The One that crawled away

Who was telling the story? And whose story was it anyway? The words fluttered and
flew in the wind and while I was being anonymous, Little by little he just kept rotting
away. Like a snake his scale kept coming off everyday, except he was peeling pieces of
himself. I saw him wake up, slightly worse off than yesterday, probably just to get into
the groove of something worthwhile, sometime. He lay there with his eyes open. I
could see what he was trying to run away from.
Then suddenly, and beautifully, the calm cool offset of winter air waved upon me, and
I snuggled up to my blankie. It was fast becoming one of those morning when you
can't help but try to love yourself. My lips unwittingly let out a soft purr cuddling up to
my ears. ’Oh yes, this was perfection', I orgasmed.
My legs, still waiting to be shaken out of its drunken sleepiness, moved finally at my
absolute will. My command. I made it move slowly towards him, contemplating on the
way, all that had happened between us. It probably knew better, since it moved slowly,
but I was adamant. There were things to be solved. Life to be sorted. Everything was
going to be how it used to be. Or at least how I had envisioned it to be.
My legs had almost reached him. They were ready, unwillingly, to complete their
mission. That's when it happened.
'uurrrggghhh' , he commanded. In a very definitive way. I was so happy. It was finally
happening. Was today the day? Would it all happen today. But such things don't
happen in a day. Could he really mean what he meant. Or was he just implying. Or was
he? Was he? No, of course not, it had to be something profound, like always, like a
meteor impact or the death of a salesman(marketing, not direct. Dead door to door
salesmen are no big deal). Something that moved a generation to a greater
understanding of what we now know. As compared to what we previously thought we
knew. I know what we had come to. And it was a nice little understanding that we had.
He would rot away completely and I would just be. I never hated myself for it. Because
it was perfect and it was, as I felt it deep within my heart, just meant to be.
I knew I was getting late for work. It wasn't easy. I hated it. I did want to become a
thief once, but you see I did not know much about banking and insurance. So here I
am, caring for old dying men and women in an institution for the dying peeps.
Sometimes I fantasize about curing them and more importantly giving them a reason
to live. And then kill them. Taking care of dying peeps is one of the pristine pleasures
of my life. Amazing me, I proudly thought . So I slept. Peaceful. Wonderful.
'Have I gotten better?', he asked. I remember both those blue wide eyes with which me
looked at me with such compassion. That is obviously before he plucked one of them
out. 'one has to see clearly', he explained.
Two of them seemed pretty extravagant to me, so I got rid of one. I came forward and
looked deep into the empty eye socket. I don't know why I thought I might find
something in there. It for me seemed like light and darkness, we all choose our paths
to travel. Was he consciously choosing darkness? He and I, we had previously decided
that we would choose hope, but what a fucking bastard it turned out to be. Bailing on
us at every possible opportunity to love. Having faith in the bountiful reciprocation of
life had left us shattered and broken.
I got up and moved unenthusiastically towards my morning ritual. They say,
enthusiasm is contagious, but his optimism for sure seemed to extend in all directions
but me. I deemed this highly unfair, but he pleaded me to hold on until all of this gets
over. ' but do things like these really have an end, or any semblance of emotional
closure?' , I found myself wondering. But then again, you could always hope. After all
what other hope did I have. After my morning ritual, I sat down to meditate. I shifted
My jump starter from coffee to meditation after the downfall of the coffee bean. As I
came out into the real world after an hour I realized along the way that every act of
kindness is a manifestation of God. With the source of infinite love all around us, why
not make it manifest through me. I'll probably not kill those old peeps after all. It's
nice to realize and discover, but to move it into the physical took determination.
Thankfully I did get a chance of help him out. As he was shouting my name, I ran
upstairs half to see what the emergency was, and the other was my burning desire to
be of some special service to my man. It did make me so very happy. As I entered the
room, it was a complete mess. Things were thrown around and there was some blood
on the floor. In Spite of all the mess around I found myself transfixed with his
presence. Staring carefully from the bottom to the top. I stopped at His face which was
adorned with that cheeky sarcastic smile he broke into whenever he made a mistake. '
I only cut through half my bone ' , he said, demystifying his smile. As it turned out he
really needed my help. My first highlight of the day. He needed 'my' help. This day was
turning out to be just splendid. I took in my hand that splendid tool and carefully
worked on his arm. His left arm was a beautiful, large limb which had in its heyday
carried out the most complicated of tasks. He refused to use an anesthetic, probably
because he did not trust me, so screaming and wailing had become a part of our lives.
He was unapologetically abashed about how things had to be and wasn't shy at all to
express his annoyance at me. I looked at the mirror nearby. I saw that my upper lip
still needed medical attention. I sawed through the bone until it went through. It took
a lot of patience and perseverance. More than the time it took when we did his right
arm. I looked at him, through the stream of tears and sweat. We knew what we had to
do.
