staying.cool

His hand reached out..

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”

It needed to be done. Why could he not just do it ? Seemed simple enough - to pull a lever. Whatever happened after that really didn’t make the slightest difference.
Or did it ?

Confusion, frustration, irritation, elation. The old ways never really leave you. Randomly connecting words and seeing if they make sense. Even now, when he had bare seconds to make this decision. Or, as he was doing, avoiding the decision.

His hand grasped it. Now all that remained to be done was to…

**************

Pull it, pull it, PULL IT !

Damn. Yet, again. He couldn’t.

His hand was poised in mid-air. Inches away. Seconds away from doing it.

He couldn’t. He didn’t have it in him to do it.

He suddenly notices the contrast between his fingers and the implement that hovered tantalizing in reach. It looked… different. His fingers danced, showing off the sheer dexterity… that he just could not use in this one simple task.

Why ? Could he really answer that question ? Was it a question worth answering ?

Maybe the lever didn’t want to be pulled ? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was subtly influencing what he was doing, this ’second thoughts’ business. He should break it, teach it a lesson. Just for the record, this was all the levers fault.

Whom was he trying to fool ?

**************

The lever waited, eventually the hand would come to grasp it. The hand was poised mere inches away, but it could have been a million miles away for the amount of time it seemed to be taking to decide whether to grasp it or not.

And then, two minutes later, the impatient kid jumped off the merry-go-round, pulled the ‘on’ lever.. and ran back in time to enjoy the ride.

Such is life. Much ado is made about… nothing.

A step. Another. Hands extended to hold.

Sidestep. Step back. Unclasp hands for the twirl.

Twirl. See the smile on her face. Time the end to meet her in the hold again. Smile back at her upturned face. Place head over hers, as it rests right… there. Move serenely in the music, the two of you comfortable in the moment, in the hold, in the semi-embrace.

Feel her breathe against your chest as the music slows, the moment lingers, time barely seems to exist.

The movement has slowed to a gentle sway with music that is felt, rather than heard. Both your feet move in synchronisation, the merest of steps mirrored perfectly. You hold her, she holds you. Slower.. slower.. and for a moment the two of you aren’t moving at all. Just standing in the others arms, neither of you realising it. Eyes slowly fall shut.
Bliss.

Open your eyes suddenly, and realise your hands are holding… nothing.

Wish there was someone there for once. To dance the night away.

Terpischore was the Greek muse of dance.

I hate it when this happens.

Which is not to say it happens very often. This is possibly the first time. To be honest, though I’ve often wondered what it’d be like if it actually did happen.
Old proverbs are essentially true - ‘Be careful for what you wish for’, they say - I wasn’t, and now I’m regretting it.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve not actually expounded on what has happened.

I’ve lost physical existence.
Yeah, read that again. Physical existence. In other words, my “astral body” is currently typing these words to you. Or soul, if you believe that kinda thing. Or ‘mental projection of the physical self’, to get all ‘matrix’-y on you.

You might think there’s a fallacy there. Spirits, or to give them a more popular name, ghosts; do not usually have the ability to grasp things. We’ve seen it in the movies.

Well, news flash :”mental projections” do.
What ? They’re one and the same thing ? Not really. Ghosts are more like mindless. I, however, have a pretty functioning mind. I think electrical synapses have made a transition into photonic dimensions. But it also means that ‘trains of thought’ could get diverted easily. You know, like a misfiring of a brake. or a gun. Saving the hero just in time…

No, wait. I was talking about this new plane of existence for me. Kinda cool, actually. Fingers keep slipping through the damn keyboard.. but the material seems slightly more resistant than say… my chair. I’m currently also partially concentrating on balancing on it. Spirits are not prone to gravity. What goes up, stays up.

Why am i posting about this on a blog ? Which has a miniscule readership as compared to, say, more than half the blog-world ? Blog-world, that makes it sound like a parallel universe. With its own laws n shit. Nice. I wonder who’d make ruler. Or super-villain… ummm… wait, wait. Why i’m doing this. Right. Well, felt like the kinda thing that you’d talk about on a blog. When you have nothing else to talk about. And work piling up by the minute. Yeah, its all gooooood.

Now, I have to figure out what i’m going to do with this kinda “power”. I could possibly make fleeting trips to random places. Nice. I will never be able to walk. Who cares ? I’m going to be flying ! Hey, I can even do those spidey-stunts. For real. Yay.
Maybe I should be doing that kinda cool stuff. And scaring the living shit out of everyone I know. Not struggling to type here. Jesus, this takes real mental effort. Kinda like a pointer of what we could really do if we wanted. I’m currently balancing myself in mid-air, materializing my fingers enough to type, and thinking about all this.

Umm.. wait. Fell down. Ouch. Interesting, thinking about thinking is not good. Yowch… askjldnsad; there I went again. Dammit.

