Am I really mad?

                                   Am I Really Mad?

 Ladies and gentlemen of jury, permit me to commence my confession without any delay. I hope you all are ready now, are you not? Oops! I forgot that you people are always ready. Sorry, forgive my tongue for that huge blunder.

 Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s true that I murdered my wife employing the most ruthless method imaginable. And it’s also true that I loved her more than anything I would ever love in my life. The truth is I still love her. She was damn too gorgeous! However, respected ladies and gentlemen, don’t be in illusion to think that I regret what I did. I regret nothing, yes I don’t. Even when god would give me a second chance, I would still kill her the way I did, or perhaps more ruthlessly. Am I mad? Never!

You may think that I’m crazy but I can promise you that I am not. Neither I am under possession of any evil power. I’m as I was always. And to know how I was always, you most peep into my past through the window of my memory. Therefore, here I shall endeavour to recount the exact picture of my early life with no extra colours to veil anything. What I’m about to speak out is as true as the rain on a rainy day, and as clear as the cloudless sky. There is nothing to doubt, trust me.

I was raised in a prosperous family. My extremely intelligent and dreamy mother raised me for my father died when I was just one. What kind of social attitude one develops, as you all know, is entirely shaped by the encounters in childhood. My mother was a solitary woman who barely involved herself in any sorts of social circles. Infact, she was in grip of an obsession of literature, to be precise she was in love with Poe. She lived cocooned in an imagined world where she considered herself married to that unattractive, black haired writer – Edgar Allan Poe, already dead. To make her world more physical and realistic, she kept herself attached to his works. The horror story, the tell-tale heart, was her wine and her food. She read it at least ten times a day and made me do the same. By the age of fifteen I could recite the entire story by heart and I still can. Should I prove it? I don’t think we have much time and if any of you folks are dubious about it then please meet me later.

What I really want to emphasize here is that I grew in a world of extreme fantasy, deeply dominated by the horror writings of Poe. As time passed I began to consider myself as one of the characters of his stories. However, ladies and gentlemen, I blame neither my mother nor my mother’s dream husband for waking the murderer in me. I was born to kill that beautiful lady, my wife. These childhood experiences are just a false justification towards the theory of psychology of Sigmund Freud. So, any of you who regard my act as the result of my early life I suggest them to abandon that useless pursuit. The truth is some acts of human and some mysteries of universe are incomprehensible. To attempt to understand them is to chase a rainbow.
 The victim was the only woman I ever loved in my life and I know I still can’t stop loving her. I loved her more than anything. O lord, how can I make you all believe me! She had the finest manners and well refined attitudes that any husband would like to have in his wife. And no doubt she was the prettiest lady any of you have ever seen. She had delicately chiseled face, her nose was sharp and elegantly arched at its tip, her lips were red, and her eyebrows were like the wings of a sea-gull in flight. Her eyes, too, were extraordinary. I adored everything of her. Then, why did I kill her? I know, ladies and gentlemen, you are extremely desperate to know this. Let me ask you: why are you so interested about such a hideous story of mine? The fact is we, humans, by our nature love murders. When someone is killed, outside we show deep sympathy and concern but deep down within us our heart is keen to hear such news. We are all made like that.

It was her voice, yes, it was one of those voices that you dream to hear but never get to. Such a musical and enchanting voice she had that any male who came under its spell could never escape its magic. Sweetness has limits but her voice had crossed all. The softness, extreme delicacy of her voice made me crave for something harsh. Whenever she spoke as I held her in my arms, I felt myself suddenly go stiff. The way words floated out of her mouth made me feel fragile. It made me realize that she was the women who could get any type of husband she desired, that she might any moment run away from me and end everything. I just couldn’t stand this fear of losing her. Therefore I killed her, but then why did I kill her so wildly?
Initially I had planned to slice off her tongue so that she would never be able to speak again, so that nobody would ever again be bewitched by the music of her tongue. So, on a cold night of December I added a strong drug in her food which stole away her consciousness for few hours. Immediately I chopped her tongue with the same knife she used to cut vegetables. I had accomplished my task and I was about to exhale a sigh of relief when my eyes suddenly noticed the huge depth of her pale blue eyes. The old man’s vulture eyes in Poe’s story: the tell-tale heart. All of a sudden I was transformed into that young and frustrated character of his story. Instead of making her blind and dumb, I decided to murder her and make her mine, only mine forever.

