up the border. I saw it uprooting the barbed fencing. I saw birds nesting in its dense expanse. I saw travelers resting in its cool shade.

Years passed by. Nobody noticed the tree growing. The cold war, the perpetual stalemate in the peace talks, and the arms-race assured both nations of peace. No nation would attack each other, none would dare. No one needed to patrol the border any more. Anyway, it was a long border, and those who would infiltrate, would do it anyway: this was a matter of the great mutual understanding.

The jail authorities forgot why was i there. They even forgot who was I. Back home, there was nobody who would remember. And, this made no difference to me.

Years passed by. I was an old man now.
The international situation changed. Nations got bored with peace, and started toying openly with the idea of a war game.
The war idea rejuvenated everyone. Guys suddenly became alert along the border. It was alive and happening again. This excited and entertained all concerned. Patriotism got rabid.
And then someone noticed the huge tree on the border. It was blatant violation of the international protocol of war-mongering. Birds of diverse feathers, ignorant of nationalism, flocked together, and the huge tree sheltered all. That took out the fun out of the killer game.
Furious, they traced out the culprit.
The international court had a novel punishment for me.
I was to be hanged till death from one of the branches of the same tree, with great ceremony.

Zealous patriots all over the world protested--they said, hanging me would be mercy.
Finally, I was made to cut down the tree on the border, amidst the same great ceremony.

The huge tree was cut down. The hot sun sucked the green glory. Leaves shrivelled. Birds were orphaned.

I could not control myself. I wept hard. Everybody celebrated.

Suddenly it dawned upon me: a tree never dies; seeds, once sown and sprouted, are immortal.

That made me laugh uncontrolably. Everybody thought that i lost my mind.

THE BOMB

“AN UNCLAIMED BAG HAS BEEN FOUND IN THIS COMPARTMENT. ALL PASSENGERS ARE ASKED TO RECHECK THEIR RESPECTIVE LUGGAGE BEFORE THE POLICE SIEZE THE BAG FOR FURTHER ACTION”

The solitary constable gravely walks up and down the compartment as he makes the announcement. He taps the backrest each seat with his baton, as if to lend emphasis to each of his words.
Everyone in the compartment is stunned to a dreadful silence. No one utters the word, but everyone is aware of what is being talked of: a bomb.
The effect pleases the constable, and makes him feel more important, more effective, and, in charge of the situation. He displays his inflated bravado by poking every piece of luggage, including the bags and purses clasped—ever so tightly in their anxiety—by the frightened passengers in their lap. Every time his baton pokes a hand-bag—and the terrified passenger shrinks with fear, the constable gives away an authoritative ‘Humm…’

The skinny, nervous old man occupying the seat in front of me, almost gets a convulsion with every ‘humm’ the constable utters. His hollow cheeks puff and sink more fretfully, and his toothless lower jaw shakes more violently. His rounded eyes, grotesquely magnified by the thick glasses, appear incongruently comic as they tremble frantically from side to side.
Ever since the oldie got into the train, and happened to take a seat in front of me with his family, he strikes me as particularly high strung. The other two members of the family are two abundantly fat ladies—mother and daughter—who occupy five-sixth of the space, and push the poor old man precariously to the edge of the three-seat-bench.
Once the initial shock wave passes off, morbid excitement takes over the people. The more the dutiful constable assures them and tries to keep them away, more they are agitated and close around the abandoned bag.
Most agitated and the foremost to close on to the bag is none other the poor nervous old creature. He points at the bag; shrieks, “bomb..a bomb..!”; runs to and fro between the bag and his seat; shakes his wife and daughter by shoulder; repeats “bomb..a bomb..!” to them; and then, without rhyme or reason or relevance flares up: “Must you choose this damned day and this cursed compartment to travel?” More than the bomb, the poor wife seems to be scared of her hubby! The family drama actually steals away the thunder from the bag and the bomb.
The constable is swift enough to draw the misplaced focus of public attention back to him.
“HELLO EVERYBODY! NOW STAY AWAY, ALL OF YOU! LET ME HANDLE THE SITUATION.”
The dutiful constable bends over the bag, with the old man already watching over his shoulder. He unzips the bag deliberately, dramatically, and inch by inch; puts a hand in the bag, first tentatively, then more boldly (now no looking back), and, finally confidently; starts bringing out the contents, mainly several well-folded new clothes, one by one; and then—
A sudden blast rocks the compartment.
No, it’s neither RDX nor nitroglycerine; it is a local leader-type of a chap that explodes.
“Why and how the hell do you dare to open the bag in a running train, and that too in the crowded compartment?” he explodes at the constable, “What if the bag really contained a bomb?”
“But see, there is no bomb…” squeaks the constable, meek under the burden of his faux pas.
“BUT WHAT IF THE BAG ACTUALLY CONTAINED A BOMB?” The constable’s meekness emboldens the leader; naturally enough, the mob sides the bully.
“BUT THERE IS NO BOMB IN THE BAG!” Right or wrong, a loud retort is the only survival for the cornered constable.
“BUT WHAT IF THE BAG ACTUALLY CONTAINED A BOMB?”
“BUT THERE IS NO BOMB IN THE BAG!”
“BUT WHAT IF THE BAG ACTUALLY CONTAINED A BOMB?”
“BUT THERE IS NO BOMB IN THE BAG!”
The full-throated argument goes on and on; and the old man, oddly enthusiastic, faithfully echoes and reechoes every sentence to the family—
“There was no bomb in the bag, but what if there was actually one?”

