अनुभूतियां -- Perceptions

5 a.m.

It's 5 in the morning. It's still dark outside. I am awake listening to the "sleep playlist" which is been repeated for the third time since 12 am. The songs have the similar music, almost the same guitar chords and the same piano music. I shouldn't be the one to say such things about music since I know nothing of it. Though I can reframe my sentence in a much better and fitting way and say "the songs feel the same to me, they poke the same old wounds which are still bleeding." It's too early in the morning I should sleep. I close my eyes. Purity by Zims Ele is playing; I can feel this one too. To me it feels like a story, a story which is perfectly told, a story which brings limelight to the unconventional parts of life/society/oneself (depends what takes up more space within); unconventional parts which we and others often scrutinize to death. But now is not the time to think about things like this. It's time to shut down, get numb and sleep. I can't ignore but notice that at 1:11 in the song, a new phase of the story begins. Under my closed lids an image start to develop. At first the colours, which are red, orange, pink, yellow appear and then as it continues there is blue, as it moves further there is brown. It's a beach and the sun is setting. And there I am standing and taking it all in. The ocean is doing what it's supposed to do; roaring proudly. The sun is there calmly setting down giving one of its best performance by painting the sky and yet giving the ocean it's very well deserved space and not stealing the show. The sand is happily providing a neutral base for both, the ocean and the sun; it's warm and wet. The ocean touches my bare feet as if luring me. Oh I am lured. I walk into the ocean, steps and more steps:deep and deeper. The water has reached upto my waist. I look up and see the sun has gone but it's still not dark. I know this is the point/the choice/the decision. If I go one step further I won't stop. I will continue till there are no steps:only deeper prevails. There are no strong waves which will either engulf me deeper into the ocean or wash me over and throw me back to the shore. It's all upto me. But is there actually a choice/decision for me to make? I know what I want, it's the only thing I want. I will get what I want.

The song ends! I gasp and open my eyes. Norm and Mirza by Emotional Pleasure plays. There is a subtleness to this song, actually a monotony. At 1:17 as the song starts to fight the monotony of it with which it started in the beginning, I acknowledge my beating heart which is beating louder than the song playing at full volume in this empty, dark, quite room. I also acknowledge the realness of what I felt just few seconds ago with my closed lids. It felt too real to be an illusion and too illusionistic to be real since I never experienced an ocean. And within seconds like a very very strong sting, the fear encounters. The fear that I will never experience what I just experienced and what I was about to experience. The fear that I will never know what it feels like to walk on sand with bare feet and what it feels like when the ocean makes the first move and reaches to you, touching your toes. The fear increases tenfold when I realise that I will never be able to reach to "the point/the choice/the decision" as the water will snuggle my waist. The tears roll down as I realise that I will never be able to take any more steps ahead till there are no steps left and there prevails only deeper. The deeper which will allow the ocean to engulf me and make me its own and dissolve me in it. The fear that I will never meet my end before I die and till then my wounds will have no choice but to bleed.

The song ends and the door of my room creeks open and the first ray of sunshine of the day enters.

:-ishrah