Ladies and gentlemen of jury, the reason why I tore her chest open and ate her heart is simple. I devoured her blood soaked organ like a monster because I wanted her heart to blend with mine. Yes, because I wanted her to live in me. Because……because loved her.
“How can one kill someone he loves so much so brutally like a beast?” one of the men in jury inquires.

My honorable gentleman, I didn’t only love my wife- I did her something more than just loving. My craving for her was so intense that I couldn’t bear to see her talk or laugh or smile with anybody else. I wanted her to be only with me all the time. As a matter of fact I didn’t kill her brutally as far as I think. It was the most kindly way of making one immortal. You say I murdered my wife but I strongly insist that I made my love immoral. Yes, I gave my wife immortality.

The fact that I loved my wife is a self-evident truth. The fact that I still love her is also no exception. No, ladies and gentlemen, my wife is not dead; she is always with me. Yes, always. I dress her with all sorts of clothes I love to see on her, I decorate her in expensive ornaments, and then I worship her. My wife is my goddess, my life. Only I’m blessed to see her; I can only see her. Look! She is there standing by the door, smiling at me. Ah, now she is strolling up towards me. She is so close that I can feel the warmth of her breath on my cheeks. She is about to kiss me, please, ladies and gentlemen close your eyes if you don’t mind.
Am I mad? Really? Ha….ha…ha…NEVER!
x

Girl

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The man who knew death

• An old man answers questions about life and death before he leaves

- Chandra K PJR

Yes, when we die we leave this world to live in another world. Then why do people fear death so much, even he does. He looked at the old man and said: Still you say you fear death?

Jan 31, 2016- There once was an old man who lived alone in a little cottage—a humble abode, roofed with layers of straw, and its walls plastered with mud. During the summer, the sea breeze would caress its cells, cooling all of it with the moisture that the drifting air would bring with it. And during winter, it kept itself warm, its muddy walls would work as interior insulation. It was, by all means, a comfortable place to live in. The old man loved it.

