Sleep

At eleven in the night, he stood under a pounding stream of cold water, his face help up to it. The pressure in the pipes was very good, so he lingered under the shower, moving the sting from one shoulder to the other.

A memory buried deep down in his mind and discarded long back came back to him.

Once while walking back from school, a white dog became his companion. That dog smiled at him and allowed him to tickle himself behind the ears and then complacently walked next to him for a while, stopping only to have his ears fondled again. They began a silent conversation and there was a twinkle in their eyes. At an intersection, the dog abruptly trotted off to the other side of road, and looked back a few times to see if He had followed. But that wasn’t his route, he stood there, transfixed, wondering if he should follow the dog. He didn’t follow. He stood, watching the dog walk away. That dog stopped, turned and looked at him, surprised, puzzled perhaps, amused may be. He wanted to go the dog’s way, to follow him to his vision. With a shrug of the shoulders dog was off, while he kept standing there.

He took a breath and moved his head so that the solid thrust at the centre of the flow pummeled him between the eyes. The lashing noise of it filled his head.

Outside in the drawing room, it was very quiet. There was no sleep yet, however tired he was and despite his yearning for it, he knew.

He lay on his sofa, with a bottle of Blenders Pride whisky and one of soda on the table in front of him. He drank in accurate sips, timed regularly. He allowed himself three pegs at the end of working days and recently had been resisting the urge to go to four. He was sitting with his face towards the window so he could watch the sky, lit still by the sky.

He had taken only 2 pegs till now, yet he was crushed, pulped by lassitude. He was barely able to get up and pull the table in front of him towards himself and lie flat on his sofa with his feet on the table.

A deep breath, and then another, and the edge of the table cutting into the back of this thigh receded, and in the swimming drowsiness he was able to forget details, and the world became a receding white blur. Yet a sharp undertow flung him into anger, and after a moment he was back in this world, able to remember he was restless about something.

He got up from the sofa and walked stiffly to the balcony. Beyond the fizzing fluorescent lights in the compound of the neighboring building, there was the darkness of the sea, and far ahead, a sprinkling of bright blue, white and orange that was Bandra. With a good pair of binoculars you could even see Nariman Point.

He remembered playing Cricket on the streets, the fast ‘pok’ of the tennis ball and the faces of friends and the feeling that he could hold the whole world in his hands.

Had it really existed? Those small empty streets, clean for children’s cricket games, or had he stolen it from some grainy black and white footage, too blur to remember now? Given it to himself in gift, the memory of happier place.

Sometimes loneliness spoke its iron hum of locusts behind his eyes. It was a suffering undiluted and pure. It was something monstrous he used to hide, even from himself. But he felt it, late at nights, at times like this, hidden under the contours of his eyes, which he touched with one hand and felt it, as if it were a mask.

He leaned against the railing of the window. He leaned out, trying to find a breeze. The horizon was hazy and far, with lights burning hard underneath. He looked down, and saw a glint in the car parked far below, a piece of glass, mica. He thought suddenly how easy it would be to keep leaning over, tipping until his weight carried him. He saw himself falling, his tee-shirt flapping frantically against his body, his leather slippers tumbling, the feet rotating and before a circle was complete, the crack of a skull, a quick crack and then silence.

He got back from the railing of the balcony.

He felt a sudden ache in his chest. It was as if two blunt stones were grinding against each other, creating not fire but a dull steady glow, a persistent and unquiet desire. It rose into his throat and before he knew the decision was made.

Twelve minutes of fast driving took him to the highway. The open stretches of road and the wheel slipping easily through his fingers were exhilarating but somewhere in the back of his mind, he was even more restless now. He was suddenly angry at himself, and wanted to turn around and go back. The question came to him: What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?

But it was too late, the journey half done, even though the first glad momentum was gone, he drove on.

By the time he pulled up and parked his car and walked to the Fizz Club it was one and he was too tired, but here he was and he could see the crowd around the door.

They parted for him and let him through. He got curious stares and silence as he stepped through. May be his T-shirt, His pajama, his leather slippers gave him away.

He squared his shoulders and found a corner in the bar and ordered a draught beer. With a beer in his hand, he had something to do, so he turned to face the crowd. He was hedged close, and it was hard to see anything more than a few feet, and everywhere they were talking animatedly, leaning close to each other and shouting against the loud music.

He drank his beer quickly, wondering what he is doing here. Exactly at a kind of place he so much despises. He tried to listen to the conversation on his left. They were talking about music, an American band that he had never heard of, a girl with her back to him, said loudly, “Its video was really cool, you just didn’t understand it, you dumb bitch.” And he lost the response from the pony-tailed boy facing her.

He upended his mug and wiped his mouth. The desire that had brought him across the city had vanished suddenly, leaving a dark residue of bitterness. It was late and he was finished.

He paid quickly and left. There was a different lot near the door now, but again the same silence, the same stares, same beaded necklaces, tattoos and piercing and practiced dishevelment and he understood, that he is an outsider there, that he doesn’t belong there and everybody knows this.

He walked towards his car, but lampposts, car, everything seemed far away and wanted very much to close his eyes.

He went home, and fell into his bed. The sleep that had seemed a very distant possibility sometime back, slid heavily onto his shoulder, like a choking black landslide and he slept.

May be hoping to wake up in a different world, May be not. Who knows.