At last the constable, now a hero-turned-comic villain, quietly leaves the scene under cover of the confused crowd.
The crowd entertains itself with a lively debate on national security, public awareness, global politics etc.
The constable makes a come-back, now accompanied by a couple of his colleagues. They come, seize the bag, and walk away.
All excitement gone, a lull settles over the passengers.
The old man, exhausted from excitement, dozes off in his seat; he appears so puny—almost arousing pity.


The train rattles on, and finally nears the destination of the family. As they prepare to get down, they organize their luggage.

“One of our bags—the blue one—is missing!” discovers the wife; and then realizing what must have happened, cries out—
“You crazy fool, you crackpot, all the while you keep dancing around the bag like a mad monkey; watch my new costly saris being thrown around all over; and not for a moment it gets into your head that it is our very own bag?”
“..i,,i never saw the bag..or your saris..all along i..i just kept thinking ..of the bomb…” stammers the old man.

LOTUS

The lotus flowers in my garden bloom but rarely; and when they bloom, they do so in vais’akha, when the summer is at its harshest. And yes, the deep evergreen, lustrous oval leaves are a perennial relief to the eye, whatever the season.
My ground floor flat does have a space around it—alas, all so meticulously smothered under the dead RCC after the urban fetish. The lifeless RCC was a sore to my eyes; and it was then, some three years back, that i had the fancy of have a lotus pond!
Soon, the water-proof masonry was ready. What remained was to prepare a fertile water bed, an underwater mixture of black soil and cow-dung. And of course, i could not forget the guppy fish to keep the mosquitoes away.

So, half a truckload of black soil is procured. Self help would be the best, and well, the most economical. And then, one fine day (when the family is away for vacations), this brave dreamer decides to accomplish the task all by himself.

Ten minutes of the job are enough to bring home to me my fool-hardiness. Tons of unloaded soil all around; hardly a fraction of the job done; the sun and the unaccustomed physical effort already sending down streams of sweat; and backache already set in: and worse, nobody else to blame for the mess! Well boy, enough of the do-it-yourself self reliance!
What next?


“Sir...”
Turning around, i see three kids at the gate: weak, malnourished, dehydrated and bare-footed; their discolored hair unkempt, and clothes dirty. No, they are not beggars: one of them carries a pick axe, and the other, a spade.
“Sir, may we do the job for you?”
‘Ha! The angels!’ - exult i for a moment.

Next moment, the cautious householder within, checks the exultation.
I survey the kids, size up the unfinished job, and promptly put up a stern, prudent mask.
“How much..?”
“Fifteen rupees..?” says the boy tentatively.
“FIFTEEN?” screams the prudent man, who would never protest paying seventy rupees for a scoop of ice-cream, or one-hundred-and-eighty for a ticket at the Multiplex.
“No sir, fifteen rupees for all of us, together.”
“Hmm… look, i want a neat and clean job. And mind you, i won’t pay a single rupee if i am not satisfied. Is that clear?” I tell them, who is the boss.
“Right sir”’ says he meekly.
“C’mon brothers!” the leader cries triumphantly. The younger kids are already at job.

