Insight : bidA 3

1750, Prescott Jn.

I am on my own for a while, away from the cell. My eyes are burning. I am feeling the lukewarm salt as it keeps trickling down unabated over my dry lips. My heart is sinking deeper into grief.

Contrastingly today an agonizing silence has engulfed me. I can sense actions and cacophony around me. I can feel the stir of commotion. I still cannot hear any utterances. I continue to brood at the past, shoulders hunched, elbows on my knees.

Next, heavens inundate me in the golden light.

It twinkled once from an unknown horizon and kept growing in intensity thereafter. It brings with itself the elixir that enamors life into zillion of particles as they rise in flurry and meet the divine luminosity. The animating waves of its motion make the trees sway. It all comes to a standstill for a while, except the light of course. A peculiar sense of urgency lingers somewhere in my mental realms.

An ear splitting shriek!

The fulsome indomitable out-cry of life to the cruelty of death.

I slowly got back to senses. I get up from the bench and bolt towards the yellow metal rods as the train lurches forward.

It’s where we truly met first, on our journey to home.

The frowsty smell of dust gritting on the rusted iron and rugged up plastic sheets chooses to make me nostalgic. Ironically it simultaneously infuses in me the feeling of nausea. I get up for a breather and make my way towards the door. No wonder, the rhythm of clattering iron and clanking planks sound to me like the symphony of life. Cold wind gushes by, as my somewhat overgrown locks dance with jubilance.

Bring backs to me the soft comfort of her beautiful hands on my moist cheeks. She tried to console me once. It was dark. She whispered in my ears that things are going to be fine. The echo of those words still erupts randomly when I get neurotic. Gradually the glimpses of the most joyful smile start flashing past my eyes as the reverberations of her delighting musical laughter keep resonating in my ears.

The ambience is getting light. Her fragrance is taking me over.

Nobody in this world or the other can separate us! Not even Abob!

She lives in me.

Iddok: Come on you, the most depraved of all demons. Look at me! You did not really believe in my misery leading to your triumph. You parasite! I even doubt your existence. Maybe Abob is but a figment of my imagination, a shadow of my own.

As the verbosity grew so did the beats in the orchestra of life.

Synergy floats like mist around me!

I am at the helm of my ship now! I will make the right choices. This time, it has to be my way, the stakes are very high for otherwise. He is not going to come. That bastard cannot take me over here. This place is so full of life, our memories and my love for them.

Suddenly the light in front of the wash basin mirror starts flickering. Bulbs don’t flicker like this, not with a whispering hum oscillating in decibels. My grip on the iron rods beside the compartment door starts loosening as my legs throw me towards the epicenter of activities.

I am spiraling inwards in the abyss.

I am hallucinating. I should sleep, it’s late.

What? Where are the other passengers?

I am not panicking! I am just curious.

I run across the bogey. No clamoring man, playing cards and calling bids. No complaining woman showing her reservation tickets to the daily passengers. No child swinging by, clutching his mother’s sari. Not a single soul.

I drop on a seat nearby, catching my breath and trying to figure out the random pattern of my heartbeat. I try to concentrate arbitrarily at a blemish on the vibrating floor. My panting goes haywire. My vision is getting hazy.

Something happened. There is a recognizable hostility in the air now.

I look up and an immolating liquid drenches my gut.

The devil smirks and unleashes the most evil and heinous laughter.

I am on my feet. My nails dig deep in my fists. I face difficulty in controlling the reflexes of my muscles as my heart pumps tremendous vitality in them.

I pounced at him with full momentum.

A strange chill catches me in the air. I drop enervated like a frazzled leaf.

Bida is here!

Raising my eyes, baffled, I look at both of them.

Oh I understand it now! It had to be this way! She will make this monster disappear into a cloud of puff. She’s an angel. I close my eyes to thank the divine.

Bida: Finish him.

I have heard that commanding tone earlier. It enforces a cold blooded execution.

I must do it now. I tried to locate Abob for the same.

Little did I know about the voice culminating on the wrong ears!

She snaps her fingers as the gleaming ornate rings in stark contrast with her fair and supple fingers glide past my vision.

THUMMPPP!

A heavy object comes crashing at my head. I puke a spill of blood and sludge. Seems my Jaw has ruptured. I think my neck is badly hurt too. I cannot turn my face to her. I am holding on to the excruciating torment, as I see myself loitering in my bloody filth.

Abob is hammering punches onto me. He rammed my cheek bone on the ground, twisted my forearm and then tore apart my left leg from the knee. Now he drags me over, at her feet. I can hardly open my eyes. The agonizing pain is keeping me busy.

Her face is cold and pale. There is no fragrance around her. Moreover she looks at me with disgust and cruelty.

No!!

I cannot take it!

She can’t be my Bida.

The last of my breaths dawdle in my lungs.

(to be continued)

Gestalt: bidA - 2

We are seated on the grass facing each other. Exhausted by my chores, I found refuge in the support of Eucalyptus nearby. The cold breeze is blowing swiftly, creating musical symphony through the leaves. The small disturbances ironically are soothing to ears. It is a pleasant country evening.

She is looking at me.