The old man, Abraham by name, was thin and gaunt—his face abound with deep wrinkles, as if they were waves in a rough sea. His hands were pale and calloused, his frame fragile, and his scant hair white as snow. Everything about him seemed ancient and worn, except for that glow his green eyes—the same colour as the bottom of an ocean—radiated. They were cheerful and vibrant. But it always seemed that dark shadows of death lurked underneath them.
At dusk every Friday, a boy from a nearby village would come to visit him, to inherit the philosophies the old man lived by. Abraham, however, was no great philosopher, but this boy, Edward, loved to argue about deep, intricate notions about the world with him. In fact, he had intended to live with the old man in his cottage but his parents would not let him, because they thought the old man was mad. Therefore, the boy had to escape the eyes of his parents to visit the old man.
The boy admired the old man and he shunned everyone who would talk bad about him. There is something unique about this old man, the boy thought, as he took the shortcut through the woods towards the old man’s cottage. He knows everything, yes, everything. That is it. How clearly he expressed his knowledge and how easily he convinced me the last time I asked him about reality and the world’s ways. There shall be someone to absorb the vast treasure of knowledge he possesses. And that’s me, yes me, he whispered to himself as he reached his destination.
It was already dusk. The faint red of the late autumn sunset covered the grass. The falling sun cast a soft shower of golden dust over the bushes and to the twigs that had fallen in the wake of a soft breeze. And the light flickered on the circular frame of dragonflies that darted from the shade to the glow and from the glow to the shade, intermittently, as though they were angels from heaven playing hide and seek on earth. This is heaven, the boy said to himself, astounded by the splendour spreading before him. Inside, the old man lay asleep on the rectangular bed, snoring. He was dreaming about lions and their cute cubs. His lips were smiling.
“Should I wake him?” the boy thought. Then he decided not to disturb him and sat by him, silent. An hour and a half later, the old man’s eyelids parted, revealing the silver of his eyes. It was his way of expressing pleasure. “Ah, my friend,” he said. “It is always such a pleasure to have you by my side. This loneliness, which I once so adored, is mocking me now. Time, dear, renders great sorrows in our heart. Yes, time…” Suddenly, the old man paused, and then closed his eyes softly emanating a hideous groan of pain.
“What is it?”
“Death, child, it is death,” answered the old man. “I can see her now. She comes to me every night and whispers into my ears. She is sitting in this room, even now.”
He is losing his sense of reality, the boy thought. The fear of death has turned his mind blunt. He is talking nonsense today. Or is he talking about something beyond the horizon of human reasoning? Oh, how can I forget that he is one wise man? I should listen to him intently.
“What does death whisper into your ears?” the boy inquired.
“That she is coming for me very soon. That she wants to take me to another world,” replied the old man.
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes, I do. In the last few days I have started to believe in many things, things that I previously considered as only creations of the human imagination.”
The old man, all of a sudden, started a rough cough; the boy rushed to fetch water. As the old man drank, the boy looked at his throat and saw water running through its veins. He must live for at least a decade more, the boy thought. There is so much that I have to learn from him. But will he even last tonight? He should. No, he must. I don’t give a damn about what my parents say. I will live with him in his cottage from today.
“One of the most important of them all is the notion that death is the beginning of another life,” the old man continued. “Yes child, when we die our soul escapes into another world and there it acquires immortality.”
“I don’t think so,” the boy countered.
“Then child, you should start thinking so. Because, you know, energy can’t be destroyed. And our soul is an energy.”
The boy was taken aback by the old man’s wonderful reasoning. He is right, his thoughts concluded. Yes, when we die we leave this world to live in another world. Then why do people fear death so much, even he does. He looked at the old man and said: “Still you say you fear death?”
“Yes, I fear death like everybody else.”
“I don’t care about others,” said the boy. “You know that death is not the end of everything and still you say you are afraid of it. Why?”
“Because death is ugly, and life is beautiful. The world we enter after leaving our body is an eternal world. Something that never ends is never beautiful. Yes, Edward, the world we enter after death is a world where there is no motion, no time.”
“What?”
“You are confused, I know. Soon the dust of confusion veiling the truth will fade because whatever I have told is based upon the fundamental laws of science. You are unclear for I have not concluded yet. Even I have got mathematics to prove it but when I will reveal the conclusion you will no longer doubt me. You will not even demand mathematical proofs. It is based upon the fusion of quantum mechanics and relativity.” The old man was breathing loud and rough. Then he coughed, and blood leaked from his mouth. His eyes were watery. Suddenly Edward felt a deep pang in his heart. He could hear the wild animals outside howling loud.
“No friend, no, no, no,” the boy shouted, “you can’t leave me. I have a lot to learn from you.”
The old man’s eyes were already shut. His breathing was fading. Soon he fell asleep. At about midnight when he woke, Edward was drowsing on a chair by his bed. The old man shook him up. And said: “Child, I think I have reached the point from where my soul will enter that timeless world. When we die, our soul travels into the world where time is just another physical dimension like length or breadth or height. And there our soul is just a form of energy like heat or any other forms of energy. With death Edward, remember, everything doesn’t end. It’s just the beginning of our immortality. And we humans, by our nature, fear immortality.”
Edward, who knew something about relativity and quantum theory, understood the depth of his idea though he could not fully grasp it. Our soul travels faster than light and goes into a world very far, he thought, through spooky action at a distance. Time can be physical dimension according to Einstein’s relativity. Aah, he is a genius.
The next morning at about 5 o’clock, the old man passed away. On his grave, Edward wrote: THE MAN WHO KNEW DEATH!