Relaxed, i sit on a bench in shade. The boys are methodic, seem to be expert in what they are doing, and fast. Unmindful of the scorching sun; unmindful of the streaming sweat; unmindful of all their deprivations; unmindful of the world around, soon they have moved most of the heap into the pit – the task which almost killed me in ten minutes! And how merrily they sing, chat, and play pranks with each other as they continue with the labor that killed me in ten minute. Blessed be the childhood that mellows down the harsh reality.

I am ashamed of myself.
What childhood do I talk of? Famine severs the poor children—the eldest one, not more than twelve, and barely older than my younger daughter—away from the family, and i, the romantic urban fool, eulogize some blessed childhood and all! Hungry and helpless, the kids sweat for their daily bread when they should be playing and studying, and i pat myself for having driven a hard bargain.

Where is their home? Do homes break suddenly - or crumble bit by bit, day by day? What goes wrong in life? What forces the parents to abandon the children to their fate? Or do the children, precociously and painfully wise, leave the house? And how do they walk all the way to this distant unknown land, so far away from home? And, does the broken family, if at all it survives, ever look forward to a reunion, when seasons would be more merciful?


“..and, what is sir going to plant here, onions?” the youngest one, made bold by familiarity and innocence, comes up to me.
“Not onions, lotus.”
“Lotus? Real lotus? Wow! They are so beautiful, aren’t they? Gods like lotuses, i know, i have seen in pictures!”
“And then you will sell the flowers in the bazaar, and get lots of money?” asks the middle one seriously.
I am speechless.


Enough of the prudent mask. Let me be myself; let me be somewhat imprudent and humane; let me follow my heart. This prudent mask always chokes me.

Finally, the job is over. Exhausted, they ask for water. They wash themselves clean, drink greedily, and give a sigh of fulfillment like an artist reviewing a just-completed work.

Arrives the pizza which i have meanwhile ordered for the boys. Let them have a small treat—perhaps a lifetime treat, heard of, dreamt of, never realized or likely to be realized.
Humbly, i pay them fifteen rupees—each.
They cannot thank me enough. And the more they thank me, the more humble I feel.

The lotus flowers in my garden bloom but rarely; and when they do bloom, they remind me of the three beaming faces, as the boys heartily ate their hard earned pizza.

God save me from prudence, so that the lotus flowers bloom in vais’akha, when the summer is at its harshest.

JUSTICE

Reflexly, I slam down the brakes to a screeching halt.
Now don’t tell me that i have actually knocked down the kid.
Shit! That’s what i have exactly done!


The mob is already closing upon my car, threatening, abusing, and shouting.
“Killed! You have killed the child!”

“Pull that bastard out!”

“Don’t let him run away! We’ll teach him a lesson.”
“Drunk or what? Gone blind?”


I sweat and shake behind the wheel. What the hell i have done? Where was i lost? What on the earth, is this mob going to do with me now?”

And then, a middle aged man rushes in, and calls out authoritatively above the melee.
“Hold yourselves, you all! Please understand, taking the child to the hospital – that’s the priority.”
“But it’s a police case, man..,” objects somebody.
“That can wait – and you, come on, quick!” he orders me; he is already in the car, next to me, with the injured child across his lap.
Though somewhat assured, i am still sweating, shaking, and palpitating. Nevertheless, i press down the accelerator hard.
The good man takes out his shirt, and covers the victim.


“You may slow down. The mob is left far behind.”

“But..the child?”
“It is..was already dead.”
“..?”
“I wanted to take you away from the angry, wild mob.”
“..?”


“Drop me at the hospital, and go your way. I shall take care of postmortem and the police formalities. Don’t worry, i don’t need your identity or your car number. The mob in its fury, or the law in its format, seldom punishes the culprit alone: the entire family suffers, and is ruined in the process. And i am not interested in such justice.”
“But, what are going to tell the child's parents?”
“Well, i am the bereaved father.”


None of us utters a word after that.
I drive on.
He sits with dead child across his lap.


We reach the hospital.
He signals me to stop.
He steps down with the child’s body in arms.

He pauses for a minute, walks up to me, and touches my shoulder.
“Please be a bit careful while driving, dear friend. God bless you.”

