Of Words

I decided that we would talk. Talk about anything at all, rather than just sit and get lost in the music, in our thoughts, in ourselves. It would be a change. A change most wanted to make us feel that we had moved from we were – an affirmation that we have been moving, we have grown. As elusive it might be, some kind of sign, symbol or affectation is always required to tell us that yes, we are no longer the same. Yes, the world has changed and with it, we have too. And the world will accept us only if we move with it or else, we become ruins.

So, this need to talk plummeted me to say just anything at all. And in that intoxication, I asked an absurd question, ‘Drowning or burning alive?’ Of course, there is no answer to this because we have no choice. But for a moment, we were to excuse all absurdities and imagine them to be real. We were to imagine that we have choice. Somewhere in the background lingered music, inspired by the crimson flight of flamingoes. Little, had I realized till then the searing gap between him and me – made palpable now with my words, my indifference and our incoherence. And between words said, there were vast sentences that should have been said. Sentences that bridge lovers. Strange, that which so unites two people now proves to be inefficient. It failed again – language. Somehow, I was pleased by the limitation of this construct.