FREE FALL

Prologue

"Does it matter if you've been doing good deeds all your life regardless of what background you're from when you have the incessant feeling that knocks on your doorstep time and again telling you none of this is relevant? Do you feel the need to stop, rewind and replay happy memories just so you can cope with the present that has done nothing but antagonise you simply due to the blatant truth that we, as human beings, are irrelevant.

Wars over easily sharable land, hurting nature to satisfy the greed for a vaster land acquisition, rivalry over materialistic things, revenge over the loss of someone that you cannot claim belonged to you and countless other trivial little details that make mankind despicable. Is there any amount of good that good people can do to counter it all?"

Raphael pauses for a minute, takes a sip of water and stares at a contemplating audience. Just as he'd expected them to react, they mimic his own curiosity towards life.

"Well, as I say these things I can't help but wonder if you caught yourself reflecting on your own life decisions. Do you think you're doing enough? I don't think we'll ever be able to do enough to find a real purpose in our meaningless lives. How can we when all we can do is put labels on everything to ease our minds into programming themselves to work with a schedule. We tune ourselves to accept this mundane task of growing up learning about things that are questionably true, get a degree for something we may not be passionate about as we then jump into work and authorities squeeze us dry until, ultimately, we die a very normal death."

He ponders over the known fact that all of this is very heavy to digest for an audience that came to see him purely because of his music. But as he looked at the confused crowd again, he realised he needed to get this through to them. His lyrics were far too deep for most of them to understand the seriousness of an existential crisis but a certain someone he met during his journey encouraged him to believe they were worth convincing. He run his fingers through his neatly trimmed black hair and took a deep breath. They need to know the real meaning behind his music.

"Science is a real blessing, you know? It gives you a clear cut definition to everything. You can't question science. At least, science enthusiasts won't. But what about those that question everything they see and touch or feel? What about the sensitive people out there? More specifically, what about the hypersensitive?" He said and glanced at the girls in front of him wearing his band's merchandise. They gushed at the fact that his bold green eyes met theirs. Not the exact reaction he was hoping for.

He let out a heavy sigh and then continued. "Hypersensitive people are usually the most creative of the lot. They feel- We feel a lot more about things. They may impact us directly or indirectly but they trigger the same emotions. Science is a blessing, yes. But, science is also a curse. You see, science requires things to be meticulously labelled and stored away in a mainframe. Its original content never to be manipulated, its name never to be changed but new information is always added under relevant categories. But the problem with that lies in the very fact that all this organised data doesn't account for the in-betweens. The little facts of life that aren't much science but more of morality and of utmost importance. That's where hypersensitive people begin to doubt themselves as individuals and crave for a deeper meaning into their lives."

At this point, Raphael's slow, somniferous speech turned the crowd listless. He detested this feeling of hopelessness. In his entire career, this audience has been the only one to witness Raphael Marcel's real unfiltered self. He toyed with the idea of yelling sense into them like his impatient past self would but he noticed a familiar tall frame walk into the huge room from behind. He smirked and reminded himself that despite his inability to get a crowd's attention through his long speeches even as a child, he needed to do this for himself too.

"As you can tell from my music, I'm a very hypersensitive person. I mean, if the constant references to a broken heart searching for a reason didn't tell you that then I don't know what to say." He chuckled remembering a little incident that had nothing to do with what he said and everything to do with the person he knew was watching him with those soft and curious eyes. The audience laughed with him. Most likely due to the fact that he was more at ease and became his slightly goofy self than to do with the untrue notion that they thought he was being funny and called himself emo. He relaxed himself with one half-smile and his signature 'Raph-stance' with his right hand tucked away into his pocket and his left fidgeting away with his precious little stone.

He saw the crowd slightly part in the middle for the person in the back to come to the empty place in the front. He smiled again thinking about what he's been able to achieve in such a short span of time and mentally told himself to get serious and just tell them what he wants to say through the method he does best.

"People of Bangalore. I think it's about time we got to know the real Raph without the awkward speeches. Don't you think?" He spoke into the mic. The lethargic crowd were thrown off by the sudden tempo change in his tone. But they loved it and woke themselves up.

He smiled his signature heart-melting smile and locked eyes with the most important person in his life standing in the front row. He didn't lose his contact with her and began to speak into the mic again.

"Let's experience all 9 cat lives with just this one. Dare to jump into the beauty of the unknown. Then embrace it. Free fall with me."

From the audience, one of his favourite people in the world stood there with a knowing look. She smiled back at him and nodded.