Mother and son

• The feeling you have in your heart when you study those advanced equations is the real feeling of love; all other is just a mirage

- Chandra K PJR

I can’t comprehend why Mamma wants me to meet her, he thought as he stood at her front door. He hesitated for a while, then, he gently knocked on the door

May 8, 2016- He was a prodigy: At the age of three he could read Eliot, at four he could play Mozart and by the time he was eight he could breeze through calculus. His teachers feared him and his friends shuddered with envy at his very presence. He was a living, breathing miracle. “You are my miracle, sweetheart,” his mamma said, kissing him on his forehead. “Never, my baby, let anybody cause any harm to you. Never! Don’t ever feel that you are alone. I will always be with you, always. Watching you from above…from the stars.”

Chrish looked at the frail and weak face of his mother for a long time. 

“Mamma,” he almost sobbed. “I also want to come with you. This world is not meant for me. I want to live among the stars with you.”

She pulled him into her arms and hugged him tight. Then, she gently played her fingers through his blond hair.

“Who says this world is not meant for you?” she said, as though she would kill anyone who dared utter those words to her precious son. “You know, darling, what was my first thought when you were born?”

The prodigy, nearing his fifteenth birthday, peered into her eyes: they were blazing with the fire of a tigress’s eyes who would do anything to protect her little cub. And he saw it.

“Mamma,” he interrupted, “I love you.”

She smiled her dimpled smile radiating vibrant waves of love which his thirsty heart hurried to drink.

“When I looked into your little blue eyes,” the mother continued, “I made a vow to myself that my son would live to be a star, a gem of his species—a Kohinoor. That he would be the one who would change the world for the third time, walking with the great minds—Newton and Einstein. No matter whether I live to see him do these extraordinary things but I would do everything to help him climb this lofty mountain.” 

She paused and began to weep.

“And you have done everything, even more,” Chrish added. “You have sacrificed so much of you just to raise me. You needn’t weep, Mamma. You needn’t. If you weep, I will weep too. And you know how bad I’m at it.”

The mother revealed her glistening teeth as she permitted her lips to arch into a lovely smile. 

“Why do people die? Why do good people die so young? Why is nature so unfair?” the boy asked.

“It is the law of nature. That’s how this world works—once you are born, you must die. Death is inevitable. Good and loving people die young too because God wants to be with them.”

“Mamma, why do my friends hate me?”

“They hate you because you are better than them all. Because you can do things they can’t even dream of. Because you are a miracle and they are not.”

“Few days ago, Lily proposed to me; she said that she is madly in love with me. When I told her that I don’t know anything about love, she started to weep. I’m still not able to filter out the reason behind her strange act.”

“You know nothing about love?” the mother asked, astounded.

“I only know the kind of love I have for you. I have no idea about other types of love,” Chrish responded, his voice soft and serene.

Is my child emotionally lacking? The mother thought. Does extraordinary intelligence come at a price of feelings of the heart? No, no that can’t be. Maybe he just needs some inspiration from me, some piece of advice.

“Do you like her?” she asked him. 

The boy had already started to daydream about the cubs of white tigers he had read as a little kid.

“Mamma, we are tigers,” he said thoughtfully, “you are the great white tiger and I am your little cub. Together we will rule the world.”

“Chrish,” the mother said. “I think you should go now and meet Lily. Tell her that you love her too.”

“But I don’t know what love is.”

“First you tell her, and then you will know. Go.”

