Monday, February 28, 2011

The turtle, the lamp and the yin yang.

(Click click click).. "Damn the pen!" She screamed and threw the pile of papers away. The room was full of paintings and framed photographs of friends and objects. For a visitor her room was an eclectic mix of art, for friends it was one of her many quirks. But for her it was chaos, an external reflection of her internal conflict. There was a pet turtle who she never named and just called turtle. Dogs and cats were too much to handle. The inherent slowness of the turtle soothed her frayed thought process.

She never believed that a writer's block could exist until that particular day. Her half eaten water melon placed in pretty transparent bowl lied ignored next to her pile of papers. She refused to use the laptop, she considered writing in her own hand more exciting. The dustbin was overflowing with papers scribbled with half baked thoughts and unsettled emotions.

Why was inspiration evading her? She made herself a cup of coffee and stirred it for fifteen minutes wondering if she has lost the "gift". She will no longer be the most sought after writer in the country. Someone new will come and steal her glory, like she once did. This thought sent a shudder down her spine.

Her neighbour came and knocked on the door. "I have forgotten my bag in the park again, can you please give me the spare key?" She was used to this and went to fetch the keys. "Do you know crows here are lovely, so shiny and black. Like that new Sunsilk shampoo ad. I know you must think I am  crazy, but they were really beautiful. I would now like to call myself a connoisseur of crows. They have a bad image, just like the Big Bad Wolf in the Red Riding Hood. I spent most of the time in fear of that creature until I saw the Jungle Book. Then I started hating Sher Khan but later fell in love with Hobbes." She gave her neighbour her keys and asked if she wanted to join her for coffee.

She made some more coffee and heated her own coffee again. She liked her coffee hot. They sat down and spoke for hours. The neighbour was convinced that the turtle could understand their conversation and would often stop abruptly and stare at him. But then the turtle was a turtle. She finally left her room after four hours.

She sat there long after her neighbour had left and pondered about the conversation they just had. Here was someone who saw beauty in crows and the ambiguity in public affection for wolves. The overflowing dustbin now looked like a giant bowl of popcorn. She looked at her turtle and thought if he actually understood what she said and hid all her secrets deep beneath his shell where no one could ever find them. She looked around and saw that her lamp actually looked like the Little Red Riding Hood crouching to look at her shoes. She too hated Sher Khan but loved Hobbes. "Was this the tiger version of Yin and Yang?" she wondered. The invisible contradictions seemed more tangible.



Her chaos began to unscramble itself.

1 comment:

The Illuminator said...

Loved the purposeful chaos and the train of contrasting thoughts.