Untouchable
The cigarette which
was clutched between his fingers had crash and burned. Its ashes left a trail
of rhetoric questions. The lead of the pencil imprinted emotions, angst,
confusion, introspection onto a white paper. The hands which held that pencil
trembled and words got smudged at times. There was a cacophony of scratching of
lead on paper and exhale of smoke. The haze created by the exhaled smoke
watered his eyes and his index finger ached due to constant pressure.
He did not stop
writing.
Many had asked him why
he wrote.
His answer always
varied and was mostly dependent on mood.
"I was bored" "Money.
Girls'. Fame." "I was told I was good when I was in school. I wrote. I clicked.
End of story." "Fluke"
On very rare occasions,
he said, "I didn't know what else to do with the images in my head. I didn't know
how to paint, so I wrote."
People called him
insane and many called him genius.
"Same difference", he
had laughed and also responded.
He himself never knew
why he wrote. There was nothing inspiring or glamorous about it, from his
perspective. He thought he wrote because he didn't know what else to do. He had
surmised after much contemplation. It was that simple and it was that
straightforward. At least that's what he thought.
"Your words are like
your wayward lover; always around you, enticing you but never really allowing
you to take complete control or make you an equal participant in the
relationship", she had mused.
"I think what we have
is a mother-toddler relationship; the mother always getting toddlers where she
wants irrespective of how naughty they are", he had retorted and she had
laughed. He thought he should write this line in one of his works. But then
when he actually wrote them on paper, he felt like a pimp trying to push those
words into a world of literary prostitution. Over the years, he had kept many
of words to himself.
"Was it for a girl?"
An interviewer had asked. He had looked at the interviewer thinking if he could
ever meet a bigger schmuck than him.
"Do you think writing
is like getting into an exercise regime to get into shape to impress a girl?"
He had walked away from the interview and walked all of eleven and half
kilometers back home burning eighteen cigarettes. Once he was back, he wrote
non-stop for seven hours and talked to her for two.
"Maybe you should have
said it was all for a girl", she had gently teased. He had just scoffed.
Inspiration was never
from a person. It was always from an action, an image, a mirage, a memory, an
emotion, a smile, a touch, a word, laughter, a suspended tear, an expression
and even a sigh. The triggering factors were all around him, beckoning him to
come to them.
A sensation passes
through him encompassing him in its womb keeping him tucked safe from the
outside predators. Once he is relieved of that sensation, he opens his eyes,
takes a large gulp of smoke and picks up nearest clean sheet of paper and a
pencil stub.
Seasons change, dawn
turns to dusk, birds fly home, and he misses her phone calls at least seven
times and ignores cravings of his body.
He continues to write.
Sookie
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