EGO TRIP

The smoke-alarm shakes me rudely out of my nap. Next moment i am aware of my paraphernalia: the IV line, the catheter, and, worse, the dangling Urosac. How do i run and save myself?
The duty nurse promptly rushes in, puts the alarm off, opens all the windows of the AC room, and with a firmness that comes only with a professional finesse, makes the erring patient understand: “Sir, you are not supposed to smoke in a hospital.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I?” explodes the guy, in an all-caps-bold-italics-double-underlined 72-size-impact-font, red, and highlighted yellow.
“That does not matter,” she responds coolly.
The coolness sets the man and his faithful wife ablaze with fury.
“What do you mean by ‘not supposed to smoke’?” screams she, “my husband is under arrest or something? We are bloody paying for our stay! We are not going to take those ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ from anybody! Do you know whom you are talking to?”
“I AM THE VP OF THE PRESTIGIOUS ‘24X7’* CHANNEL! DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL YOU? DON’T YOU EVER WATCH THE TV? OUR CHANNEL DRAWS THE HIGHEST TRP, AND I AM THE BOSS THERE! AND YOU TELL ME –ME?– NOT TO SMOKE?”
The nurse leaves the room quietly.

Phew! So that’s the Big Boss that shares the double-occupancy ward with me!
I am waiting to get my prostate, swollen with age, trimmed. The surgery will be tomorrow, and i am going through the preoperative protocol, a bit prolonged because of a minor urine infection.
The VIP has been brought to this room only last evening from the ICU, where he was under observation for a day for high blood pressure. It is indeed a great condescension of the part of His Majesty: all single-occupancy and deluxe rooms are occupied.

I never knew that hospital stay could be so full of entertainment. Ever since the Big Boss came, the room is alive with non-stop cell rings, the yelling and yelping telephonic monologues,; and the 24x7 blaring ‘24x7’ on his laptop. Every ward-boy, every nurse, every RMO, every consultant who visited – and, more often than not, summoned to - the room is administered a viewing of, and a briefing on the history, the modus operandi, and the market share of the channel.
So continually runs his live commentary, deriding and ridiculing the entire world – the politicians, the police, the judiciary, the industry, the NGOs, the country, the system, the public – that i am afraid i would leave the hospital a cynic.

Next, he is wild at the lunch served by the hospital.
“CALL THE DIETICIAN!” – goes off the shot.
The dietician is a young girl with pleasant manners, and she knows what she is doing. The brat does oblige her, but not before extracting a promise for a sumptuous 7-star junk, complete with the nip, for dinner.

Following lunch, the Supremo is again restless for a smoke. He sneaks out of the confinement past me ( i do not exist, for all he cares), walks down the corridor, and goes up to the elevator. Alas! The attendant is too dim to appreciate the exigencies of the nobleman. He stalls his honorable mission, calls the Floor Manager, and hands the delinquent over to him.
What ensues next, would go down the Annals of the Hospital History for decades and centuries.
Enter the entire repertory- the PRO, the Administrator, the Security Officer, the Matron, the nurses, the doctors, the CEO, the ward-boys, the ayahs, and all the ambulatory patients; at the center stage is adorned, of course, by the grandiloquent Thespian, and the faithful prima donna.
And then follows the most flamboyant of the soliloquies:
“DO YOU KNOW WHO AM I? HOW DARE YOU DICTATE ME-NO SMOKING, NO DRINKING, NO THIS, NO THAT? MIND YOU, I AM NOT USED TO TAKE A ‘NO’ IN MY LIFE. I WILL PUT ALL THIS STORY ON MY ‘24X7’, AND CLOSE DOWN YOUR HOSPITAL – I AM THE DE FACTO OWNER OF THE CHANNEL! I TRAVEL ROUND THE GLOBE ELEVEN MONTHS A YEAR! I CHANGE MY CAR EVERY MONTH! YOU GUYS DON’T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO! I WILL BUY ALL THE HOSPITALS AND THE DOCTORS OF THIS WRETCHED CITY! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A BIG SHOT I AM! I WILL CALL THE POLICE COMMISSIONER NOW – please go and get my cell, Dear! – YOU KNOW, THE COMMISSIONER IS MY NEIGHBOR’S COUSINE’S CLASS-MATE! I WILL TAKE ALL OF YOU THE COURT FOR. .I AM. .I AM. . .”

