Rings of Smoke

Where shall the word be found, where will the word | Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

checklist

Posted on | February 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

this is a strange feeling. three beers and a reasonable level of alcohol in my bloodstream and india winning that match, and somehow life seemed to be like a white feather floating on whisper-soft winds with sails of laughter and colours of joy, when suddenly unbidden this thought comes into the mind- there might not be much time. now this is a crass thought, ugly, dissonant. i am twenty six (closer to twenty seven, but still twenty six) and so of course, there is a lot of time. and yet this thought comes into the mind, and sticks- like a flu that just wouldn’t go away.there might not be much time left. of course. of course.

so rational being that i am, i try to analyze it. of course there is much time left. the next plane i fly on is not going to crash. the next train i travel on is not going to have an accident. and the next time i cross the road, someone is not going to try to harvest me for their roadkill. that, of course, is daftly intuitive, you know all that else you cannot carry on living. and so i know that. and still this nagging feeling- so i try to quantify it. there might not be much time left-meaning…there might be 15-20 years still? i will settle for 20, if it is possible. there will still be so much to do, but 20? for a short time, yes, 20 more years wouldn’t do any harm.

so…20 years. and how will it happen? i am not daft enough to believe in plane-crashes or road or rail accidents. no. it also will probably not be a case of violent termination of life. not because it can’t be. i just don’t see any goon pulling his sixshooter or katta or automatic on me. nor a terrorist. if i have to go in 20, perhaps the most likely candidate for my (untimely, i still insist) demise, will be the little white men- the white sticks with brown strips on their ends. and i will pass happily perhaps.

but twenty years- only twenty…there is still so much to do. the job has just started. the parents are barely settling. the books have barely been started upon. the novel and the poetry have hardly been written. the world has hardly been travelled. why, i have never been out of the country! and the girl i am wooing has still to be wooed. i have not even started a family yet!! and what if there are no twenty year, not really…but just twenty days? what will i have missed out on? the party will have died without me ever having been part of it, the sights will be seen, but not by me. the book will be written- hopefully, but i will not be the one writing. the poems will be recited, but my expression will no longer be in there. the feathers will still float on melodious winds, but the colours of the music will no longer be there in my life. rather, my life will no longer be there in the colours of the music, because i will have gone, lost. ash scattered in the waters of a murky river will be what i will be. and the girl will have found someone else…hopefully someone who will tell her jokes which make her laugh harder, will bear her temper tantrums better, will sometimes make her cry, and then wipe off the tears too. someone who will not just live with her, but someone who will make a life with her, someone who will take her to deep purple concerts, who will revive her love for country music, who will make her understand the language of jazz once again, someone who will sing for her in a voice less off-key than mine…someone who will understand her, but more importantly, someone who will make her understand herself; someone who will have a lot of time…twenty years are nowhere near enough.

the little white men, the little white men…the lighten my life so much and they poison it so, but they still make life worth living, even if they shorten it a bit. the little white men. the cause of so many disasters and i still cannot let them go. at least the girl understands. i wish she would make up her mind quickly. i think it was a dream what i had today, but there really might not be too much time. and then what do we do?

A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

: An Irish Airman Foresees His Death (by The Master- Yeats)

Similar Posts:

Category: life
Tags:

Comments

One Response to “checklist”

  1. Rgmlk
    February 23rd, 2010 @ 10:57 pm

    But if there is little time left… there is no ‘and then’. You can’t miss what you’ve never had, and once you’re gone, you can’t miss it anyway. There are no regrets when there’s no existence.

    xxx

    I can’t believe I just philosophised :P You’re right, it’s scary. Forget 20, is even 30 enough? I CANNOT understand why all those ‘demons’ in our myth and folklore who wished to live forever were ‘bad’.
    History needs to be re-written, rules need to change. :P

  • About The Line under the Blog Name

    The lines generally are from some poem which I have, at some point of time or the other, loved. I do not mean, by including them, to be snotty or pretentious- but I would love it if you could identify the lines, and take much joy if you were interested enough to search them and read the original poems. If not- you can ignore them.

  • tags

  • Spam Blocked