To Infinity and Beyond

This is a story I wrote for a personal essay competition in my college. I didn’t end up winning, and even had to change format mid way through. But it forced me to finally sit down and write some fiction, and boy am I glad I did :)

I wake up at 2:00 AM, drenched in sweat. I had to have won this time, after all I was tussling with this enigma for quite some time now, something had to give ?

It’s been a week since it first showed itself, and in a week it had grown to torment me so. I’d seen it by chance, near the zoology department. It was nothing more than a stray thought, an incoherent babble that was inconsequential or so I assumed. Wide awake, I try to come up with a new plan of attack, lots of them had failed. It would seem this was a deeply personal monster, one that none of my friends could ever hope to imagine. To guess it’s age was near impossible, maybe put an upper limit but that was as far as one could go. It was also well hidden, so much so that I almost forgot about it. It was powerful in the sense that it could do as it pleased, no chains would ever bind this beast. It came and went as it pleased, each visit leaving me mentally distraught. Something about this felt funny, like an episode of Scooby Doo. Would I ever catch this beast ? Certainly not today, I told myself as I let sleep take over me.

One Week Ago

On the way to college I spot a red light, Malavika had red hair. Before I can finish that thought a flood of memories assail me, but the memories aren’t by themselves this time. I’m taken to a time and place in the past. I’m a school boy again, eagerly waiting for the lunch bell to ring, excited to spend the break with her. Oddly enough, I’m not as nervous as I remembered myself to be, I’m composed, sure of myself and don’t care what anybody else thinks of us, obviously this is not 10th grade. Before I can understand what’s happening Malavika comes over and we go out to lunch. So far so good, alas nothing good is meant to last. I can feel a wild energy take over me, manipulating me without warning or regard. I ask her out again, I know how this will end. I think I saw the beast, it looked to be smiling. My gut wrenches as the words leave my mouth, words I don’t want to speak this time around. The ways in which her face change hurt me way more than any words could. In an instant I find myself on my terrace, crying my heart out. I’m lost all over again, “ Can’t I do anything right ? Can’t I get anybody to stay ?” I ask myself as I see it again. I try to give it chase, but the signal turns green and I’m back on way to college.

You think she’s adorable, she thinks that you’re intolerable. You think you can do it, but your chances are improbable. Once you feel unstoppable you run into an obstacle. Isn’t life beautiful, I think that life is beautiful.

“Ay, did you write this crap and put it in my pocket ?”, I ask m&m, a monosyllabic “no” calms my nerves. I distinctly remember my pockets being empty in the morning. “Weird, just moments ago I was in another trance”,I think to myself as I open it up to unleash its contents. “It’s a labyrinth, each part equally dense and bewildering. It’s surrounded by trees so dense, no light reaches the surface. To add to the complexity, the tortuous place is constantly under construction. The place grows, shrinks and crumbles indiscriminately. It extends indefinitely in space, but at one point of time everything goes kaput, no redemption, no afterlife, just black. There’s no rules to this place, most of the nights are richer than the days. It’s a matrix of information, of energies, of experiences. Lately though something weird is happening. A storm sweeps over the place and all boundaries of spacetime are crossed, the inhabitants of different phases are thrust into the same plane, a large amalgamation which makes the least sense in this already illogical domain, This is also when the skyhole opens up, everybody has their theories but no-one knows for sure.”, it reads. I am thoroughly confused at this point, I keep it in my bag and put my hands in my pocket, just as I like them. That’s when I find another piece of paper.

