Being Alone

 

The head is heavy. I feel the weight as I move it a little. There’s a searing pain in the right temple, as I attempt to open my eyes. And as my eyes open like slits, one opens reservedly. I can feel some fluid blurring my vision of the one. The other seems fine still.

Slowly by pieces I feel the parts lying bundled together as one body, as I shudder to discover anything missing. In subdued expressions of pain – I try to figure out this eventuality. With some effort I rise up a bit to make some sense of what’s around. I see bushes long and short, thick vegetation, a deep canopy through which some sun has sneaked in here and there. There’s a nip in the air which smells of wild flora and fauna, and I lay awkwardly in the middle of all this. The place lacks any traces of human imprints and the eeriness of it refuses to sink down. As my heart beats to a crescendo I struggle to find out the reasons that have got me here.

Faint voices echo in my head-

‘We are flying 7000 feet above the sea-level. The weather is turbulent. Please fasten your seat-belts and remain seated. Please use emergency exits in case of an eventuality and do not panic’

This is the most livid nightmare I could’ve ever had. I pinch myself. I frantically look around. There are traces of a wreckage at a short distance. I long to see something or someone familiar now. But there’s an adamant refusal to any change I try to make to my position. In a sublimely conscious state I decide to savor this loneliness thrust upon me.

Not that this is the first time that I am alone, but it is unique in its own way. That this came as a sheer surprise is one. But the fact that living and dying hereon would be a case of conjecture rather than anticipation, is another.

So many times did I envisage in the loftiness of a pristine youth – the glamour of solitude, the exclusivity that somberness bestows on the beholder and the reverence that being sedate evokes – an antithesis to all that is wild, bold and loud. But like many other childhood notions – the growing up process has proved to be a coup-de-grace for these too. For life is perhaps a simple truth of a dawn, a day and a night. There’s not much within or beyond. There are facades more than what we are aware of. The ultimate struggle being a confluence of these. Where some prefer the decibels others prefer to go mute. Quietude and boredom could well be interchangeable and serenity might just be a cover for a brooding mind. In a similar vein – a boisterous mien, a cover for something sacred or secret, or a desperation to dodge the deafening noises within. Devious are our ways, even to ourselves.

I hear some ruffling of the leaves nearby. Some voices that I can’t fathom. I’m losing it again it seems and slipping into silence.