The Symmetry of Smoke

She entered the world of muteness as if she had just stepped into glass.

It was, once again, like her childhood. In those days a few gypsies used to come and stay in a place close to their country-house. A place where, when they cooked, you could see the smoke rise from your window. And that’d suddenly seem so far that you’d find all the more reason to rush to their tents. Their tents were constructed in perfect symmetry. Each of those was equidistant from every other. Each tent resembled the other exactly. And in the centre of all these tents was the one tent that really intimidated her. The gypsies called this ‘The Maze of Magic Mirrors’.

The tent was also a source of their primary income. Children who stayed inside various neighbourhood windows from which the smoke could be seen followed its trail to watch ‘The Maze of Magic Mirrors’. Inside the tent it was perfectly dark, except for a very bright light that seemed to originate from nowhere and invaded only a tiny, particular circular space inside the tent. And when you went and stood in that light you could suddenly see there’s actually a mirror in front of you. And in it, there’s not one but infinite numbers of you, standing in a cluster everywhere – beside, behind and diagonally to every single you. It was like a battalion of children where there was only one child – You.

When she used to see her manifold selves in the mirror, her first feelings were not of amazement but of pity. A pity which stems from concern; which, in turn, stems from some helplessness. She felt helpless as she thought she was her only self who could transcend the barrier of the mirror. She was concerned for all her other selves as if they were her own sisters. What a pity that they shall be trapped forever! And that’s when, for the first time, she could think of the world of muteness. Of absolute silence.

 

It was, once again.

 

She entered the world of muteness as she had done innumerable times before. And although she knew everything that was to happen, it all seemed equally uncertain. And ominous.

She had come down the road that promised to lead to his home, where beside a window he must have sat waiting, puffing a cigarette. She came down the road that promised to keep its promise. And when she thought of promises she thought of a mirror. When we make a promise we think of a future. In the present moment when we’re trying to keep that promise, we’re juxtaposing that future moment in the present times. So that the present resembles that distant future. In exact precision of a mirror image. When she lost her way, her mind was already preoccupied with a few other questions.

It was the beginning of dusk, and the road that promised to keep its promise but would no longer be able to keep it, was already lonely. And as she sank deeper into herself, she realized there were no directions.

What, for instance, would it be if one kept reliving a promise belonging to the distant future over and over again in the present? Say, for example, a man has promised his wife that he’ll bring her roses when he comes back home. So that he’s been bound into an agreement to bring roses to his wife every time he returns home. He must keep reliving the promise in every single instance of the present. And each of those singular presents would be a mirror image of the distant future. Like the infinite children of a single child.

And then, suddenly she stumbled upon a question that really frightened her. When we bring our promises to the present, the immediate – we’re fulfilling the promise. So that it no longer belongs to the distant future. And for every time that we’re fulfilling a promise, we’re actually annihilating the future. We’re annihilating the space where the promise had originally belonged. Is that how the children in the mirror annihilate the child outside?

She was brought back to her senses with this question and realized that she had not only lost her way but had actually invaded the world of muteness.

 

She was reminded once again of the promise she had made of meeting him. And she knew that she won’t be able to keep it once again. Like it has always been in the past. For every time that she had to take the road that promised to keep its promise, the promise shall be broken. And she would find herself walking deeper into the defying silence.

She could feel, as she walked, the last traces of sound recede farther away. The absolute silence is different from the absence of sound. Sound is a property that flows in time and diminishes through slowness. The absence of sound simply presumes that there are no sources of sound in the present. But what about the sound from the immediate past? The traces of sound still keeps rolling into the present however diminished in its magnitude. A silent morning could never be as dense as a silent night because the traces of sound are in different magnitudes.

The absolute silence is different because there are no traces of sound in its core. None at all. And its depth is immense. Almost deafening. And this is when she would want but find that she couldn’t scream. Or whisper.

 

The purple haze that gradually invaded could only have been a precondition of the muteness that had become heavier. Unbearable to be carried alone upon two shoulders. But then, as always, she’d learn she’s not alone in the muteness.