Outside, the sky was a canvas: soft silver ropes of light slanting into the distant horizon, slicing the deep orange sky. Below, the world glittered in the yellow glow of late noon. The prodigious boy who walked under this beauty did not notice it at all. I can’t comprehend why Mamma wants me to meet her, he thought as he stood at her front door. He hesitated for a while, then, he gently knocked on the door. An elderly lady opened and asked: “What is it?”

“I want to meet Lily,” he said, with no emotions.

“Her family left this town yesterday; they are never coming back.”

“Thank you,” said Chrish, before returning home.

“Mamma,” he began as he sat by his mother. “Lily has left this town forever.”

His mother didn’t answer for a while. She was glad that she had succeeded in keeping her child away from the thorny rose of love. She was also happy to learn that the girl had left him even before he could feel the first harsh prick of love.

“Yes,” she replied, “that’s good, you must not waste your time on such trivial matters like romance and love. Great men don’t indulge themselves in such things.”

“What is love, mamma? I have read many novels on desperate passions of love but I haven’t yet understood its true significance. When I look at mathematical equations, take for instance the Riemann hypothesis, an intense passion to solve it gushes through my heart. I can’t refrain myself from diving into its depth. Few days ago, I was swimming through Einstein’s equations of general relativity and I experienced the same strange stir in the core of my heart that Romeo in Shakespeare’s play experiences when he first encounters Juliet. If this incomprehensible butterfly’s fluttering in my heart is called love—then I think I’m in love with equations.”

The mother smiled at the great words of her little masterpiece. Today, she thought, I feel I have raised a Newton. If only I could live a few years longer to witness my little miracle transform into a volcano of revolution...

Tears gently started to dribble down her sunken cheeks. I wish I could buy some time, if only money could buy it. O lord, I have accomplished the great task of raising a prodigy the way he deserved. Now I’m prepared to take the last and eternal nap of death. 

“Yes, that is love—the feeling you have in your heart when you study those advanced equations is the real feeling of love. All others are just a mirage.”

“Mamma,” Chrish said. “You are the great white tiger and I am your cub.”

“Yes, you are my sweet little cub,” she smiled, and then began to play her fingers through his blond hair. “And I love you more than anything.” 

SHE, THE DANCER

• Her copper brown hair will start to fall out in thick lumps and it will be impossible to keep the fragmented patches of remaining hair. So one day she will come to you with her shaved head

- Chandra K PJR

You will help her stand and then lift her lightly in your arms. She will loop her hands around your neck while you play the music player. It will be her best music, your best music. Beethoven’s Fur Elise. Both of you will gracefully drift about in arcs and curves performing the world’s best dance