Her complexion has always fascinated me. That pink shade surrounding her cheeks contrasts beautifully with her fair face. Her shapely lips are reddened by slightly increased blood circulation, seem fuller. They are underscoring the most joyful smile. She has lovely dark eyebrows. Often make me think of a virtuoso moving his hands graciously on his white canvas, drawing arches with black. Modest, curvaceous and smooth arches!

She usually keeps her hair cut short, rarely ever touching her shoulders. Today however she had pulled them back, which made her flaunt the delicacy and femininity of her neck without her violation.

I cannot resist myself anymore! I looked at her in the eyes. Those are glossy black in colour. There is a childlike glint in the pupils. Being caught eyeing, she quickly withdrew her sight. In quick succession her eyelids floated in action, like swift curtains marking the climax of a consummate performance.

I can more openly examine her now.

She is beautiful, like an angel.

She is…

It is the same acute surge in my head!

No! Please!!

The evening has stretched into night. The trees around are casting ghostly shadows in the moon light. There is no wind, nothing close to music in earshot. This is silence of the sinister kind.

She is staring at the ground. Her hair is disheveled somehow. She is panting. It’s more of a whining sound. I cannot look at her face.

Iddok: Are you alright? What happened?

She doesn’t twitch an inch. Her whining has grown erratic .She has not heard me. But one could hear fluttering of insects in such silent ambience.

Iddok: Look at me. I feinted. I don’t remember a thing. Please! Bida!!

Something is wrong. It is my fault.

I should have protected her. I would deplore myself for this.

I would not let anything happen to her! I love her so much!!

I quickly wrench myself towards her, place my hand below her chin and gently lift her face to my vision.

Her forehead is pale and blistered!

Her eyes are lightless? Struggling with the insufficient light I concentrate harder. No, actually they have turned yellow! The red of her cheeks have clotted green!

How could have all this happened? I am losing my nerves and senses. Something is taking over me!

She is crying. There are dark and viscous tears rolling down her cheeks. Those have now completely wetted my fingers and palm.

Baffled by randomness I get up and take a closer look around. Nothing, we’re alone. How long have we been here? Then I notice something, the tears on my hand, my eyes are wide with horror! I would not be able to muffle the gasp either!

AaarGHH…

Suddenly she looks upward at me. It’s clearly visible now! There is no skin at all! Somebody tore it off! Her eyes are wicked! The dripping blood has cut through the flesh of cheeks! She’s in so much pain. Somebody is pulling her facial muscles revealing the yellow decaying but pointed teeth.

No! She is snarling at me!!

She’s not Bida! Oh my god!!

He laughs aloud! It’s the echo of most evil and heinous laughter I ever heard!

Abob: Yeah! I killed her.

Unconsciously I somehow open my moist eyes. My rags are wet with sweat. I am in my cell again.

Nightmares have now become a routine and there is no lucidity associated. It makes them loathsome and traumatic. Sometimes I feel I can no longer distinguish imagination with reality.

I am sick, very sick.

(to be continued)

bIdA

It is almost dark now. Still I can see the walls shedding their parchments. It has got more to do with their perpetual portraits on my retinas rather than the visibility. My tenure here cannot surpass the existence of Fungus and moisture. This cell stunk very badly three years ago, when I arrived first. It was my nemesis then. Seems I gradually lost my olfactory perception.

Air around is being churned fiercely by the ceiling fan. Remember, you placed a steel glass next to your ear decades ago in childhood. The sound’s very much like that gushing and hissing. I often imagined it as someone’s whispering then. No wonder, I can hear the words to the detail of every syllable now. The husky voice is carrying enormous vibrations and warmth of breath and it all is growing in a crescendo. It is causing a horrendous trembling of the spider webs that accordingly seems to be growing in amplitude.

It has started again. My eyelids are pulled closed. I can clearly hear to the thumping of my heart, its growing fast. Yeah, the neck is turning stiff next as usual. Now! Shoulders are being torn down. It’s excruciating like always. I will do it today! The heart beat is violent enough to supply blood to circulatory systems of three men. My eyeballs are moving fast under the lids. They would peel them off. He is now puncturing my lungs with many sledge hammers simultaneously. I can no longer retain my focus! My Stomach is being twisted. My intestines are getting mutilated. They are just a lump now! I won’t survive this. I am spiraling inwards in the abyss!

I can smell now! It’s roasted flesh! A quintal of burning hot copper wire is strapped around my waist, hands and legs. It supports the hooks. The fire beneath is simmer. I think I have already been through a lot of pain in last few hours. I can feel rigidness to the level of blood vessels, tissues and bones. Oh my god! Those are iron nails; he has nailed me all over! I cannot take the pain anymore. I am dead. I must not die. I must get ready.

He tries to straighten my head by the hair. Makes a rude grunt, next there’s a piercing clattering and thundering. It is the most heinous and evil laugh. He shakes off my hair from his hand.

Iddok: You are a monster! Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to you? I don’t even know you. Let me go! Let me…

He doesn’t listen. He approaches my forehead again and starts hammering one more nail in it casually. Blood is dripping from all over my face. I cannot see anymore. What is happening? Where am I? I hear something narrowing slowly over me.

It’s the whisper from the steel glass.

Abob: You are doing this to yourself…

(to be continued)