The first time she caught a glimpse of him was walking ahead of her. And he seemed so farther up ahead as if he were a property of the future. Like a promise. And she remembered her destiny was to walk behind him, silently, in the muteness.

He walked slowly as if he were tired too. She tried to increase her pace of walking to catch up with him and found that she couldn’t. And then she realized that they were all walking in the pace in which the silence dictates. They could neither move any faster nor any slower. It was a destiny that they all share in common.

All?

And then she remembered the succeeding moments. She must discover others following him too from the various directions of the purple silence. Each equidistant from him, forever. All sharing a common weariness that grew like happiness on being shared. And even though she couldn’t see any of the others following her as of yet, she could feel the muteness falling under a blanket of weariness rapidly.

Since they were all following him from the various directions, he was the centre of them all. And since they were converging in him, the distance between each other receded. Diminished. They each came closer to the other’s weariness. The unbearable weariness of the solitary. And the aroma of the sweat.

She recognized this weariness too. It was part of her childhood. On a day she ran. Ran far too long. Trying to run further away. She thought the gypsies were behind him. Because she had stepped inside ‘The Maze of Magic Mirror’ with a stone in her hand and done the forbidden. And then as she ran, she just wanted to run so far away that the smoke that led her to the tents would be found no more. She wasn’t sure what her exact fears were. Was it the gypsies who she thought were behind him? Was it the sound that the glasses made as they shattered? Was it her guilt? Her liberty? The first sensuality of adolescence? Or something very different?

Now, as she walked deeper into the purple silence of weariness, she found the same questions returning. And the answers receding, as always. But receding answers bring more questions. What brings him here? Why must others follow him even though he belonged to her and her alone? Was he actually like smoke and they captivated by its symmetry, like children? And why must she ask this very question that she’s asking right now, over and over again every time she returns to muteness?

He stopped.

In a place where the purple silence seemed so dense that it seemed to bathe him in its light. And once in the light, he turned to face her directly. And then for the first time she noticed that it wasn’t him at all. It was her. It was she herself dressed in a man’s robe, standing in front of her. Smiling, looking at her. And she found herself smiling back, even though she didn’t want to. She had no choice but to. And then, she suddenly noticed standing beside her on both sides and diagonally, were many women who looked the same. Like her. All equally uncertain, smiling at the self who stood in their centre dressed in a man’s attire.

Then, suddenly a feeling dawned on her. She was just an image. A mirror image. An illusion. That she didn’t exist at all. She was just one of the manifold reflections of the woman standing in their centre with a piece of stone in her hand. And she realized that her thoughts were only a reflection of what the original woman thought. Just as she can sense right now what the woman has been thinking of. She has been thinking of him, sitting beside a window, waiting, puffing on a cigarette. And she has been thinking of taking the road that promised to keep its promise, to lead to his home. And she has been thinking of her childhood. And ‘The Maze of Magic Mirrors’. And the infinite children of a single child. And the running away from the symmetry of smoke. And hoping there’s a place where the window won’t show you the rising smoke no longer. And hoping.

She saw the woman in a man’s attire throw a spherical stone, which she had been carrying secluded in her palm, towards her. And before the stone would crash onto the mirror that both divided and multiplied them, the woman turned around and ran for the road that promised to keep its promise.

The Thriller Novel

1

The cops came looking for the summer breeze. They turned everything I had in my room upside down.
“This place’s so dirty”, one said holding his handkerchief firmly on his scarred nose “don’t you ever do the dusting?”
“Not since she left.” I said
“What is it exactly that made her leave?”
“I don’t know. She said she had seen me making love to the summer breeze.”
“….. which is true?”
“Depends.”
“What?”
“I said, it depends.”
“What d’ya mean….. depends on what?”
“On the circumstantial evidences. Are you going to arrest me now or should I go and finish the painting? I’ve an art exhibition tomorrow.”