Sep 13, 2015- You will come across her while attending to a dance show during your final year at high school. She will be wearing a blue-white vertically striped dress. Her hair will be a casual ponytail bunched inside a yellow rubber band. She will have kohl black oblique eyes and a strange way of narrowing them as though trying to read some faraway signs. She will not talk to anybody. She will indifferently float her way to take a seat in an empty chair by you. She will sit down with an elbow on the table and her perfectly chiseled face will be cupped in the palm of her hand. She will look around the corners as though considering striking up a conversation with the walls and the curtains. She will not look up at the stage and you will not look away from her. “Got a matchstick?” She will ask you, still looking into a far corner. You will pull out a matchbox from your pocket and hand it over to her. She will light up a cigarette sending out spirals of white smoke. She will not return your matchbox and you will pretend you don’t care about it.
“Like to dance with me?” she will mumble a question to you, letting out curls of smoke from her mouth and nostrils. “Don’t tell me you do not know how to dance.”
At that particular instant you will regret many things, almost everything. You will repent all those long frustrating hours you will have spent studying mathematics and physics. You will think how wonderful it would have been had you learnt to drift and swirl around elegantly in circles and ellipses instead of having learnt to find their equations. That will make you hate mathematics more than ever. “I don’t know any moves,” you will somehow manage.
“Neither did I when I first came here,” she will smile, and her cheeks will pit into two little magnificent dimples. “Needn’t worry. I will teach you.”
 At about midnight, the show will conclude. The last item will be hers. She will dance to the beats of a popular Hindi song, Madhuwala.  And you will be entirely gripped by her mind-blowing performance. Her graceful movements and the enigmatic bending and arching of her different body parts and her artistic expressions will ensnare you. You will fall for her.
“Tomorrow, this very time,” she will remind you while parting.
That night you will not sleep. Or maybe you will not be able to sleep. You will play with all the blissful prospects that the future held in store for you. You will impatiently want the dawn to tear open. Time will drag slowly and you will lose your temper. The more impatient you grow, the slower time will stagger along.
But it will not stop, time.
The next day, when you will meet her she will not be the fashionable girl you saw the day before. Her rumpled shirt will be buttoned wrong and her shoelaces will be untied. Her hair will be tangled and wildly kempt. However she will appear more gorgeous than ever. She will welcome you with her dimpled smile. You will talk to her about the types of dances you love. She will comment on your choices. You will like her comments, although you will find no particular reason for your liking. After a while, she will start by teaching you the basic dance steps. As days progress, you will discover that you dance physically when with her and emotionally when not with her. Soon you will realise that she has inspired a great dance in your heart.
Gradually, you will get addicted to her. To her almond-shaped eyes.To her bow-shaped eyebrows.To her charming smile.To her copper brown hair and to her sparrow-sweet voice. So every day you will go forth into her world to forge an unbreakable relation of love. To frame an eternal bond.
Soon you will begin to go out together, and one day you will smuggle her into your room. You will talk to her about your dreams and tell her that your greatest aspiration is to marry her. She will smile and kiss you on your lips. It will be the type of kiss that demands kissing back. So you will kiss her harder. After a while she will unbutton her shirt and you will yours. Both of you will lie there, skin to skin. Her paleness against your brownness. She will smell of old rose petals. You will stroke her copper brown hair, letting your fingers stray through her scalp, allowing them to dance on her heart-shaped red lips. And she will love that. She will pull you impossibly closer and whisper into your ears, “Dear Robin, I love you more than anything I ever loved.” “I love you too,” you will say and do the best thing you will have ever done.
Time will pass in a great rush. Years will glide away swiftly without a glitch. Yet each moment you will spend with her will be carved deep in your heart. Once you will dance with her in a grand show which will be appreciated by several people. It will be the best day of your life.
And time will continue its never
ending marathon.
It will be a gloomy evening. You will be in your room when she will come to you and inform you that she has blood cancer. At first you will not believe her but when you will look into her eyes you will know that she is serious. Instantaneously an incomprehensible fluid ache of fear will ripple through you. Tears will attempt to leak from the corners of your eyes but you will manage to stop them.
“Are you afraid?” She will ask you.
“I don’t know, sweetie,” you will
reply. Then you will hold her right hand and gently caress it. “Don’t worry, dear, things will change.”
Things will really change but not the way you will have thought. The demon of her illness will inevitably start to devour her. Day by day she will grow frail and weak. The red of her lips will fade to dark blue hue and her hair will start to fall
out. Her voice will become feeble and inaudible, and it will need a lot of work for her to even utter your name. But you will not give up. You will do your best to provide her the best available medical treatments. You will pray for hours to god but he will not listen to you. The disease will win the battle and you will be able to do nothing. One night, alone in a little corner, you will cry for your angel.
Her copper brown hair will start to fall out in thick lumps and it will be impossible to keep the fragmented patches of remaining hair. So one day she will come to you with her shaved head, her beautiful tangles of copper gone. She will hurl herself into your arms and sob like a little baby. This time you will cry too. Later that day you will go to her parents and request them to let you keep her with you. They will allow it. You will look after her like a mother caring for her sick child. You will not sleep for days and nights, and stay by her bed and sing songs for her. And tell stories too.
“Why do you love me so much?”
she will ask you.
“Because,” you will reply with tears dribbling down along your cheeks, “I was born for that. Because the lord created me to look after his most precious angel that you really are.”
“Will you dance with me?” You will ask her one night.
She will smile and agree.
You will help her stand and then lift her lightly in your arms. She will loop her hands around your neck while you play the music player. It will be her best music, your best music. Beethoven’s Fur Elise. Both of you will gracefully drift about in arcs and curves performing the world’s best dance. You will wish to freeze this moment, to stop time and stretch it to infinity. But time is a dedicated marathon runner; it will not stop. She will place her head on your shoulders and completely give herself to you. You will embrace her like your most precious gift. A gift that will soon be taken away. You will hold her like that in your arms for hours and watch her sleep on your shoulders. You will never forget that night.
A few weeks later, on a cool, silent morning, your love and the best dancer you will ever see will breathe her last.
Now whenever you will hear the song, Madhuwala, the stage will rise in front of you and there she will be—dancing. But this time she will not be alone.

