Window
by Snehal Vadher
[ fiction - august 05 ]
1
Analogously, he grew just like a plant near a window: nourished by the wholesome golden sunlight, which now reflecting from his face makes it look like bronze. And just like the life of a little meaningless plant is overlooked by everyone, so was his. The room in which the sun was singing its golden arias was painted a monochromatic yellow, and thus the room acquired a fiery golden colour, which he was familiar with as one is with one’s brother’s habits. Later in the night, he could see silhouettes of super-unknowns and phantoms shaking hands or just passing through one another. The dogs would be busy with their orchestra practice. But now, today, as he awoke rather early and flung-opened the eyelids and took a deep breath which expanded his lungs to the size of a tennis court. In this court were all the dead and live things which decorated its mundane appearance: the flowers below in full bloom, the smell of their nectar, the faint smell of wet earth, the city reeking of organic waste in the distance shrouded by smog. And then his nostrils closed after they had safely trapped the garden of living and dead. But now, today, as he stands there by the window, his eyes hesitating to yield vision, the window did not hesitate. After a few hours it would be gaping at the cloudless sky, as if frozen in a scream from the horror it had witnessed. But then, tomorrow, or the day after, and the following flow of numberless days, this room will be littered with feathers, leaves, stones thrown by burglars to check whether someone occupies the house, and a ton of dust on top of all this.
2
This plant, unlike any other of its kind had flowers that blossomed in winter. And he always wondered about it. Yes, that and the aloofness of trees. The windows were always still under the strongest of gusts. They reflected his mood. Through the perched window-view, just like that through the wrong side of a telescope, he enjoyed the miniature life in its mundane varieties. No one knew that he was blind. It happened quite early in his life, till this time his third eye had already taken form. And there was always the window. His only real eye. But then, will this matter, to him or to any other soul, that when he fell through the six-storey silent poem, nothing of his life flashed before him. All memory seemed to be automatically erased. Only those treasured little things from his tennis court; the flowers, the butterflies, the smell of nectar, the smell of damp earth, and the smell of the city; all were released and spread in all directions, as do trapped birds when freed. How he was spat on the cold ground by reality. How could he have not embraced the view that his sacred window lent him everyday? That futile life which was waiting for him to be lived, and how far it seemed to him, and how aloof. Yes, aloof like trees.