2

Voices played inside her head even when she sat on the roof. Voices she couldn’t discriminate. Nor own.
At times she wondered if they were the voices of all the people she had killed.
“Is it you, Kelly?” she’d ask.
“No. I cannot be there inside your head.” Kelly would answer.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve never killed me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m still alive. And I’m sure that I’m living somewhere.”
“Oh Kelly, please forgive me. I’m so sorry. I just can’t seem to differentiate the living from the dead, anymore.”
And then, the voices would disappear. What would follow is the terrific silence. The silence in which she’d wish she’d once again get to kill someone.
“Who?” she thought.
Moments later, she shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. Blood needs no calculation.”

3

In his childhood, he’d make exact errors on every mathematical problem he was told to solve. Even his teacher was baffled.
“You need infinite imaginations to make such absurd calculations.” She’d say.
And it was not an exaggeration. Each of his mistakes was carefully calculated. So well crafted that the possibility of any other error but the one he had committed would be nullified. His teacher would have to go through the heaviest of books in permutations and probability, and yet she had nothing to prove him wrong. It was impossible to be wronger than him. Because English had never defined a word called ‘wronger’.
“One problem could have exactly one perfect error” he’d say, “nothing less, nothing more. Once you get to it, you can feel the beginning of all fallacies.”
That is exactly how he had learnt to paint.
“A painting is the mathematics of distances….. between the root and the tree, between the bird and the sky, between the color and its absence, between the river and that drop of tear on the man’s cheek. And you could infuse movement in it once you discover the perfect error in it. All of us were nothing more than a painting until god made the perfect error. He made Eve do the same too, to introduce the concepts of reproduction. There could be no creation without the perfect error. It’s hidden in everything to be discovered. It’s just that we never do so because we have been taught to be afraid of errors. When we land into an error, we are told to learn something from it so as not to return to it. Instead, if we were to delve deeper into the error we’ve made, we’re bound to find the perfect error. And we would find natural creations. All my paintings linger in the glory of the perfect errors.”
He had written a book once called ‘Human and Fallacy’, but whoever started reading it said they couldn’t find its end. They said the book repeated itself with the page number being in a perpetual ascending order.

4

When your corpse was brought in my house, you had turned your head and smiled at me. So happy that I could recall you.
“Well, I’ve to do something ‘bout you, else you’d start leaving your stench on my paintings. Where would you like to stay?”
“In your garden.”
“That place’s already congested with the trees you had planted last summer.”
“Don’t worry. I’d find my place down the roots.”
“Who did this to you?” I said looking at your wounds, “you’re bleeding profusely.”
“Oh! Let’s not talk ‘bout that.”
“I wish I had some medicines. I’ve also misplaced my first-aid kit.”
“So….. you still care?”
“I’m….. I’m just afraid of blood.”
“Those are not your words”, you whispered.
We both smiled. I could sense my heart beating faster as I did.

5

The cops came in the evening. They said they’d like to question her about the murder.
“Murder! What murder?” I asked, taken by surprise.
“Don’t you know, she was killed?”
“What’re ya talking ‘bout?”
“Yes. She was. And you are one among the suspects’ list. Now, if you don’t mind, can I talk to her?”
“But I’ve already buried her.”
“Don’t worry. Our men would bring her here. Where’s the shovel?”
And thus, you were brought, still smelling of the wet mud that covered most of your skin.
“Gosh! Didn’t he even think of giving you a coffin?” The cop asked you.
Meanwhile, I thought of the rain that fell this afternoon. And the maddening fragrance of the first wet mud. The Frenzy.