FATHER AND THE THREE NIGHTINGALES

• The man raised his head and looked at them. These are strange nightingales, he thought. I have seen this species of birds but never like them. Then what are they? Nightingales, I’m sure they are not. Perhaps they are the messengers from god, or maybe they

- Chandra K PJR

Back then I was a very rude child, an extremely impolite animal, he thought. An animal, yes an animal I was. How I spoke bitter words to him, how I blamed him of murdering mother

Nov 29, 2015- The most painful thing about life is that we can’t change our past,” he said, his eyes heavy with tears. “That’s where, you know dear, our sorrows come from.”
“From our inability to melt our past and reshape it?” she asked, still unsure.
“Yes,” he replied. “Time, you know, is a very musical thing. It has its own rhythm, its own pace. It is a grand ruler but at the same time a very cruel one. I hate time, and I hate myself.”
A lazy, uncomfortable silence soared towards them from nowhere and adjusted itself between them. A solid, near iron-hard silence and Carl didn’t seem to like it much. He shunned this sheer absence of noise because it created emptiness in him. A huge hollow emptiness.
“My little angel, come close to me,” he held her slender hands in his and hooked his fingers with hers. Then he broke into a terrible, heart-rending sob.
The bench the man and his wife sat on was in the cool shade of a mimosa tree and as she looked out past the shade into the wide plain, there were three little nightingales darting from one place to another in sudden, small jumps.
“Look at them,” the wife said. “Don’t they have sorrows like us, these little winged creatures? Do they ever cry like us?”
The man raised his head and looked at them. These are strange nightingales, he thought. I have seen this species of birds but never like these. Then what are they? Nightingales, I’m sure they are not. Perhaps they are messengers from god, or maybe they are the lost fragments of my past. Or maybe they are just birds. A new species of them. “Whatever,” he whispered to himself and abandoned the thought.
“Sophie, dear,” he said. “We should go now.”
It was Carl’s father’s sixtieth birthday and they were not sure what present they should get him. Desire he had none. Man-made objects no longer enticed him. Therefore, after eliminating a number of choices that might enrage him, they decided to gift him the watch he had gifted Carl’s mother while first proposing  to her and then had gifted it to Carl on his ninth birthday.
And it was a very special watch.
Back then I was a very rude child, an extremely impolite animal, he thought. An animal, yes, an animal I was. How I spoke bitter words to him, how I blamed him of murdering mother. O, my poor dad. How he endured all these and still continued to love me as though I were the most precious thing he will ever have. Whatever I asked for he simply gave without questioning. He never said “no”. Yes, never.  That’s it. And sometimes I wondered if my poor dad knew that the word called ‘no’ existed. But I was wrong. In fact, he had mastered that word. He had enslaved it. And you know it’s the words that choose our tongue, not we. So when the word ‘no’ comes out from our mouth, it’s not we who are choosing it but it’s the word that is choosing us. When we speak; the mouth is ours but the words are not. And it took me a long time to understand this. Foolish me! And how I hated him and I don’t know why. I want to know this. And I want to know so many things. Above all, o rotten me, I want to love my father. I want to give back what he gave to me. I want to change my past. But I can’t. Oh my god, oh poor me, I just can’t. Tears stole on his cheeks.
When Sophie came from her room with the golden watch, her husband was again crying. His eyes were red and there were deep marks of tears on his smooth cheeks. “Ah! I could have saved him, but I didn’t,” he was muttering to himself when she placed her right arm on his shoulder and with her left began to wipe his tears off.