There’s always a catch. Crap. I wonder… worth a shot, anyway. Anyone out there know how to reverse loss of corporeal existence ?

A random flight in fantasy. Inspired by a half-hour chat with kanchan going:

me: ha h
my laughter was cut off because i died
Kanchan:
is that ur astral body chatting then?
me: yes

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait… for you

His feet hit the sidewalk. As he walked forward, the world around him seemed to disappear into a background.. a background that was too distant to see. His head was bowed, his pace was brisk. Hands were stuck in pockets, feet encased in sandals.. and he looked tired.
A rain drop hit his head.

And everything seemed to slow. As the drops started to fall, he slowed down. Slower, slower, until he was almost languidly strolling in the rain. The rain had heightened, and was now a brisk drizzle. His shirt and jeans were getting damp.. but he didn’t seem to feel them. His face was no longer bowed, it was looking into the distance; as though he would see something coming towards him.

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for… you

He stopped. Looking. There was almost no-one on the sidewalk around him, people were taking shelter. A few cars drove carefully down the street beside him. He noticed nothing. His face was wet, his spectacles dripping. And he continued to look. Involuntarily, his hands snaked up to his head and tried to set his drenched hair.

And all at once, he looked up. As the raindrops hit his upturned face, his arms came up in an embrace engulfing the rain. Drops settled on his face, and randomly formed paths down.. down his neck, dampening his collar.

His face seemed to crumple, and then regained its impassiveness. His arms dropped back to his sides though, and he stood there, his shoulders drooping. His head bowed. He looked down to his feet, and wiped his face with wet hands. A shake, a rueful smile. A parting of his hair again. He looked away again, almost hoping; daring to hope.. wanting, knowing… it was never to be.

All at once, his face was wet. He looked up again, tears mingled with rain and flowed away. He took off his specs, and rubbed his eyes.

“Don’t. You know that’s bad for you.” Her voice.

Shock.

He turned.

No-one.

A deep sigh.

I can’t live
With or without you
With or without you

“This is not the way.”

Anonymous words, really. He thought back. Some random movie, probably. The words were appropriate, the usage justified. He looked away.

Why does he have to resort to cliches ? Its a matter of speaking from the heart, right ? She didn’t know what to say. How could she ? There really is no reply to cliches, empty or otherwise. Damned idiot. Even though she knew his next words would be…

“Say something.”

Bang on cue. Silly fool. She looked at him. After everything that had happened, it had come down to this. This. Fate, it seems, is not without its sense of irony. Now she was doing it too. Shite.
As if on a defence mechanism, her mind went back. To the first time. And the reversal of roles since then.

She’s going on a memory trip. He knew that look. And he was out of ideas. Blame, time, situations, emotions… nothing really made sense anymore. Was there a way to end it ? Not really. He liked rhetoric and cliches. Not surprising.

He was not looking at her. Not surprising. At all. Was he really to blame ? A question she thought she had had the answer to. I don’t know. To think it could all be over in a matter of seconds. But that would leave no closure. And they needed closure. A glance.

A glance. His closure was coming. Finally.

*Click*
*Click*

Explosions. Slow motion. Classic movie-style. Apparently, they’re based in reality.
Satisfaction.
They both started to smile.

The camera panned out, hovering over the remnants. the game screen menu appeared, translucent enough to show the aftermatch.

He tore his eyes off the screen, just as hers turned towards his face.

“You know, we really need a better way to resolve our fights.”
“You just say that coz I kicked your butt.”

Sigh. What would she do without this ?

His fingers moved over the surface in front of him with almost lightening precision; apparently with a mind of their own. Even as the thoughts crystallized in his head, they appeared on the screen in front of him.. no deviations, the pictures in his head caught and captured even as the hazy image they formed was discernable to his mind’s eye.

A pause. The images seemed to vanish in the wink of the eye. He looked at the keyboard fo the first time since starting the write-up. Unsurety. He looked away.. trying to collect the multitude of thoughts that seemed to form all at once; apparently trying to fill a void.

He shook his head. The idea was lost. Lost in a clamour of voices in his head.. all apparently trying to tell him what they meant.
His eyes closed. Thoughts were considered individually.. and segregated. Even as he leaned back onto his thinking couch.. the mind seemed to fill with drawers, filing cabinets; opening and closing as thoughts were eliminated as unimportant; unneccessary.. or just plain unwanted at that point.

To the external observer, they might be forgiven for thinking that the man was resting.. relaxing; a machine in place of the processes that were running would have burnt out at the speed at which he was forcing the process to happen.
A convulsive jerk, and his eyes snapped open. The idea was back. He seemed to rush to the keyboard, almost afraid that it would disappear again. the fingers flew over the keypad again.. and the thoughts were poured out again…

Done.

Almost in slow motion he was back in the reclining position, trying to see what he might have missed.. no weak links; no holes. He shook his head. No.

He leaned forward. The pointer hovered over ‘Send’…

The door opened.