A Trip to Nowhere

Open space, vast expanse of nothingness. Abyss exists below, above and around me. I was sitting on the Globe. I was sitting on the world. I was sitting on planet earth. The darkness ensued everywhere. I was slipping. I was slipping in to the abyss. I tried my best to cling on to the surface; but nothing happened. I couldn’t even clench my fingers on to the surface of the world that seemed to have gotten flat.

The gravitational pull of the nothingness continued to lure me towards itself, as I tried in vain to sustain myself and to survive. I fell and fell deep. Sailing in the hollowspehere, I land on a bed covered in a thick white sheet. I wake up with a heavy heart and sweat all over my body. I clench to the corners of the bed to feel assured. A few moments later, I step down from my bed and I get sucked. I look down and see a quicksand. I get pulled into it. Seeing the bed by my side, I reach out to it; but then it breaks. It snaps out. It gives away. The last shard of support had given away.

I get sucked into the quicksand only to find myself in a valley of flowers. I see beautiful roses there. I reach out to them and touch one of them. As I touch the rose, the thorn pricks and I start to bleed. The fence had a signboard that read “Beauty Pricks. Be Careful!”

Fuckin’ roses! I scream and wipe my hand off on my t-shirt. As I walk there on the field enjoying the sights and the fragrances, I see a door that reads “Peace Zone. Enter at your own risk!” I walk up to that chamber and right before the entrance to that chamber, there is a diversion. The door keeper to the peace zone asks me to take a diversion. I oblige. No point in haggling with a door keeper, I thought and walked away. There’s always a back door entry to such places, anyways, I thought.

I walked further and further on the diversion path only to find myself in a space where there were just concrete buildings. The whole serenity of everything was emasculated by the overwhelming sense of civilization. What a giveaway! I thought.

The sense of touch and feel had started to feel futile too. After all, what purpose was it of when everything that I could touch or feel only had harm to inflict on me, I thought!

Time for me to roll another one, I felt, as the high had begun to wade off. Could it be because of the state of high phasing out? Or what could it be? Without having anything tangible to put my finger on to anything as a cause for my misery, I thought it was time for me to roll another one. Sitting in my room, I rolled another joint. The fan switch board had no regulator and it read “Life”. Waah! Life without a regulator, what a tangential thought, I thought! But the fucked up part was – the lack of regulator meant that the fan was on a steady speed. I couldn’t control it. Being the control freaks we are, you get used to living in a situation where adjustment of any sort becomes a pain. I was feeling cold on a breezy/wintry Bangalore night. What has civilization done to us? It has only made us more and more nosy! Can’t get used to too much of cold, we need heater. Can’t get used to too much heat, we depend on fans. Fuck evolution, I thought as I lit the joint.

The pain I felt in my finger from the thorny prick the beautiful rose had caused was beginning to numb down too. Ah, a smoke! What a blissful thing man discovered. It does take away your pain and the sense of it too. Or is it just the focus from it? Wish the reality was also all about focus! If only you could look away from it, things would seem so quiet and peaceful, right?

Walking away in those beautiful fields, I could see the room again to enter which I had taken the diversion. The door keeper who was there a moment ago wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps he had gone. But what the hell was he doing there in the first place? Why was he there? Reality and the sense of it are manifested in vigilance. It is only when you are sane do you experience a sense of vigilance. Cautiousness, political correctness and adherence to established rules. A simple joint took the guard away from the doors of Peace Zone. Did he get a joint too? If yes, then fuckin’ long live corruption. Hell, if bribing gives you peace, then why not embrace it? After all, isn’t that what we all want?

I entered the Peace Zone and saw everyone there. They were sitting there drinking, smoking and rolling. Couples were also busy making out in crammed corners. Go on, motherfuckers! It’s a free world. Be free. Let your id be. Damn, Freud will be proud of you. In that crowd, there were a bunch of lunatics who were just sitting there and gulping down beer after beer and head banging to the music they were playing there; while there was a girl who was droopy till she saw a plateful of Biriyani. As soon as she saw this plateful of food, she was like fuck it; I am eating my food and buzzing off. While the entire bunch of these raw untamed id-specialized guys were unleashing their true sides, this chick was busy eating her food. Like a programmed machine, her hand-mouth-eye coordination was enviable. She was just focusing on the food. See, focus is what it is all about, as I said. If my intoxication made me change my focus from the pain to pleasure; then her focus on food gave her pleasure. Hell, to each their own, man. Who are we to label others? Whatever makes them happy, man! Pot made me happy and food made her. Let it be, dude. Let it be. As I was thinking about this, the DJ there almost as if he had read my mind, he played Let It Be. Long Live the Beatles, I thought and raised a toast with my J to him. Long Live the Beatles and Long Live the Revolution.

Now, weren’t we talking of peace a little while ago? How the fuck the conversation changed tracks to Revolution? Isn’t revolution violent? Doesn’t it involve blood? What has peace got to do with blood? The guy sitting at the table seemed familiar. He gestured me to come over and sit with him. He said he had Manali cream on him. An offer I obviously couldn’t refuse. I went and sat down there with him. We ordered for some beer. He rolled a joint too.

Yes, brother. Revolution does go with blood. But you need to fight for peace too. In particular when it is made inaccessible or sold as an American Dream. But isn’t that the fundamental paradox of human nature, I asked. Yes, it is, he replied. But tell me one thing about human nature that isn’t contradictory! Don’t you think that is the reason why the world around us is so chaotic, he continued? Yes, maybe; but isn’t chaos brilliant and beautiful, I asked. No, he said. Chaos is not. Order is beautiful. Things need to be in order for the welfare. If you like chaos, bro, then why do you seek escape from the orderly world which has Law & Order?

Convenience is what he replied.