“No dear, no, no my dear,” she tried to comfort him.
“Are you ready dear?” he asked suddenly, balancing himself on reality.
“Yes. I think we should leave now.”
---
His father was in a dimly lit golden room, lying flat on rectangular bed as though dead. And he was almost dead now as he was since the day he slipped from staircase twenty years ago. Just a breathing corpse on whose trembling lips shadows of death hung deep and strong. His eyes vacant, his cheeks sunken and his lips pale blue and dead dry. He was a skeleton now.
And I killed him, he said to himself. I’m a terrible monster, a human-shaped monster. It was a fine night: large moon shone metallic on the earth and his companions, stars, were flashing bright twinkles when my father fell off and broke his spine. He cried in great agony, almost wept. Yes, he almost wept but the monster in me wanted to see him weep. So, I didn’t summon the neighbours to help and waited alone to watch the feeble drops of tears leak from his eyes. Oh lord, what a terrible monster I was. He watched me through his deep eyes, dim lights of hope flickering in them. His face had the aura of an animal waiting to be slaughtered while watching other animals being butchered. It was the look that comes to everyone when death forces its icy claws on them. But he didn’t cry. He never cried, my great father.
Then Carl staggered out of the room and began to cry again.
I could have saved him by taking him to hospital on time, he thought. I, yes it was me who killed his own father. My father was my mother too. He loved me double. And maybe because he had to love me double he never said “no”. And now I regret everything. This is why I want to change my past. But past is no football game where when the opponent scores one goal, you beat him by scoring two and be happy. One wrong deed and no matter how many right deeds you do, it can’t be undone.
“Carl, dear,” his wife called him, “see.”
There was a note which his father had taken twenty years to write and it read:
“My son is the best child any father can ever dream of having. And I love him. He is my miracle.”
Carl didn’t show much emotion because he knew he was not and that his father was simply exaggerating. He kissed his great father’s forehead and tied the watch on his left wrist. Then he said to Sophie, “My father gave this watch to my mother when he proposed to her. And I know his last wish would be to have this watch on his wrist. My father was a passionate lover, you know.” And he smiled for the first time in so many years.
When they returned home at dusk, the nightingales were not there. They were not nightingales, I’m pretty sure of that, Carl thought. Then what they were?
That night’s supper was silent, as it usually was. Sophie didn’t want to bother her husband by her unnecessary sweetness and sympathetic words, while Carl still strained his brain by pondering over those little nightingales. His appearance was grim and serene. And his eyes were deep red. In the yellow light of the bulb, the wrinkles on his face were like ripples in seas. It made him look wiser than he actually was.
At about midnight when Carl was again about to cry, his phone rang. Carl usually cried alone at midnight while Sophie slept but this was not the right time for his phone to ring. Surprised, he picked the phone and said softly, “Hello?”
“Carl,” a female voice answered, “I’m sorry to tell that your father is no more.”
For a brief moment, time almost froze. He let the phone fall and it dropped very lazily; meanwhile his wife was already sitting by his side. He threw himself in her arms and broke into a sudden, cracking sob. And still he was thinking about those three birds. “They were not nightingales,” he cried out loud. “They were the servants of death.”
They never saw those three little winged creatures again.