"Don't worry, we'll get an electronic chainsaw." he said.
'I was walking down the street and saw a beautiful red superblade. Let's get that one.'
His slanted smile answered in the positive.
I then became a little sad because I realized that he could never hug me again or put
my hair behind my ears, but then on the plus side he could not hit me too. Every cloud
has a silver lining. Stupid line, and pretentious.
'Will this always take this long?
When are we doing your legs?'
I prodded.
He exploded into a sardonic version of his cheeky sarcastic smile and said, ' You're
afraid I'll kick you, aren't ya?
Don't worry, I won't. because you see, one doesn't kick the person who feeds him.'
I was elated, I will have to spoon-feed him his every bite. No one really appreciated my
love. I had so much to give. But now here he was, with his open heart, welcoming me
into his life, and giving meaning to mine.
How indebted I am to him, the one person who finally accepted the love I offered and
did not try to take advantage of my romantic naivete. Because it is a fact that only
fools love. I wasn't born in an easy world. I had learned only to respect the shrewd and
cunning. At last I was at peace, with myself and with the fact that life is only worth
living if you find someone to accept your love.
In Spite of the fact that I saw him struggle everyday moment with himself and his
body, I have come to appreciate his honesty with the hand that he had been dealt.
As I left the room, I kissed him on both of his stumps hoping to make him realize that
even though he does not have hands now, he possesses something far greater. If only
he felt the same about me too. As I stood up to leave, he instinctively stretched out his
hands to hold mine, to make me stay more longer, just sit in silence with him staring
into each other's.
But then he asked. ' have I gotten better?'.
Do I look ugly?
Be honest.
So I ran away, laughing, completely enjoying my new found freedom.
As I was racing along the highway, smoking my weed, Roy Orbison began to crave for
his lost love. As the candy colored clown he called the sandman tiptoed into his room
every night, I couldn't help but drift into memories of how we first met. It wasn't
perfect, but now connecting the dots I can see, that it was complete.
The day I met him
How would I start my conversation?
I really do hope he sees me in my my red LBD.Oh god, it has to be the red LBD.
But on what day would he see me?
Will he see me and talk to me on the same day?
Or will I have to initiate the conversation?
I did have a date today. I don't really go to a lot of dates. Though my friends definitely
recommend otherwise. 'it’s a numbers game ' they say, 'the more guys you meet, the
more your chances increase of falling in love.' This idea did not exactly fit in my
scheme of things. Does meeting more people really increase my chances or does it just
suppress my insecurities in the short term. I am still confused about the idea of a soul
mate. stupid really, one should be perfect in all aspects, just like a puzzle piece that
fits, the last one, revealing the bigger picture. And it has to be someone from my city,
preferably not far away. How am I supposed to find my one true love among 3 billion
men? Probably not 3 billion, because most of us humans can't even manage to feed
ourselves. So How am I supposed to find my one true love among men that can
manage to feed themselves? Sometimes I wonder if the law of attraction really does
work, I hope it does and doesn't. If it Does, It would be a surprise and I would be swept
off my feet. Something that would happen on the most beautiful of days, at the
absolute perfect time. Today I definitely feel ready to welcome love and all of its little
moments of joy and happiness into my life. I so longed to just hold someone and tell
them how much I loved them and how much I can care for them.
I got up and started running as soon as I heard the gunshot. It was loud and clear. It
made its presence felt so much so that it made me think about whether it was worth
living my life waiting for someone else or was I responsible for my own happiness.
'shut this nonsense' , I told myself, ' your soulmate is definitely somewhere out there,
waiting to complete you.' Sometimes I wish it were something in me. Like if I were all
in all, complete just as I am. I really wish I did not have to wait for someone else to
complete me.
A few cops ran beside, one fat little saw me, then made up his hair into a frowning
spike, leaned forward at about 65° holding a poster, bowed, " Has this menace crossed
your vision, i.e. before I showed him to you?
"Of course he did, a real gentleman he was. Tipped his hat before he flew off."
Which way did he fly ma'am?
All the police officers took out their binoculars and scanned the sky.
"There he is", yelled the intelligent looking one. And surely, there he was, among the
flock of migrating birds.
The intelligent looking one winked at me and took out a mean looking sniper and
aimed at him.
SPLAT!!!! The sniper spliffed.
Yaeyuh!!!!
The officers cheered.
A bird came rushing down.
Awwww!!! I sneered.
Everyone of them looked down at me in disbelief. I was promptly fined for public
indecency before they ran off, apparently after the same man. I don't if I know
anything anymore.
