Nimesh Bastola
“Damn, the rain!” He had always loved the rain but that time he cursed the rain. It may sound strange but we hate the same thing once we loved desperately. It’s simple; we change by our need and circumstances. After all, we are just a human being bounded by our own conditioned human nature.
He was going to meet his friend whom he used to share the complexity of life as much it can be verbally expressed, in the highest, lowest and most conscientious moments. But he was being interrupted by the rain. He took an umbrella and stepped into the street. The street was partially covered with water. He started kicking the water like a playful child and moved his leg as fast as he could because the right side of his body was getting wet from the windy, howling rain.
“Boy!” he heard a distant sound but that couldn’t make him stop. The same word repeated again and this time with louder intensity. He looked back and noticed that a middle aged man was following him. “I am under the naked sky, showering with full clothes and you are walking under the umbrella like a king. Who are you? Napoleon Bonaparte?” The man’s humor made the boy smile. He tried him to adjust under his umbrella. “What do you think, young man? Will the king return?” The stranger asked as he was a reporter from some local devastated press. The question seemed easy, expected answer was also not very hard, could be answered in “yes” or “no” but the contemplation needed to answer was quite mentally laborious. He was trying to answer but at the similar moment he noticed that his right side had been completely wet. “Napoleon was a general, and later became emperor, not a king.” He split same level of humor but the reason of that humor was his right part of the body which was completely drenched by the rain. He was feeling discomfort being wet and as well as being glued to the stranger who looked more peculiar than a normal person.
“What do you do?” he asked the man.
“Long long time I used to be an unemployed and there came a time when I worked as a teacher and now same old boring never ending eternal job. What do you do?”
“Ah! Sometimes I ramble to find the characters”
The man spoke instantly “So you are a dreamer?”
“If somebody would ever write about me they can present me as a dreamer.”
“So you are a Shakespeare not a Napoleon. I guess you have some kind of name.”
“What’s in a name?” the boy replied proudly.
“Yeah, yeah. Mr. Shakespeare.”
‘Hummm” the boy laughed uniquely in one’s own way.
The rain was increasing so wildly, with furious wind, as if it wanted to blow away everything that came in its way—including the umbrella.
“Are you happy?” the young one inquired his second question. Actually, that was more of a quest rather than just a mere question.
“What is happiness? How can you determine that someone is happy or sad? Happiness is a preconceived, enthusiastic state of mind. You can kill someone and can be happy. You can love somebody and can be sad. It’s all about mindset.”
“You seem happy,” he interrupted.
“I was desperately melancholic when I was in your age, Mr. David Foster Wallace. But now I have proven myself succeed in revolting against the complexity of life.”
“There must be another way too” the boy interrupted again. But this time he spoke slowly and politely.
“There is another way by acknowledging and implementing the semi-conditioned human faith, by choosing the direction towards our own determination.”
“And what about the middle way?”
“You cannot vogue by stepping on two ships.”
“Well I haven’t vogue yet. You may be right.”
“Neither have I.”
Both expressed their same level of amusement allying the junction between smile and laugh.
“What do you think about our past, about the nostalgia? I am diseased by the memories. I have become the victim of the past memories. When I encounter a single thing, I remember many things. That’s really pushing me towards death like darkness. I feel unbearable pain like I am burning alive.”
“Listen young man, I myself have come from the past and simultaneously from the future. We may don’t have same experiences and same name. But we are indistinguishable if you change your mindset, you can see yourself in me. If you change the mindset, you can be happy anytime. Contemplate the acquired knowledge, acknowledge the fact and implement as per your destination. And the destination is to be happy, to get redeem from the undesired sensations. For that, you have to pass those first two stages and have to reach up to the stage of implementation walking up with all gathered information. This is only the way to live wishful and peaceful life.”
“Who are you? What’s your name?” The boy was allured by his philosophical gabbling.
“I am not you but if you able to see me clearly I am no one but you. And what’s in a name?”
“So you too are a Shakespeare, a dreamer?”
“I said I am you.”
“Ahh! I am not so much interested in magical realism. Make it clear. Who is going to write about this? Are you going to write about me?” The boy interrogated.
“We both are going to write.”
“How that can be possible. How I can be a character while I was searching for a character?”
“If your change your mindset and accept that you are just a character of a story then you can understand many things. You can acknowledge those things. It’s just about the mindset how you want to see the world. You are nothing beyond mind and there is nothing beyond your mind. And you can be happy if you understand, acknowledge and implement this in your daily chores of life.”
“Alright, I understand and I will try to acknowledge and implement that,” the boy expressed with long stretching breathes as he was tired of all those things.
They were walking carefully, but their care seemed careless, like a drunken man who looks unsteady no matter how hard he tries to control his movements. The same was true for them. Both wanted to be careful of the rain, but their care was turning into carelessness. The young one also wanted to be cared for in many ways. He wanted to care for himself through happiness, but he always found sadness lurking close behind.
The mobile rang at the same moment and the boy got to know that the friend whom he was going to meet was unable to come owing to the heavy rain.
The boy was thinking about to return but he also captured by the little fragments of compassion for the man. He thought to handle him the umbrella. And when he handled, the man gasped the umbrella as he already knew that he was going to give or like the umbrella was none others but of him.
“I know today you want to get wet in the rain.” The man spoke as soon as he took the umbrella.
“Now I am no more going to ask any questions. I have asked too many questions. And I have asked countless, unutterable questions to myself.”
“I know. I know. Happiness doesn’t come in answers. You have to create it,” the man said, laughing as loudly as he could—like he was lying on grass, possessed by marijuana, or perhaps truly content with life.
They remained silent for few minutes as if to win the sound of moaning rain by being humble and in quite defiance of it.
The stranger said “Thank you for the umbrella.”
“Thank you too for being a character” he mumbled.
They parted and walked in opposite directions.
The boy was showering with clothes as the stranger had said before. And he loved getting wet by the rain too.
Somewhere in the back of the café, the song ‘Pictures of You’ by The Cure was playing, as if its distinct sound were trying to overcome the noise of the windy rainfall. That was the song which wouldn’t be so exaggeration to say that it was written for him and about him. He had recommended that song to someone whom he desperately adored. He also remembered that how that person seemed sentiment less towards him and towards his recommendation and all his creative expressions.
There are people in this world whose heart don’t go out for others even if they are handed with a suicide note in their hands. They seem like they are designed not to grasp certain things, born within boundaries and die inside the same boundaries. We understand them by investing tons of efforts but they simply walk away from us and from themselves too without ever knowing how wonderful they are. And the song was enough to evoke all these things, all the melancholic memories.
He felt like crying in the rain because it was the safest moment to cry and a perfect place to hide his tears, letting them flow like river. He He shed unusual tears that day. Those were not the tears of total sadness but also stirred with the strange encounters of his life. And more than that, that was the first time in his life when he felt bliss during crying, a weird kind of joy in shedding tears.
When he reached home the rain started falling more vigorously outside. As he looked out the window, everything seemed white. Just white, nothing more but he saw himself trying to escape from the darkness making analogy with the rain. And later he found himself being stuck in confusion. Whether had he found a new character or he himself had become a character! He tried to acknowledge himself as a character, but it was really hard for him to implement. So was exactly to be happy.
