By Kumar Shaurya Singh
‘Hey Billy,’ the voice of your colleague reached your ears as his head popped over his computer screen, ‘All of us are thinking of going to the food court to grab a bite or two. Would you like to join us?’
You smiled at him and said: ‘No Jon. It’s alright. I’ve already had some.’
But this was a lie. The truth was that you never liked spending time with any one of them. Each day, for the past 7 years, you had come to your office alone, and every day you left alone. You did not like hanging out with any one of them. You were quite professional in your work as well and finished all your projects on time, but apart from these jobs, you had no other relationships with anyone. You were always alone.
So as you watched the small group of 10 head over to their lunch, you pulled out your favourite tobacco from your pouch and rolled yourself a small cigarette. Then you went to the roof of your office building and there, in the cool shade of the roof garden, you decided to light it up.
But your lighter refused to work. You clicked it again and again and after every click, you saw the sparks but there was no light. You were frustrated but immediately, a voice came to you which said: ‘Let me assist you.’
And even before you could look at the source of the voice, a hand appeared in front of your eyes and it had a silver lighter in it which had a small orange flame burning at the top. So out of habit and instinct, you put the cigarette butt in your mouth and puffed up the spliff to get it going. However, when you emerged from the cloud of smoke and looked at the man, you were so shocked that you actually opened your mouth and the cigarette joint dropped down on the ground and lost its light.
The Man was no Man. He was no Woman either. He was just there. A Being. Outside the dominion of He or She; but when you looked at it a jolt of terror ran up and down your spine and your entire body trembled strongly like trees tremble when there is a storm about. Your breath stopped and your thoughts went blank, as a horrible feeling pervaded your being and filled you with dread. You couldn’t stop your hands or feet from shaking.
The Being just looked at you impassively and smiled. But immediately the temperature around you dropped alarmingly and even as you stood there on the roof in the middle of the noon, you started shivering.
Then it glanced at the floor and bent down to retrieve the cigarette. After lighting it up once again and taking two puffs, he looked at it with love and said: ‘Ah Cigarettes...cigarettes. I owe them so much. You know, these babies alone are responsible for doubling up my business. Without them, almost a quarter of my employees might go jobless.’
As you stood next to The Being, you felt like you were reliving the horror of all your nightmares together at the same time. But after finding your voice you finally managed to ask: ‘Who are you?’
The Being smiled, put his cold hands on your shoulder, and said: ‘I am Death. Billy, your time has come. Let us go now. I don’t want to waste any more moments. Quickly now. Wrap it up.’
Your life flashed in front of you, like a movie: one scene, skip, another scene, skip, and all headed towards the final destination. You saw your Mother, Father, Sister, and pet. You saw your school teachers, neighbours, and strangers. The vision of your college life went by in one single flash and your job life appeared in front of your eyes like a tv montage. Everything ended in about a second until your gaze fell back on the ominous Being in front of you and a scream erupted from your heart. But your voice was gone. This was your reality.
The Being said: ‘Ok. So Ready?’
Your voice returned. You shouted: ‘No Please! Please! Not now. Please! I haven’t done anything yet. Not even a single thing. Please. It’s too early for me. There are still things that I want to do. Dreams that I wish to accomplish. Don’t do this to me, please. I still want to live.’
Death chuckled and shook its head like a wise teenager and said: ‘ Now doesn’t that sound familiar…. Where have I heard it before...’ and he chortled in mirth.
Another vision flashed past your eyes and you were not satisfied with it at all. It felt like a major chunk of it was missing. It felt like a movie that had no plot in it: just a bunch of random scenes without any protagonist or character development. You were always Billy Bonundrum and nothing significant had ever happened in your life that had made you feel like it was a satisfying one. It felt like the chief glamour of your life was yet to come. Right there, in front of Death, your life felt like an incomplete novel, an unfinished project and you pleaded with all your heart for another chance:
‘Please. Please. I haven’t accomplished even a single thing in my life. O, Lord! Whoever you are. Please give me more. I want to live more. I don’t want to die.’