As I finished up on my breakfast I thought about how a person could be so important
and cared for that so many official Authority figures ran after him, looking for him. He
must be lovely. He would probably walk beside the fat little and compliment him on
his frowning spikes. Or maybe he must have suggested it to him. Who says one cannot
be a fabulously kind person and a dermatological aesthete. I wish he would have
stayed a bit longer than he didn't. But how would it matter, It's not like I'm wearing
my red LBD.
As I walked away from my little public fiasco, I swore never to help anyone. God helps
those who help themselves, right? Good, do your own shit. In my opinion the best
people to be helped until recently used to be the dying peeps. It's just so selfless, and
easy. You can just shingle around them doing your thing while they wait to stop
breathing. Always filled with little surprises, sometimes they wink and smile, and
sometimes they're dead. It's nice when that happens. I'm quite the people person so
it's good to meet new people. One extremely kind peep once gave me a rose from his
bouquet. It was old and dried and had curled up from the edges.
"Ooooh! Look who’s being super symbolic now." I chided.
I wanted to comfort him, so I told him of that quote from that famous self help bitch,"
The beginning of the beginning is never unequally unproportionate to the end of the
end." He smiled and seemed comforted. Its funny how even a deaf man can be
comforted by words of wisdom. Another one went even further, it was beautiful. He
was paralyzed from the waist down, but whenever he saw me he would break into a 20
minute soliloquy from Shakespeare. It was beautiful. After 20 minutes when I clapped
he would be so encouraged to go on, but I would run away down the hall, not
screaming
But these loving days were now long gone.
Enter the unconvincibles, the neo life-ists who without their pills were surprisingly
morose. They did get their little life hits by strangling other people by their presence.
The first monster was a 10 year old son of a bitch. As I entered his room, he turned his
sideways bobbing head around, paused it, with what he thought was glimmer in his
eyes asked,
"Is it 10 o'clock?"
"A little bit", I replied.
He seemed satisfied with the answer and went back to bobbing his head, displaying
the simplicity of it with such grace and honour. I know you would think it funny if his
name were Bob, but what was even more funnier that " Is it 10 o'clock" was the last
thing he ever said. One would expect this kind of shit to be profound, something like,
The feeling of true gratefulness is an act of sharing love, and not about being happy
for having received it, or a trippy tongue twister, but no, people are more concerned
with the twenty two(ith) hour of the day. In my honest opinion most people that are
about to die would make great stand up comedians. At least the ones that can stand.
In between his mother's boring sobs she told me that 10 o'clock had a huge
significance in her son’s life. She looked up at me like one usually does expecting the
listener to come up with a sympathetic 'why?'. But as she saw me readying myself for
another one of my famous runaways she continued, "It was when me and his father
would stop fighting every day and go to sleep." I observed her swollen lips and in an
effort to try and cheer her up I pointed out to my wounded lips, squeezed her nose and
shouted, "same pinch".
One of the neo life-ists was a 23 year old girl, a total law of attraction junkie. She was
infected 8 years ago with HIV, which had now culminated into full blown AIDS. She
spent her entire day visualizing herself unfucking the guy that gifted her the virus,
and was freakishly positive all the time. "Everything is awesome", she would scream
hanging upside down from the ceiling fan. "It is, isn't it", I said joining her in her
upside down reverie. We spent a lot of time on that ceiling fan sharing stories from our
lives. After about four hours she asked me to switch the fan off. I hated every moment
of it. Though she was positive all the time she did cry once when I suggested to her
that she might attracted the HIV positive guy into her life. "No!!"
Now in a certifiably better mind state, I could now focus my attention to moments of
rare clarity. A great man once said, "Clarity is my birthright and I shall have it." And
had I did. Rare but more often than never before. Only in these moments I could see
this as it is. I realized that I needed to stop voluntarily auditioning for other people in
my head. As I was enjoying my new found self esteem, entered sheepishly my crush of
the month. Seeing him seeing me inspired my feet to rise methodically higher and
higher finally climaxing on my tallest toe in feared agony. Special. As I went twirling
towards him mindful of kids playing hide and seek around me, deciphering one at a
time, he somehow laboriously managed to take notice of me.
"How suave", I gushed. Beginning to wonder about ways to wind up my act different
tracked me to focus on a train of sub-thoughts as I knew I would surely love to indulge
in a regulation free zone.
He looked at me like I was the most obvious thing happening at that moment. Being
reassured of myself felt reassuring. Temporarily of course. Otherwise the
phenomenon of reassurance itself would be irrelevant.
And then to the perfect girl he said, " Say hey!" To which I hey'd back like blushing
feathers glowing in the dark. I did seem to glow from within. Actually to be honest I
was radiating love and joy. I knew for sure that I was the real deal when he followed up
with , 'You are that!'.
Maybe today I won’t kill myself.