The ego trip, however, ends in an anticlimax.
A treaty is signed in the evening, almost unceremoniously, whereby the Lord leaves the hospital against medical advice and against an interim payment, to be settled by him, with the Insurance Company, later.

I am operated upon the next morning. Properly discharged, i leave the hospital not a cynic, but with a bit of wisdom:
‘A man’s ego may be directly proportional to his status, and is, for sure, inversely proportional to his stature.’
However, i don’t know whatever the Grandiosmo did with his BP.
_________________________________________________
* a hypothetical name; any similitude coincidental

MASK

Nothing is more ominous than a phone ring at odd hours.
It is at around 5:30 in the morning when my cell rings.
Back home my son has had a bike accident. He has head injury, is critical- in fact, he is dying.
The earliest train from here to my place is at 7. I have some one and a half hour to manage things – including coming to myself.
Mine is a transferable job. However, the family cannot be on a move forever. Another eleven years to go, before my retirement. Till then weekly commuting is the only alternative.
These days XI an XII students are the most stressed species. My boy, as usual, starts off at quarter to five for his tuition classes. You know how dark and foggy January mornings are. You also know how these young boys are with their bikes: Tarzans astride technology. I actually never wanted the boy to have a bike before he was 18.
It’s a five-hour journey from here to back home. I don’t know what to do with time: an abyss ahead of me. I as well don’t know what lies beyond the abyss.
I look at my watch every now and then; it’s hardly a quarter even after what i perceive to be one full hour.
Head injuries are plain bad. The end could be instantaneous, as it was with one of my colleagues last month; it could be a painfully prolonged one.
The man goes for his usual evening walk. Boys play cricket on the adjacent ground. Comes a ball, full shot, and hits the man in front of his right ear. The ball and the man both fall to the ground simultaneously; the ball bounces twice or thrice before it settles; the man is already dead.
I think he was a lucky guy. More often than not, death hovers for days and months before it strikes. It tortures with anticipation and uncertainty. Helplessly you watch, as someone lies in the bed, comatose and senseless, breathing in convulsive bouts and gasps. An occasional involuntary flicker teases you with the hopelessness of your hopes. Bedsores gnaw away the defenseless body, and the sickening odor keeps you away from your beloved one. And then, you actually pray Death to bless the poor soul.
Luck is such a relative term. What would happen to my son?
I glance at the watch again; it’s just twenty five minutes more.
Would that i overcome all time and space, and be beside the dying boy!
But why do i assume him dying?
Don’t cases ever recover from head injuries?
The train is pretty crowded. Everyone talks, shouts, yell good-byes, gives instructions, quarrels for a seat, and the result is irritating cacophony.
I am happy, no one here knows me: an unknown crowd is the best shroud a man may have.
Each one flounders through his or her loneliness by being garrulous and by seeking company. It’s New Year time, and the greetings come handy to break the ice. But what will break the ice that freezes the mind of the bereaved?
“What bereavement do you talk of?” I scold myself. My boy is not dead yet. No message, no call has come to me yet confirming the worse.
Someone tries to drag me in the talk.
“Any problem?” he asks kindly.
I put on a mask of indifference. I don’t believe that sharing makes your pain lighter; it makes it cheaper. People listen for a while, sympathize, and them philosophize. Your burden becomes a story, and then fodder for gossip.

Hawkers come to me, trying to sell their wares. I have had nothing since morning, nor i feel like having anything; hunger is dead.
Beggars come to me; some sing, others display their repulsive selves; they arouse neither pity nor disgust in my mind blunted by pain.
Eunuchs come close to me, clap aggressively in my face, call my attention, touch me; I can never look at eunuchs in their eyes.
Little boys in soiled rags beg to polish my shoes. I look the other side.
Then comes yet another boy, about ten, equally miserable, and silently sweeps the compartment clean. I take out a note – don’t know what - from my pocket and thrust it in his tiny, dirty, calloused hand. Now it is real hard to control myself. I choke with emotion – for the first time since that call in the morning. I am afraid lest i give way, hold the little child tight to my bosom, and shower him with tears.
It has been years since i held my son close. I don’t know when and how an impenetrable wall materialized between the two of us. Perhaps I was always away from the family, when the boy needed me most. Whence did this unspoken hostility creep in between us? He did anything and everything just to spite me. He did not eat, did not attend classes, did not eat - till I got him that cursed bike. I know he never loved me; he was afraid of me, and hence, defied me. Was i a failure as a parent?
-But why do i talk about him in past tense, as if..?
Yet three hours to go.
I doze off from mental exhaustion.