The Being looked at your life, contemplated upon it deeply, and said, ‘What are you saying? You have accomplished so many things? You have got such a nice flat for yourself and a whooping 8 figure salary. My God! A man of your age and enjoying this much money? I’d say you are doing pretty damn good buddy...or maybe I should say that you were doing damn good buddy. Now that I have come, the good times can come to an end.’ He smiled as he said the last sentence.
‘Please! O, God! Please! All this is nothing. I hate each and every single moment of it. I had never wanted to do this. I had always wanted to do photography. I had wanted to paint and mix colours. I just got stuck in this line of work. I hate every single moment of it. Please give me another chance. My dreams still live in my heart. Don’t kill them please. Please. I don’t want to go. ! I want to make some friends! I don’t even have friends yet.’
‘Well,’ Death sniggered, ‘ you're certainly not going to be missed. That ought to make it easier for you.’
Your face went fully white and your mouth dried up as you tried to conjure syllables but nothing came out except hollow air. Your eyeballs shook in horror as they pleaded for mercy. Meanwhile, a beeping sound came from Death’s black jacket pocket and he put his hand inside and retrieved a small Black Tablet. He flicked the screen and tapped some icons. Then he chuckled and said:
‘Two drunk drivers cruising on a highway. Well, well. Looks like I really have to be somewhere else. Let's go, Billy. Let's get this over with once and for all.’
He grabbed your collar and attempted to drag you. But suddenly your entire body became as heavy as a petrol truck tanker and your bones felt like lead to you. Death grabbed you by the neck and tried to take you with him but your heavy body refused to budge. It was as if you were cemented there like an iron statue.
He stopped and scratched his head once. Another beep went off in his jacket and he brought out The Black Tablet quickly, tapped it once, and put it back inside. Then he turned to you and said:
‘Are you sure you want to live?’
Your voice was still not available to you so you nodded ferociously and expressed as much with your eyes as you could. Then Death said:
‘In that case,’ and he pulled out his Black Tablet once again and pulled up an admission form on the screen, ‘Sign here, and here, and here. That’s it. No, wait. Almost forgot. You have to sign here as well.’
After he made you sign at 7 different places, he finally put The Black Tablet back inside and said:
‘A Life has been given to you Billy. You are lucky. Many others are also lucky like you but they don’t realize the divine value of their luck. One day the luck will run out and then I will be there to comfort and console them. I hope you don’t turn out like the others Billy. I hope you use your luck wisely. Off you go now. Oh, and I believe this is yours.’
He lit up the cigarette joint, took three deep drags, and passed it back to you. Then he turned his back to you and departed leaving you alone with nothing but the burning cigarette in your hand. You gazed in the emptiness and then quickly threw the cigarette away in pure hatred and anger.
***
A lot of people have exclaimed that life is a tragedy. They have enumerated the numerous pains and terrors of our life and they have proudly established that all the process of life is ultimately a pain in the ass. They have said that everything in life is mundane, repetitive, and boring and the same things have been repeating since the beginning of time. They have successfully commented upon the triviality of life with well-placed hatred and it is a well-known fact that Tragedy is given a very large value due to statements and exclamations made by these people.
I disagree with them. I think that Life is a Comedy. It is a joke and those who get the joke, they are laughing all the time. In fact, if you pay attention right now, and snap out of the illusions of tragedy then you might even hear that laughter. It's so contagious that even you will start laughing. It is a joke after all.
But not everybody gets the joke. Maybe some jokes are subtle and have to be worked at before they can be enjoyed. Some jokes are secret jokes and you will get them only if you know the inner meaning. Nonetheless, a joke is a joke, and those who get it laugh because of it, and those who don’t get it they don’t laugh. Life is a joke and thus some of us are laughing all the time while the others are not laughing. I think it is as simple as this.
Yet I know that you won’t agree with me at all.
Ever since your encounter with Death, you have never been able to enjoy even a full-on comedy show let alone a small joke.
Every single affair for you had become a serious problem. Everywhere you went, you glanced left and right and were always on the lookout for death. You could never really be yourself after the incident and the daunting thought of its voice terrorized you time and again.
