Slash. Burn. Hit. Slap. Kick. Beat. Thump. Smash. Burn burn burn.
Hurt. Destroy. Ruin. Erode. Destroy destroy destroy.
Life. Death. Live and die.
And I want to just Abscond. Avoid. Bolt. Decamp. Depart. Escape. Fly fly fly
Run. Scamper. Scoot. Run run run.
Vamoose. Vanish. Disappear. Flee. Withdraw. Flee flee flee.
Is not an illusion. Is not a reality. Is not a tempestous plunge into fantasy. What is Magic? Wandering through London, I thought of this. The noises of the streets blending into a headache. A jetlag that carved a sword through my tiredness. A myriad number of people I cared not to meet and one I did want to meet. The Saturday night of fake artificiality that gorged itself for me on to absolute boredom. Where was Magic?
Would it on the Thames? On the HMS Belfast? At Southwark Cathedral? At Buckhingam? At Windsor? It wasn't there. It wasn't there at the British Library either. Magic was not on view there at the Globe or the Tate.
Magic flew around me. I did not see. Magic hugged me. I couldn't feel it. I saw it then. Magic doesn't exist.
On a pale evening light when the sun was close to dimming down the day, when I realized that Magic doesn't exist, only then Magic became real. I knew then that most travel writing is superflous - we can't really feel the moment till we are out of it. All we are doing till then is just gawking at spectacles, and buildings, at monuments enough to forget the moments. Then later we collect them in our minds, turn them over from all the corners it has gathered, and wrapped in the past's comfortable presence, we feel, oh wow, how magical was that.
Is all magic just that? No. But Magic doesn't exist until we deny it.
The elevator door closed with a shut. He stepped inside. Gold rimmed the walls. The carpet was slightly stained. He glanced down, wondering how many people must have walked on it, stepped on it, waited on it. "Like me," he thought wryly.
39. 38. 37. 36. The doors swung open on 35. For a moment, he thought there was no one there. Then he saw him - in this 60s perhaps, with a briefcase, the blue shirt, the suit, the polished boots. How he wished. Never mind, that is not a wish, he admonished himself. The man stepped inside, looking at the monitor inside that displayed news. He knew he wasn't even in the man's periphery. He wondered what he would have to do to get his attention. Strip naked perhaps, he smiled.
30, 29, 28. The doors swung again. This time a woman. Petite, trim with a leopard print purse. An Elizabeth Arden perfume sunk into the gold rimmed walls. 26, 25, 24, 23. There were no one else apparently standing on those lonely corridors, waiting for this steel mesh to grab them from the world they thought they belonged to. Faster and faster, they were almost at 15. The man in the suit glanced at the woman. Smiled. The woman looked at him an instant. No impression there. The news monitor fascinated her more. He laughed. People were so strange so inexplicable, so burdened, so frivolous, so utterly tiresome.
10, 9, 8. Clinton had made a surprise visit to North Korea. The Bill that is. Did he embarass Hillary, the screen asked. 7, 6, 5. He thought about it for a moment. Old Bill. Doing what Old Bill always did - loving the limelight, the chivalrous knight to the ladies' rescue, the dashing Bond, the Bill who all women loved, and who all men must probably hate. The lady in front was impatient. Glancing at her watch. The man with the briefcase seemed more content. He tapped his feet. No one turned. 3, 2, 1. His ears screamed from the pressure.
The doors swung open. He stood there for a moment, waiting for the lady to exit. He didn't have to wait long. She swooped bye, heels clicking, on her way to whatever it was that must have been so important as to make 50 seconds in an elevator an unendurable torture. The man with the briefcase walked out more slowly. Head down. Weighed down by the billions he had made that day.
And he? I walked out. I had chosen. My black shadow a ripple on the floor, pushing my cart with all the other souls I had collected through a morning's work. Now where did that lady go?
A myriad number of emotions carve through my surface. I am a seething bundle of collapsed energy. Even as I write this, I wonder at the sense in writing, in the mess of the world that we trap our mind in. A friend said my writing is "Kafka-esque." It amuses me, that word.
I know not who Kafka was except that it sounds nice to sit in some literary pub in London, and nod understandingly when his name is mentioned. My sheer ignorance of the world, its colorful tapestry of movement, form and words is immense. Music I know not. Literature I remember not. Architecture I understand not. And the sheer consumer branding of materialism that others derive their identification from - oh look, Harley! Coke! Levis! Tommy Hilfiger! Delsey!
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Cast the Levis,
Catch the Coke addiction
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Lug the Delsey
Bite the Godiva melt
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This is by far the crappiest post on this blog. But sometimes we need the crap, the dirt, the mud, to jolt us out the insane reality we believe our life is and realize just for a moment how painful happiness can be in the face of fleet-footed Time.
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