Tuesday, November 16, 2010

A suicide’s soliloquy

“What would have been a better way to die? With… or without that kiss?” He thought and smiled. He knew his answer. He looked at the smuggled blade and a packet of rat poison that he had received in exchange of some loose cash from the night security guard. He thought of that evening.

***

He walked in his empty room, with a heart full of shit. Standing few steps in, he looked around. Everything appeared to be in big mess. Some used plates were lying on the couch which was just about to break. The bed was undone as if someone had just left after a wild sexual encounter. Some books and CDs were thrown on the floor by the side of an open laptop. A half-filled beer bottle was kept on the other side of the bed along with a used glass.

He took a deep breath and jumped onto the bed and turned to the window. It was a full-moon night and the moon was hanging bright in the sky between the high-rise buildings on the other side of the road. His face bore no expression, only a hint of a smile that was not sure of its existence and so was not able to exhibit itself completely.


He said, “At 29, suicide is not a great idea. But is definitely one of those ideas that linger around in my mind. No.. no.. Its not like as if I am frustrated of life or something. It’s just that… life is cool, but there’s something is missing… I don’t know what it is… but I can feel it.”

“The purpose, you mean?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He was responded with an ‘A ha’.

He continued, “At 29, I don’t know where this life is headed towards. I don’t know if the past years were worth the expense they incurred, whether they made sense to me or to anybody in this world. I don’t know whether I am lost or confused… or just going through that phase, called ‘Quarter Life Crisis’. You know how it is. Your family says you are grown up, so you may have to chuck those things which you have been enjoying till now. You are made aware of responsibilities, of which you just had a hint till now. Your buddies, whom you took for granted, are getting married and owning up to those same responsibilities, which you are reluctant to own up to, and they tell you, “Dude, everyone has to grow up and be responsible towards life at some point of time.” And this they say with a nice, big smile on their face. You feel as if you are the most irresponsible person around. You are shocked because these are the same people, with whom you had dreamt a really carefree and INDEPENDENT way of life.

“Independence. It’s a nice word. Someone has said, ‘You are born free, but everywhere you are in chains.’ It appears true now. If am at work, I am told - you are free to do it your way, just ensure that it falls within company policies, doesn’t shock people (most of them don’t appreciate the shock they receive from the originality of an idea) and is liked by your boss. I feel like saying, ‘Fuck you and the freedom you offer!’

“With family, am constantly being reminded, ‘You are no more a kid. You need to take care of your aging parents. Also, you have to be a little responsible to your siblings and their families, and families of their families and so on. You need to learn to be a little social. We don’t mean to debar you from your independence but you will be married soon, so start being a little social.’ And by being ‘being social’ they mean, I should start attending marriage of my cousins where I just don’t find a connect, being in family prayer ceremonies where I just can’t relate with god, initiate and hold a conversation to relatives I just don’t relate with, and so on. Here again, I feel like shouting, ‘Get lost! Let me be alone!’

“And then, your own personal life. You have a girl who will calls you or messages you not for the reason that she wanted to do just that but she wanted to get a response in return. She will make a call and will have nothing to talk about, except a pile of expectations from you to keep talking, even if you are coming back from a hectic day. And if you don’t she will ensure to screw up your evening or night, whatever the time be, by numerous such things as – You don’t care for me, you don’t really love me, you don’t do this and you don’t do that, blah, blah, blah blah! (In some cases, it’s just opposite where some guys do that to their gals). Well, this is still better than not having a girl at all for some because in that case, people around will ensure you are either tagged to be impotent or a gay. But fuck those people; I broke up with my gal last week.”

He looked up at the fan. He was smiling, but smile itself couldn’t feel its existence on his face.

“And with all that, you have your dreams; dreams of doing something big, something grand in life. And you feel and you see that big, grand dream just resting mere as a dream, going nowhere from nowhere. Every morning, you wake up with this thought, today is the day. And every night you sleep with the thought, tomorrow I will fix everything. And with each day passing, everything remains unfixed.”

“So with this unfixed life, I check out for options,” he stretched his hands on both sides, “And that’s where this option of terminating it here, with some unfulfilled dreams, but my independence still in my control, appears in my mind. As a child, I always thought suicide is a coward’s behavior. But today, I have a different opinion. It’s not like that. Sometimes, you don’t have to be frustrated or exhausted with life to end it. At times the pointlessness of its existence is enough. And you know what, with this reason, you don’t really feel sad when you decide to end it. In fact, feelings seize to exist. And in such situation, what can be better than being responsible to your own life and its termination?”