One day, you spotted your horrified face in the mirror and said to yourself: ‘What am I really afraid of? Death? Why am I afraid of it?... It is because I haven’t lived a fulfilling life. I have everything in my life that I could have possessed, but it is still not enough. Something is still missing. What is it? What is Missing?
‘I know it! I know what is missing. Creativity is missing. I haven’t unleashed my creative energies at all. All my life, I have been working on projects and reports, and assignments, but I have never ever worked on anything that came from the depth of my own heart. I’ve satisfied all my bosses and superiors and leaders with my work but I have never satisfied myself; I have never satisfied my own heart.
‘Thus, I will not be afraid of death. I will fulfil the promise that I gave to Death and I will unleash my creative energies. I won’t get trapped in the mundane trivialities of daily work anymore. I will break free from the pattern and really do those things that delight me and keep me energetic. I will discover myself completely.’
And this is another reason why you would disagree with me when I would say that Life is Comedy.
Such is so because you, despite making that promise to yourself, ended up tragically falling back to the same patterns once again.
You did try to break free from the boring routine of your job and you even attempted to make time for some creative projects but you could never really be successful in those endeavours, and every day you ended up going back to your laptop to finish your office work.
You still hated your work but eventually as months began to pass by, you got yet another raise and your boss offered you a very beautiful apartment that overlooked a lake; and soon, the idea of your creative projects completely sunk in the waters of those ponds.
Thus, in only a short period of a year, you had acquired a new room in your office, and you were settled in a nice well-furnished apartment. Your salary was reaching the sky and there was no object known by you that you couldn’t possess. You had everything that could be bought. But your heart still felt empty.
The Photo Album that you had decided to fill up was still empty. A professional camera you had purchased indeed, but it was still a virgin and not even a single picture had you taken from it. Every Sunday you looked at it once or twice, before putting it out of your mind and as seasons began to roll by and by, you developed a taste for cigarettes once again and started smoking an entire packet on a daily basis.
Months passed away. New Year came. In a flash, it went by. Then you were celebrating Christmas. Life was moving at a lightning speed and you were now oblivious to it. Everything was the same. Wake up, eat, go to the office, come back, get drunk, pass out, and wake up again. Each day, every week, all months. Years upon Years passed.
You started to hate yourself and your life. Your salary kept growing. You even met a beautiful girl. The two of you got engaged. Somehow, you even made it last till the wedding. But the relationship had no chance whatsoever.
You were without enthusiasm and she was lazy as well. You were absorbed in your office work and she was involved with her work projects. You did not have time for each other. Sometimes, when you were drunk and consuming your last cigarette packet, you often thought: Are we machines that keep repeating the same nonsense again and again? Why is it so mundane?’
By the time your daughter had turned twelve, things had become so neurotic that you had to practically run away from your own house in order to feel sane. Your wife would scream at you and shout like a banshee and you too would shout back loudly and slam doors in anger. She would throw your cigarette packet away and you would kick the kitchen utensil stand and break down all the china.
One day, during your fight, your daughter got hit by a broken shard of glass and the cut was so deep that her head didn’t stop bleeding for almost an hour. That was the day your wife left you and even as she took your daughter away, you screamed at her and hated her and cursed her.
But this was not enough. You cursed your boss and you cursed your employees and colleagues as well. You broke your own laptop and you destroyed the trophies that you had collected during your long tenure at the same company. Anger filled you up like a fire fills up a piece of dry wood and you burned with hatred in your anger. You started swearing loudly as you broke every object that you could lay your eyes on. Eventually, you ended up laying your hand on the professional camera that you had brought. As you saw it you froze and the ancient memory of Death came running back to your mind once again.
You recalled the words that you, yourself had said to yourself in the mirror: ‘I will not be afraid of death. I will fulfil the promise that I gave to Death and I will unleash my creative energies. I won’t get trapped in the mundane trivialities of daily work anymore. I will break free from the pattern and really do those things that delight me and keep me energetic. I will discover myself completely.’