“It’s happening again, the skyhole is raging violently and I’m not about to waste this. It glows purple now, last time was a dark hue of gray. The last time it changed color it pulled matter into it, I noticed, just before I leaped in. I woke up at the Bangalore Football Stadium, on a cold metal bench. There was a match going on and seats, sweat and screams were at maximum capacity. My eyes were drawn to a scrawny kid on the bench, whose legs shook so violently they were ready to fall off. It looks like the kid from last time, I stuck to him for the rest of my time ‘beyond’. I realized I could feel the same emotions as the kid, and right then he was afraid. He was so scared I could hear his heart beat with all that noise around, 90 minutes lasted a lifetime. It was his turn to play now. I felt his insides rollercoaster as the ground beneath me changed from concrete to grass. Everybody on the pitch was in the zone and the kid fumbled on the pitch. I wondered who was more disappointed, the coach or the fans ? The kid messed up a couple more times and we were suddenly transported to a locker room. There is no one there. I think the kid’s watch read 5:09 AM, that’s when my fear set in. Self doubt so acute, I doubled over. It was this point that I was pulled back and had to return back home. I hope we meet again, this feels like a fun little routine. “ Now I’m confused and scared, how did somebody else experience what I just did a few moments ago myself ? When did they write about it and leave notes in my pockets?

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti. He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting. What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so wild.

I find myself on my bed again, staring at the ceiling. I’ve spent lots of time trying to figure this out. My friends think i’m crazy, my mom blames the smartphone and google diagnoses schizophrenia. But I know I’m not alone, somebody else is experiencing this with me and I need to find out if that relates to the experiences I have had. I am frustrated, this shouldn’t be taking so long. I could kill for a solution. “Why is this so bloo-”, my scream is cut mid-way as I spiral backwards into my bed, it’s happening again. I’m at the playground now, the one in Mumbai. “I haven’t been there in ages”, I think to myself as I take in the surroundings. I’m a kid now, I realize, just as I realize what I’m about to do in a hot minute. I was never the violent type, but I like what’s about to happen. I am near the swings with a bunch of my friends, rather the soon to be broken swings. Aryan insults me for no reason and it hurts my infinite ego. I can see in my mind’s eye, what I am going to do seconds before it happens. I feel in control of myself this time around, do I still want to do it ? I respond with something doubly insulting and much beneath me. As my fist closes in on his face, I spot something in the background clear as day. “It can’t be”, I think to myself as I come rushing back to the bed. The swing remains broken.

You hated what he said, right ? Beat his ass, leave him at the spotlight. I know you wanted change, but nobody’s around. So, kick him again while he’s on the ground , yo. I’ll never be the same, I need someone to blame(take it). And I see somebody talking with a mouth that’s full of teeth I want to break.

The present day

I’m most productive in the morning, and that’s exactly why I am racking my brain for answers to my dilemma at 6:30 AM in the morning. I try so hard to remember, forcing my brain to fish in the darkness, praying for a miracle. That’s when my phone rings the black panther tune and everything falls into place. I realize who has been writing those letters, who has been troubling me all this while. It all makes sense, the Scooby Doo factor checks out. The ‘beast’ is me, a me from the past albeit. It’s a manifestation of all my experiences, good and bad, sour and sweet. It’s an epic combination of everything I’ve been through condensed into a list of words, words that add up to rhyme, in verses that bring back memories. The songs I’ve heard have been related to each of these experiences, and all the minutiae from all those events somehow come back each time I see something even vaguely familiar. But the recollection is strongest when I listen to songs, it’s almost like there’s an ancient power in them, something beyond our reach that make them such special tools for recollections. Each time I hear these songs, see these moments, feel these feelings, I am transported to a time when they actually happened. They give me a chance to relive these things in all their glory, they give me a chance to revisit my experiences, sometimes with new experiences, sometimes without. Songs help me tap into an energy I feel only when I dream. They give me a chance to reflect and make wiser decisions in the present, they remind me to slow down when life is flying by too fast. The songs(that I listen to) are also always changing, they are portals to immerse yourself in new experiences and relive old ones. They are a form of self-discovery that seem almost magical, the ability to appreciate music and songs, and to relate to them in such a manner, I think is the surest indication of a soul.

He said “One day you’ll leave this world behind, So live a life you will remember”. My father told me when I was just a child, “These are the nights that never die”, my father told me.

P.s. The letters I received were infact pages from the “beast’s” journal, in my mind the perfect me journals every day of the week.