The train comes to halt with a jerk. I wake up with a start. Oh no! another two hours to go.
It’s a major junction. Many get down, more rush in. Enter a large family, all jubilant and cheerful, perhaps they are back from some pilgrimage, and only too happy to share their joy. So contagious is their ecstasy, that for a moment i forget my grief, and am happy to partake of the prasada. I am none of the religious sort, but a trace of consolation does touch my troubled mind. I smile at the subtle play of emotions that goes to make the human mind.

“Never accept edibles from strangers!” my wife – the kind and caring lady - would admonish. I am taken aback to think how self-absorbed i had been, not to have thought of her even once. Shit!
What would she be doing? How did she manage things? The road must have been lonely at that hour. Maybe, someone noticed the boy lying on the road, cared to take him to the hospital, find the id-card, and call home. Possibly, a lot of precious was already lost. What happened to her when the blow came? Perhaps the first thing she did was to call me? How badly she must have missed me? But how come she didn’t call me after that even once?
And it struck me that there were indeed several calls on my cell from unknown numbers. Was it she who tried to get me desperately? She doesn’t have a cell of her own; she must have tried to contact me from the public booth or something; and i was too absorbed in myself to respond to any unknown number.
Do i call back to one of those numbers? How is that going to help now, after so many hours? No, i don’t dare to call anyone; i must admit i am a timid fellow.
And now it is hours since the phone rang last. What could this mean?
Anyways, now it’s only a few minutes before i reach home.
Do i go to the hospital? – and, what do i ask?
Do i go straight home? – and what do i say?
Suddenly there is a sinking feeling in my stomach. Until now i was impatient how sluggishly time crept; now i am scared how fast it carries me to the doom.
How do i face whatever meets me?
Worse, how do i face my wife?
I know, reality, when it does come, is never as difficult to face, as we imagine it to be.
I also know it’s the imagination, and not the situation that kills you.
But we are wise only by proxy, aren’t we?
Maybe, things are better now – or, at least, stable?
The slender string of hope - we hang on to it, and it hangs us by the neck.

The train enters the station.
It slows down.
I let the crowd get down.
I want to stretch the moment as far as possible.
I get down only when i cannot help it further.

The phone rings.
I let the ring die.
I switch off the phone.
I put up a brave face and summon a rickshaw.
Every minute, the rickshaw carries me closer to the ordeal.
I am already sobbing behind the brave mask.

COMET

I am a blind aggregate of rock, dust, and ice groping in my eccentric orbit.

I have no individuality.
I am identified by the way i worship the Sun.

I am revealed to the world, and to myself, only when the Sun blesses me.
To the world, i am ill omen.
To me, discovering myself is a marvel, a pain, a cleansing.

I am an aggregate of rock, dust, and ice.
The rocks are my grossness, my inertia.
I am none of the grave planets, promising life.
I am none of the brilliant stars that are the Pride of the Heavens, or beacon to the forlorn wayfarer.

I am an aggregate of rock, dust, and ice.
The dust is my fragility, my vulnerability.
My vulnerability is my essence.

I am an aggregate of rock, dust, and ice.
The ice is my remoteness, my insulation.
It enshrouds the dust, and no one ever knows about it.

I am not obliged to the perspective of the world; it finds in me no consistency.
I have my own rhythm that transcends all reckoning.

I need not belong to any coterie around the Sun.
We have a rendezvous.

I seek nothing.
I am already fulfilled.

And when the Sun does bless me, the ice melts. The dust, the mortal specks, is set free.
Every iota of my existence is ablaze with effulgence of a thousand auroras.
That is the Celebration of my Being.

The igneous glory burns all the dross.
I am born anew.
That is my Resurrection.

Then I efface into the concentrated darkness.
Darkness is not gloom.
Away from all glitter, i quietly absorb all the rays in the Universe.

Oblivion is not the end. It is the self preserving hibernation.
Cecity to the World unfolds to me my deepest dreams.
That is the silent prayer of my creativity.