After this long speech, he was still responded with an ‘A ha’.

He smiled and told his mind, “If you have nothing better to offer, you have the option of keeping your trap shut rather than irritating me with your ‘A ha’s’.”

He walked into the kitchen and looked around. There was a knife on the self and rat’s poison in the drawer below. “The knife or the rat’s poison,” he laughed aloud, “If I choose any one today that will be my last INDEPENDENT choice!”

But he didn’t choose any. He walked out of the kitchen, put on a pair of jeans, a loose T-Shirt and a pair of floaters and walked out of the room. He avoided the lift as it would have posed a chance for him to face some other human beings that he happily wanted to avoid. So he walked down the stairs. Out of his building was a smaller garden in the compound. Families from the buildings would come post dinner would come down, all with different intentions – some for quite walks, some to hang around and yet some others to do their last minute gossips before they would go to bed.

“Why did I come out of kitchen? What was it that held me back? When does life exactly become pointless?” He asked his mind, who then answered, “Everything else, I guess, can be redone, recreated. But when the ability to love dries dead, that’s when the life exactly becomes pointless. Mind it, I mean ‘dead’ and not ‘temporarily ill’.”

“Hmmm…” he gasped and walked up to a bench to sit for some time, quietly. He was a good observer; he could observe people’s behavior for hours. He moved from person to person, from expression to expression, some expressed ones some in an attempt to be hidden. He then stopped at a face. The only thing he had noticed was her smile and next thing realized was him standing in front of her.

“I want to kiss your smile.” He pronounced with authority, standing tall in front of her.

She looked up. The smiled started diminishing.

“No… no… don’t kill that smile. That makes you the most beautiful girl I have ever seen…,” before he could finish, she busted into a grand laughter. When the sound of the laughter fizzled into the evening air, she let the smile remain on her face and asked him, “What?”
He repeated himself, “I want to kiss your smile.”

“Here, in this garden, with so many people around?”

“I don’t care.”

Keeping her smile intact, she moved her upper body back, and rested her palms on the ground to support it. She lifted her face up towards the sky, with her eyes closed, and said, “Then go ahead.”

He was about to reach for her lips that she asked, “What if in middle of the kiss I decide to wade off the smile?”

“You will not do that.”

Her smile broadened.

He carefully placed his thick lips on her soft ones… deep… intense… and lost; lost enough to realize that people had already started crowding around them. Children were grinning, young adults were whistling and old people were just shocked. Well, it was not just a guy and girl kissing in middle of a garden; it was a twenty nine years’ old man kissing a girl, a little older than half his age.

The girl pushed the man gently when she heard a harsh voice running towards her. It was her mother who was informed by her neighbor that her daughter was doing this shit in the garden, that too openly. The mother started shouting and crying and gesturing. By now, most of the adults gathered around them. The mother pronounced, “Oh my god, now little children can’t play in a garden. These rapists will not leave any place for us, the civilized people,” and she went on crying. The father and the brother came running; they looked at the mother, then at the girl, the man and the crowd. Then they looked at each other and started beating the man. Other males in the crowd joined.

During all this, one responsible citizen called up the police. He got arrested. In the entire trial he didn’t speak anything. He was charged with an attempt to rape and was pronounced with an imprisonment of 8 years.


***

In last three years and some months, the thought of suicide had never appeared in his mind. He was simply amused by the way jails functioned. He experienced a strange sense of freedom when he was jailed, inside a small dirty room with some bizarre co-existers. Last week was the first time, when in all these years, someone had come to see him.

“It took me two years to become legally adult and another one year and few months to trace you,” she told him.

“First part is okay; you couldn’t help but grow up. Second part was not required.”

“I am sorry.”

“This whole part is not required.”

“I will reopen the case and will set you free.”

“Please don’t do that. I am happy here. They give us free food.”

“But…”

“Please…”

They didn’t say a word after that; just looked at each other for some time, without expressions, without any emotion.

“Can you recreate the magic of that smile?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. But I can try.”

“Please don’t. Such things are not created by hit-and-trial. They just appear, at times not to appear again.” After a pause, he said, “you should leave.”

“Okay.”

She had turned and started to move away that something stuck in her mind and she asked, “Do you mind if I come to see you again next week, same day?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she said, turned and walked out of the corridor.