Hatred boiled your blood as you remembered this. Fuck creativity. You hated your life. It seemed like Death had let you live that day only to mock you and your pathetic attempts as you cruised through life. So, in the end, you finally made up your mind.
You wouldn’t need to write a suicide note. Apart from your wife and daughter, you didn’t really know anyone else, and those two had already left you. So, it was like Death had said ages ago: ‘Nobody will miss you.’
You drove yourself to your old office building and kicked open the locked roof door. Finally, you came back to the same spot where everything had started.
There you stood at the ledge, looked down at the ground, took a very deep breath, and put one step in midair when you heard the clicking sound of the lighter
You turned to face the sound immediately. It was Death, clad in his dark black jacket, smoking your cigarette, and that night he had come without his aviators.
Its eyes were without any light and they were two black orbs that had the essence of infinity in them. You couldn’t look in them directly without the fear of getting lost in them forever. So you looked at his nose as you proceeded to speak, but he interrupted you and said:
‘Why have you stopped rolling your own cigarettes? They have a much better taste. These pre-rolled cigarettes are pathetic.’ He threw it on the ground and squashed it with his boots. Then he continued, ‘I know that you are trying to kill yourself but I just want to tell you that you won’t be able to succeed.’
You gave him a puzzling look and he continued:
‘You can try jumping but you’ll come back with a few broken ribs and jaws. Likewise, you can try many things but you will always end up inflicting damage to your body. Your soul won’t depart it. You won’t die.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I made you sign that contract ages ago. Don’t you remember? It said that you won’t be given admission to our Hall of Dead until you fulfil your destiny.’
‘But I have fulfilled my destiny! I have a job, wife, daughter, and a house. What the hell do you want from me?’
Death chuckled and said, ‘Oh the irony. You know, this is precisely why I hate doing this. Didn’t I tell you the last time that you had these things and you should come with me? But no! You had to go all dreamy and come up with those pleas for creative pursuits and projects and whatnots.
‘Well, there you go now. We won’t accept you on the basis of your official achievement anymore. It is as they say: “Your application has been rejected.” If you want to be free from the burdens of your life then you must fulfil the destiny that was chosen by you years ago. You must unleash your creative energies.’
You were flabbergasted and hatred swirled up in your heart as you looked at the smiling figure of death. But you couldn’t find even a single word to utter anymore. You just don’t know what to do. Fortunately, Death had more things to say:
‘You know, Billy, I thought that you would be different. When you were shivering and shitting your pants the last time I met you, I thought that you would really end up doing something. I said to myself: All others just make huge promises and never achieve them. This guy looks different. He has the achievers vibe in him. Maybe he really will attain his goals.
‘But you turned out to be like everyone else Billy! You too resigned yourself to the mundane trivialities of your life! Now tell me. Why’d you waste so much of my time begging me for more and more life, when the only thing that you did in it was to repeat the same cycle again and again? Why?’
His words hurt you and stung you. Anger coursed in your body. Eventually, you ended up shouting: ‘Because I didn’t want to die! Because deep down I still want to pursue those things. Those things are still hidden deep inside of me. When you are not here then I don’t feel the urgency to bring those creative energies out but whenever you come near I realize how meaningless I am without their release. I still want to release my creative energies. I still want to express myself and make friends and spend time with people! I don’t want to die.’
And as you said this, you began to sense the presence of yet another Being around you. This new Being was much more beautiful than Death and when she came near, Death began to appear more like a man and she acquired the shape of a very beautiful woman.
You gazed at her deep misty eyes and her pretty eyelashes blinked at you as her brilliant smile lit up her face like a moon and her golden hair glowed in the starlight. A beautiful current of Energy seemed to flow from her and even as she appeared near you, your heart calmed down and your breath became regular as a peaceful wave of love vibrated from the depths of your heart and reverberated in your being. It seemed like you were bathing in those vibrations.
Suddenly you felt funny and very calm and with great joy in your voice, you said to her: ‘Who are you?’
She smiled at you and said, ‘Well. Death. He is my husband. So who do you figure I am?’
