It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The evening was setting in, equally lazily. It was as if the day did not want to move on. Who could blame the day...or the people or the feeling itself. The next day was Monday. I was barely over my hangover. It was still hanging pretty evidently. It surrounded, held hostage every space in my head. Going down, getting food...seemed like the most difficult of tasks. I smoked a few more cigarettes in my stupid attempt to kill my hunger. It was in vain. The hunger came back after every 15 minutes of smoking a cigarette, and so did the headache. The headache kept on increasing its appetite, slowly increasing the territory under its direct command. I needed some instant relief. I looked around. I just had some of the 'green' stuff lying around from last night. Just enough for one good trip.
I wanted to escape, again. Last night was inspired by this desire to escape, I did infact manage to as well...till I found myself in my bed this morning, cursing the booze and the joints...
I rolled myself one. I turned on some music. I felt no particular urge to hear any music. It was just to kill the silence around me. I wasn't used to the quiet yet. I was training myself for it. It was hard then. It is hard now. Just then my cell started buzzing. I looked at it. 23 miscalls since last couple of days. I did not attend calls anymore. Or reply to messages. Only did if they were from my office. That was rarely though because I practically lived in my office. My corner at the workplace to be more precise. I was running away. From what...to where...I did not know that yet. All I know is a misty haze of one sound, one perfume, one laugh, one smile, one touch surrounded me and then I felt incredible pain. Pain is what I remember most clearly.
I sat on my window smoking the one last joint. Cursing it for nearing the end of its existence. I needed it to stay with me. I needed it. I held it in front of my face. It's reluctant glow reflecting in my eyes. Burning my eyes. My eyes felt like rivers then. A river that had no where to go.
I dragged on it with a vengeance. It's bitter taste on my lips and acidic fumes burning my throat. I liked this feeling. I was drifting away. The river too had finally found its course. We were both flowing together, it, strangely in a downward direction, as I flowed in the reverse direction, in my past. No. I didn't want to go there...but I did not resist too much...the truth was...that was the only place where I had any kind of existence. I saw bike rides and movies...and evening dinners and afternoons spent reading books together... I saw those eyes...and then they vanished as soon as they had appeared. I saw disco lights and Gods smiling on me. I heard the bell toll. The noise of the bell increasingly getting closer to me. Getting louder. Louder. Now it was right next to my ears. It seemed on a singular mission of splitting my eardrums and exploding my head...my muscles tensed...My entire body became rigid, as if frozen...thinking that by doing that I would brace myself against this onslaught. It was all in vain. The sound of the bell was inside my ears. In my head. Traveling in my blood through my veins, ready to turn me inside out. I wanted to get out of my skin, just leap out of it.
I ran. I ran as hard as I could. I ended up in a place I remembered clearly. With the place came these thoughts "It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. The evening was setting in, equally lazily. It was as if the day did not want to move on. Who can blame the day...or the people or the feeling itself. The next day was Monday. I was barely over my hangover. It was still hanging pretty evidently. It surrounding, held hostage every space in my head...." It was a chain of thoughts. The very same thoughts that came to my head everytime I found myself in those familiar surroundings. The sound of the bell had now become a shrill scream. A scream that was infinite, that came from somewhere so deep down that it was impossible to locate it and squash its neck so that it would stop.
The thoughts came back again "The hunger came back after every 15 minutes of smoking a cigarette, and so did the headache. The headache kept of increasing its appetite, slowly increasing the territory under its direct command. I needed some instant relief..."
The veins on my hand standing, as if they would kiss me, embrace me, if only I let them burst and grant them some relief through it.
There was an explosion of colours then. I was there again, in that familiar place. Standing in the middle of the room...feeling confused. The confusion I still remember clearly. The colours started floating around me before they started to merge with each other. They merged and became red. Painting me red with the entire room around me. I had red on my hands, under my finger nails, on my face, trickling down. And then I saw a silhouette, lying face down before suddenly turning and looking at me...those eyes...I knew them...I had even loved them once but I loved it even more now. Because they were as dead as mine.
I coiled as I felt a 'cold touch' against my skin. I jerked and opened my eyes. I was confused again. It was sometime till I could focus my eyes again as the grey colour started to take the form of walls.
I moved my hands around. I was soaked in sweat. My clothes. My mattress. My pillow. Then I heard the rap of metal on metal and the clinking of chains. I heard footsteps before I could see the person. Then my cell door opened. And I heard...someone from the next cell shout out aloud in glee "Dead Man Walking My Ass"!!! followed by a shrill laughter.