A week had passed, if she would decide, he had to meet her tomorrow. He looked at the blade and the rat poison box again.

He told himself, “That was the last thing I had fallen in love with. It’s no more. She can’t smile that way again. I don’t really care what kinda person she is. I was never in love with her. I loved just that – A face full of smile. That’s gone. And with it went out, my ability to love.” He was sitting on the floor. All other co-existers were sleeping.

“There’s a fine difference between ‘Not able to love’ and ‘not want to love’. The ability to do something can only be known when it is experienced. And you can experience something only if you want to experience it. So my ability to love depends on my desire to love. But to choose not to desire is a way of cowardice or completion, who can know? I guess it’s an individual’s prerogative.” He tried to stretch his legs, but in that attempt he touched upon someone’s head. With a sudden reflex, he pulled his legs back up. He smiled, “Her smile was the last thing with which I fell in love. In these three years, I wasn’t sure if I will ever get to see that. I didn’t know it existed or died. I didn’t think on these lines. And I never fell in love with anything else. But today when I know that it’s gone, I feel as if my memories of that smile are murdered. When I think of it, I see ghosts of the dead smile. And I don’t want to live with ghosts. So I have two options; either I choose to love something new, move on in life with this thing called hope to find new love or I end this quest permanently. I choose the later.” He looked at the blade and the rat poison. He picked both up and cautiously moved to the toilet. After locking the door from inside, he announced to himself, “My last INDEPENDENT Choice!”

Next morning he was found dead in the filthy, red toilet. In a corner, a blooded blade and an empty rat poison bottle was found.

14 comments:

swet said...

dost... 1st part is sooo u!!!! i mean just u!!! :)
n like all ur stories do.. this one also left me goin.. umm.. hmmm .. okkk!! :)))

a nice read! but i still dun like ppl dying in the end!

Everyday Stories... said...

Why??? That is the only question I'm left with! This one's just too extremist! But, people do this, people actually, sanely think about it. I just hope everyone thinking about this, do get that tug from someone they love, to pull them out of this stagnancy.

Shunyata said...

Love the way the grey shade of the character is sketched - specially, the way the protagonist wades through the ideas of independence, and the need to love. I must say, the character reminds me very strongly of Meursault, from Albert Camus' novel, "The Outsider".
Like the novel, the climax which your story brings provides for a very thought provoking read on existentialism. Keep up the tempo!

Rohit Kumar said...

@ aishwarya... thanx da.. I take that as a compliment ;)

Vishal... said...

Wow, awesomely awesome is the word. Oh yea, how did i land here? Long time havent written one blog of mine, was just randomly checking and got glued to the whole story.

Dude, I dont know, but if u have really written this with your imagination. I loved it.`

Shunyata said...

It is a compliment! :)

Rohit Kumar said...

@ Vishal... thanx buddy. its pretty motivating to know that you managed to read it completely... some of my friends found it too lengthy to complete it ;) and yeah... all written by self... hate plagiarism specially when it comes to writing stories :)

@ Aish Thanx dost!! :D

Rohini G said...

Well written Rohit. But can I request you write something cheerful the next time;)
May be a pleasant love story would do.
BTW how much of this is inspired frm your true self?

mystic-soul said...

Write a novel. You have that talent. Don't waste yourself.

Rohit Kumar said...

@ mystic-soul

Thanx mate! Your words are pretty encouraging!! May I know your identity please...

mystic-soul said...

I just bump your blog. I live in USA. My blog is littered with stories too but they are for sake of my own psychotherapy and to chew past.

At least try to publish your short stories.

Rohit Kumar said...

@ Mystic... thanx again... also read other stories... wud like to get feedback...

@ Rohini.. thanx dost!

Saurabh Kumar Gupta said...

Hi, After lot many breaks finally ended up completing today !!!
So don't know my comments r justified or not. At first place, a psychotic touch to story. Again no happy end, reflects your taste as like earlier ones.
Just for a change, agli story me bollywood type happy ending rakhana ( :-)).
Improvement s very obvious. Keep it up !!!

Pranav Gupta said...

I am sorry but I found it exaggerated in terms of the thoughts of the character. I wanted to quit reading in the middle of it but then course if your story changed and kept me gripping (Good Characteristic) but again the end disappointed me or not I am still confused.

Though the story is negative I liked the way you have portrayed the character and narrated it.