The Eclipse of Fantasy

In an ever changing world with people decked up with a million identities and faces there was a man who was not the least different. A man with so many similarities that all his life he went unnoticed, not daring to go against the tides, the average teen, later the average guy in a less than average world with a million other guys. His similarities acted as a camouflage as it did for everyone else. Now looking back to those long lost unused stagnant days of his youth he felt a sense of regret. The strands of hair that remained unmoved by the tests of time now grayed, this was what he regretted. He had forgotten to dye his few surviving strands to say the least hair. Too late to act, he moved nervously to the cubicle he was assigned in his office.

Cubicle No: 11223

Name: Victor J

Employee Id: sA183Zi 

The little piece of paper greeted him every morning reminding him of his name, a name that was given to him that had exactly nothing to do with who he was or where he was from, then what was it for he asked himself a million times including today, still not finding an answer. Papers filled his desk, cost cutting schemes had to be thanked for that, or else these papers covered with dust would lie not on his desk but on his desktop with their constant need to be corrected and rearranged so that their reader, another average guy could get the best of the best when it came to what a celebrity had for lunch. That sad profession was his, he was supposedly a journalist. A journalist that shaped the view of the world regarding matters of great importance and prominence such as what cars Mr. S drove, who he dated, what he had for lunch, how he managed to smoke without turning his teeth yellow etc. etc. That was his sad life.

Going through the latest happenings in the local La La Land, not knowing why he was doing this for a living Victor went through each and every piece of paper that lay at his desk in such mechanical movements that showed his experience better than in his portfolio.

Why he did this was a question he had neither an answer nor an alternative. In simple terms he was a hungry man at least thrice a day everyday and journalism put bread on his table and his bed at times.

The world he lived in was the product of his imagination and experience. His imagination was not imaginative and his experiences in life were just the monotonous days he had lived so far and the days yet to come which also seemed less promising and monotonous. Hence his world was the living definition of boredom and routine. Life presented itself before him as a habit. And he was the last person who would think that life was enjoyable.

Waiting in line for a cup of coffee that tasted like a mix of warm water and bitterness(if that’s a flavor) ideas of quitting sprang up in his mind, even though it was customary to think of such risky  thoughts and eventually discard them with ease. But this time it was different, he didn’t trouble himself to think. He walked out of that office, walked out like a hero walking into the sunset with pride and courage, walking out into a happy ending. He was finally out after paying no heed to

“Sir, you’re leaving? Is everything ok?”

“Hey you this ain’t your daddy s house to go for a walk when you feel like!”

and the strange glances he got from the clerks and people who he had not known all his life. He was now out and the 11 am sun that was seldom seen greeted him out into the open with its scorching heat. The city welcomed him with its dust and noise. The best welcome he got was from within, that congratulated him.

He said to himself in a whisper “Well done”

But such whispers were short lived, naïve and were the outcome of thoughtless deeds. Thoughts of going back soon started to siege his mind from all directions.

Around the corner, by the side of a gray building for almost a kilo meter or more the street was filled with artists, painters of all kind, unrecognized for they failed to gift the world with Mona Lisa’s and David’s but had given less beautiful descriptions of their minds. It was a frenzy of people getting their portraits done, bargaining prices for something that would look “perfect for the living room” stood buyers and sellers. Making his way towards something that had caught his eye, a woman with her large brown eyes looking directly at him Victor pushed forward not realizing a new emerged confidence that had risen silently.

                                                                   *****

Waking up to the same old sound whose duty was to interrupt the dreams that came as a relief were not frowned upon by him, but was just a sad routine that had dictated his life, his day and himself for almost thirty eight years. The buzzing noise of the people who were in a hurry to do all sorts of things and the noise of the traffic which happened to be the regional tune which all inhabitants in one way or the other hummed in the course of a lifetime there.

He was now awake and was facing her, her eyes cold yet unmoved stared at him with hostility, the kind of hostility which over the years he had grown accustomed to. Those large brown eyes were the only ones he knew of that could see deep into himself with frightening clarity, into the depths of his soul, if he had one that is. Neither had enough courage to break the silence, neither knowing what to say let silence do the talking, the accusing, the justifying, the laughing and the weeping, silence took over.

He was late. But with every passing moment he grew less concerned of missing the bus, being late, running through the streets, still not managing to find favor with the arms of the clock, still late, tired and eventually fired.

Neither of them had moved, not one muscle dared twitch. Silence had now finished the dialogue which both of them longed for. Without uttering a syllable they knew of what the other had in mind.

He apologized, she refused apology, he justified, she demanded an apology, with his head hanging low he gave up, now she smiled. Silence transformed itself into something warm, less hostile. He felt comforted in her presence. He felt the warmth of the air that was all around him, an air that was such a stranger to him as well as the remaining 3 million people that occupied the stretch of land by the side of one of the nation’s filthy rivers. Warmth was all that his life looked for, in a blizzard not just of snow what else could one hope for?

Time had passed; the longer arm of the clock had moved so much that it got back to where it had started. An hour had passed, twelve minutes and twenty three seconds to be exact. He got up and moved towards the sink, splashed cold water onto his sleep ridden face, inhaled a deep breath, not looking back put on his coat for the warmth that pampered him earlier had now turned cold, and left the building.

Now on an empty street, empty just because he failed to recognize all of those faces that moved in unison with him, empty because the others had not seen him, empty because he was a stranger in a strange land even though the strange land was the only place he had known all his life. In fact the place was the not the least empty, it was crowded and claustrophobia was a household name and disease.

Turning the corner, steeping over a sleeping dog, he saw it. There it was, there it had always been but there it wouldn’t always be, the lake. It was so old that it had to be named all over again, mainly because the old name made no sense, no meaning, so out of sheer necessity it was named The Lake. He tried desperately why he hadn’t visited it more often.

A glance was not enough, neither were two. He stood there looked at it, felt sorry for it, sort out solutions it needed in his head, cursed all that made it like this and left. That was all he could do and that was all he did.

Returning back to the apartment he left not turning his back he was once again welcomed with those cold eyes. It was true the walls in his apartment did have eyes and ears. But that was not reality; the walls and the sound of silence were just parts of him that were created by him in fantasy. Not reality. The sites he saw and sounds he heard outside his nest and his cubicle were the definition of real, not his job nor the cold eyes and sharp ears that existed within an 8”X11” piece of canvas bordered off from the real world with a fake wooden frame.

These were the last moments of their relationship he decided, she would go off into the world of dragons and ponies and he would enter the land of real, a world that couldn’t be defined at the moment, he would go into the world with neither dragons nor ponies. This were their last seconds of mutual existence, this was the end.

Looking at the clock he knew a day was almost over, time true to its word waited for no man. The portrait was taken down. His mind began to rise up. The dictator of his life seemed lifeless. He began to live. Not in a cubicle nor did he live in a canvas with a stranger, but in a world that with every passing second disappeared, in a world were lakes and rivers were dirty, in a world outside the grasp of imagination, in the world of the real.

                                                                   THE END