6

Their first meeting was a mistake that repeated itself, ad infinitum, like the book he had wrote. He had been sitting that evening in the shade of the summer breeze. And he had been painting the summer breeze. For the last few hours he had been mixing the different shades of the colors. Waiting for a perfect error that would create the exact shade of the summer breeze.
She came following the summer breeze. Since the summer breeze went right through his paintings, she passed through his paintings too. Later, when his painting was completed, since he didn’t know her, he mistook her for the summer breeze. It was a perfect error – The beginnings of the perfect love story. And the beginning, as she had told elsewhere, does not lead to an end, but create newer beginnings. Perhaps, there was never a first time when they had met. There was only a sequence of moments – each preceded by some and followed by the other. And each time, for him, she was the summer breeze.
Each time, she’d pass away like colors on his drying palette. He wished his paintings were yet to be completed, forever and evermore. But time did to his paintings what a full-stop would always do to a phrase. For time was always the hole in both the barrier and the bridge to the accumulating moments. And then, to set them free, like birds from a cage, in a kiss.
“Too much of a perfect error in there”, he thought. She nodded.

7

After you completed the bath, we all sat on the porch talking. The cops took the lead.
“Do you remember the events that preceded the killing?” they asked you.
“Yes, I was with him, making love.” You answered pointing towards me.
“Okay. That sure is news to me. You never informed us of any such incident, sir.”
I was given a harsh glance with that statement. However, I couldn’t make out if an answer was wanted of me…. And what exact answer was wanted of me…. And who wanted it. I fumbled a little.
“I liked you a lot better the day before yesterday, sir. I thought you were much smart then. Which reminds me – how was your art exhibition?”
I could sense the sarcasm flying in the air. A few drops of darkness were assembling in the horizons. It was much too silent in my garden. Exceedingly calm. I knew this atmosphere well. I knew she had wished to come. She had wished too long. And nobody stops her when she wishes thus. None.
The summer breeze is coming. She had sensed the break in the rhythm of my breath. She had sensed my heartbeat as I sat with the cop and, more importantly, you. She had sensed that I was trying to defend your point of view. She knew I’d fall. Fall down the edges. Of my Frenzy. Our home. Frenzy. I had refurbished. Frenzy. With her. And I was about to stumble. To fall. If she doesn’t come. The edges were calling me again.

8

The first time they had made love to was to the fragrance of the approaching storm. Few of his paintings that were on paper, were fluttering. Creating a sound of liberty. They knew that they must cover themselves up before the storm. He knew he had to set the summer breeze free before the storm. And she knew she would lose to herself.
The first sounds of the storm were unmistakable. The first dissociation, unavoidable.
She left, you stayed.
Still beneath the weight of incomplete recognition you lied. Looking into your blank eyes. Without the shine. Lifeless. You were never the summer breeze. You were her gown. The robe she wore before she came to meet her lover.
They made love in the storm, that dusk. Dusts converging on their eyelids. Rain washing them through. Rain washing his paintings, too.
“You must come back to me”, he said “for without you she’s faceless.”
You had smiled, darkly.
You will never be her but I shall keep being him. It was an error that never seemed perfect enough.

9

You never wanted to open the window to her, last night.
“Own me, not her. Make me your soul”, you said while she whispered on your glass window-pane. Your closed windows trembled on her sweet, cold touch.
“Let her in, Kelly”, I said moving my fingers through your hair. “Let her in, if you love me.”
And I found your eyes becoming just as hazy as your glass window-pane. But tears always meant you’d listen. You got up and opened the window to her. And as you stood motionless like a shadowy figure in front of the window, I found the summer breeze glowing on your skin and the shine returning to your eyes.
And I was once again becoming him.
“Tonight, I’ll hide”, she said, “and you shall find me in the deepest of her chasms.”
I accepted her challenge. Our love shan’t be confined to the shackles of skin. I slit your skin in the places she could be. You never made a sound – telling me she wasn’t there. Whole night long I kept on searching but couldn’t find her.
I was losing my perfection in erring.

10

“Do you trust him?” the cops asked you.
“Not half as much as he trusts me”, you said
“But he had killed you, last night.”
“No. He had killed her.”
“Her?”
“The summer breeze.”
It was true. For even though the atmosphere had every sign of her arrival, the summer breeze didn’t come that evening. She was dead. You had made me commit the perfect error. I felt defeated. How I wished I would kill you, too. But I couldn’t. It was impossible. You were never there inside yourself. You always lived somewhere else. Inside me.

The Abstract, The Unreal, The Magical