‘...You are Life…’
She just smiled and looked at you with a loving glance and as you gazed in her eyes you saw a trillion years flash in them and vanish. You were once again speechless. But this time Life spoke for you:
‘I have always been there with you, Billy. Even last time, when He had come to take you. I was the one that rebelled against him. I was the one who made you heavy and stopped you from being taken. I have always been here.
‘But you remember me only when He is here. Otherwise, you don’t remember me at all,’ and her voice sounded like she was a little hurt, as like a wife or girlfriend, or a lover is hurt when you break their trust. ‘ You allow Death to reign in your life and he seeps into your work life and love life and weaves havoc.
‘Every time you are without energy and enthusiasm, you have allowed Death to enter your Being. Every time you repeat the same mundane things, you have opened a gate for Death to enter your being. You think that He comes to you on a certain day and takes away everything from you, but you don’t realize that he doesn’t work that way.
‘He enters your Being and starts weaving havoc on a regular basis. Slowly, day by day, hour by hour, you begin to die a little. First, your thoughts become dead and monotonous. Then your vibrancy vanishes. Your laughter loses its ring and finally when the child of your soul is dead, Death establishes his dominion in your Being.
‘Don’t let him come in so easily O Billy! Take my name! Call me again and again and love me. Come embrace me and together we will make fun of him. Come, kiss me with your lips and touch me. Look at me and listen to what I have to say. You will find that there is no end to me. I am always here with you Billy and I will always be here with you. Please bring me out through you and together we will mock him.’
Her speech was weaved with such a sweet voice that you couldn’t stop enjoying her words. A warm feeling pervaded your heart as if you had consumed a thick honey drink and you allowed that feeling of peace to pervade everywhere.
Eventually, you ended up going back to your house and looked at all the shattered objects with peace and tranquility. And for the first time in your life, you actually started cleaning your own house.
The entire night you spent cleaning and when the morning sun came in through the glass window, it illuminated the beauty of the room that was filled with you and all the objects that you had gathered in your life.
You really spent some time with yourself and wrote your own life story on the laptop. Then you wrote a sincere apology letter to your wife and daughter and waited with patience for their return.
In the meanwhile, you started appreciating the small beautiful things of life and enjoyed the simplicities of everyday existence, like picking up fruits, cooking vegetables, and driving up and down the town. Everything was still the same, but it was not mundane anymore. They had become rhythmic now because now you had become rhythmic, and you were involved in those activities with the totality of your heart; and often, you felt like you were inside a Live Musical.
Your heart thumped with the beat and you were more alive than you had ever been. When you went to your office, you were cheerful and you were so enthusiastic that you finished all your work before lunch and spent a lot of time with your employees. You discovered that you had a very deep connection with Post Rock Music and you found a friend who took you to attend some Music Concerts.
After some time your wife returned to you and you apologized to her and helped her in her daily work. You listened to her as she complained about her boss and tried to cheer her up by making jokes. But you were so bad at cracking jokes that your very futile attempt made her crack up and together you two spent a lot of time in love and showered your daughter with your blessings.
In such wise, years upon years passed away until you became very old. Yet, the energy of life never left you and each day was as fresh to you as a living heartbeat. You enjoyed each moment deeply and drank in all your experiences. And one day, when you went to your bed, you found, seated on your bedroom chair, Death, waiting for you.
You jumped up with the delight of recognition, the one that comes when you see a very old friend and said: ‘Death! How are you? It's been so long. Is it time?’
Death looked back at you seriously and tapped his small black wristwatch. Then he said: ‘Well. Actually, you still have some moments left. So if you want to finish it up, you better do it now Billy.’
You looked around your room and drank in all the things that were present there, including the many photo albums that you had created through these years. Then you took a deep delightful breath and said: ‘Nopes. I am full. Let's go now.’
As you were about to go, you said: ‘Wait!’
Then you called up Life and she too appeared next to death and she looked even more beautiful than ever.
You looked at her lovingly and said: ‘Thank you for everything. I love you.’
Then you relaxed and went to Death and it was like snuggling inside warm blankets and dissolving in sleep.
By Kumar Shaurya Singh
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