Kalsi

She was certain of the time but no way could have been certain about the fate that was yet to unfold. Past the grounds of reasoning, logic, or calculation, imagination alone was her guide on this journey. There was neither confusion nor fear; but another feeling of a distinct taste was building up inside her. This time she was more rehearsed and had paid attention to the minute details in rectifying errors made in the earlier attempts. There was little time to pack her reminiscences from the past, and incidences from the present. Aware of the heaviness of this baggage she could have easily chosen to leave all of this here. Yet, decided otherwise. Without her experiences of her being, there was no becoming. Sitting by the window Kalsi was staring into the vast empty grounds, scantly inhabited and strikingly silent; and the row of tall eucalyptus trees along the street swayed gently towards their right. In the field, lone stood a painted wall bordering a construction site with piles of bamboo pillars, iron-rods, red-bricks and sand stored close by. The shutter of the only shop on the crossroad remained closed in the afternoon. The scorching heat, dusty wind and light reflected from the grey metalled shutter were making her reflect on her own condition, a summation of the entangled thoughts. She was aware of the unnerving truth; the repercussion of her actions couldn’t be unturned.  

The hot air brushing against her hair was now sweeping inside the room, touching the chords and humming an unknown song in her ears. Unfamiliarity with the music was comforting to her, reminding of her own existence. There were no bad memories or rotten pages; just an ordinary being, constantly pulled into the measureless depth of time. Her life always seemed to her like a strange earthen pot, kept among numerous pots of different size and shapes; but only she knew hers was cracked from inside, incapable of holding anything. She had lived with this hollowness all her life, emptied to the very core. Never quite understood or rather felt the need to communicate or socialise with her fellow beings. There was a missing piece inside her that created restlessness and an imbalance of her being. She would have articulated this vacuum inside her, if there was a vocabulary that could echo the pangs of emptiness stretching itself with noiseless shrieks. 

She had been preparing for this journey for a long time now; though everything was at stake there was nothing to lose. A month before she had filed her papers at workplace. Work was more like a social contract, a precondition to survival; though couple of years ago she managed to find a job to match her taste. She worked as a honey collector for a cooperative farm that meant minimal human contact and a nominal pay. As much as she despised humans, there was an affinity towards the mysteries of nature. But even nature had failed at last; struggle with her inner unease couldn’t be healed. She had rented a small room, near the farm and much further away from the city. Accustomed to her own solitude, she preferred staying in her room by herself in the company of books. Her gift was her only solace. It was here, the reason broke down and meaning changed its course. Un-bound by the futility of space and conditionality of time, her gift mystically bridged the distance to an unknown realm.     

The room was of a moderate size with mauve colour wallpaper worn off at few places spreading conveniently on the walls; and a couch lying next to the wooden table that occupied most of the space. The cupboard was painted in contrast, about a size enough to accommodate her belongings. The window on the left wall had no curtains, and the glass pane would open itself to unrecognizable yet ordinary large patches of land. The view from her window has always been the same; every time she stared into this ordinary scene, she found it strange and alien.

She was the second child to her parents and the only one to survive. Her elder sister was nearly two years old when she gave up to her shrunken lungs. Kalsi had always imagined that breathing with heaviness; a weight tied to lungs making the chest swell up and down with every gasp. Her parents would never mention her elder sister, an attempt to keep the burden just to themselves. She was an unplanned child and by then her parents had made peace, living with the memories of their lost child. She had tried to fill that unhappy patch and share some burden with her parents; maybe even succeeded to some extent. Her parents couldn’t have been anything but grateful to their daughter. But in the process of compensating for her lost sister, she had become closer to her dead sister. It was this heaviness of void, an eternal condition of her being; that became inseparable to her like the absence of her sister. The missing block in her life started shadowing her through the continuity and discontinuity of life.

All along she knew that there was a reason she had this gift; and when time comes she had to put it to test. She never mentioned about it to anyone, maybe was too scared to lose it; it was her only chance to be rescued. As a child, she recalled telling her mother about encounters in different lands among strange people. Her mother was too polite to admit that she never believed a single word of it. But some of these encounters seemed to leave behind their mark on her, and she would find herself left behind, disoriented and unanchored. With passing time, she had become more composed and gentle with these visits; and by now she had travelled to distant lands in Europe, the dry land of middle-east, the exciting trip to Congo basin. She had even walked on the streets of Paris in the night, attended the dinner party at Mrs Dalloway’s house, felt Elizabeth’s love for Darcy, and witnessed Sumire disappearing on a Greek island. She had experienced emotions and closely watched lives of people from varied time and place; seen it all, and tasted every bit of it. The moment she finished reading the first few lines, she would be swiftly carried away inside the book. She never had to read beyond those few lines; the buildings, streets, people, vehicles, trees, costumes, rivers; everything would start appearing at once. She would find herself, hearing the conversations, bumping into crowds with strange costumes, travelling in chariots and coal-run trains, and more importantly sharing time and space with the protagonists, watching those taking decisions, making difficult choices, and sometime submitting to the inevitable. At twenty eight, she had seen the world for more than a lifetime; the decaying humans, the dark times, the hopes and aspirations, conflicts and sufferings; a common theme running across was a struggle to find a purpose and meaning for one’s being.      

When the story would end, she would see the surrounding collapse in a thick dark cloud, and would find herself extracted out of it, back to her room. But at times when it ended abruptly, she would sit with the book, read and re-read the lines; trying her luck to revisit on account of unknowingly having skipped or missed certain details. Sooner she had realised there was no going back, and since then she had been more attentive and careful during her visits. It wasn’t long ago, when for the first time she saw a glimpse of a woman on a street of Baghdad, which reminded her of her dead sister. There was something about the face, the features, especially the eyes and hair, that made her sure it was her. But by then she had disappeared, rather the scene had suddenly shifted to another setting; something that she was accustomed to. Since then, she had spotted the same woman in crowds, on streets, in the park, at the beach, in different times and settings.

It had been a year since when she started putting together the puzzle; trying to create the imprints of the scheme she must follow to find her again. Though there was no assurance of that woman being her sister, but then there was faith; her imagination would guide her from here forth. She had felt that missing block inside for long, defying the disillusionment now she wanted to be rescued. She had never longed to be happy, rather she never believed in that; what all she wished for was to stop feeling this hollowness inside. At times, she would feel jealous of her sister who had moved away from this life and taken refuge in unknown time and space. Her shrunken lungs and heavy breathing had liberated her; something Kalsi had always craved for.

In the last few attempts she had tried different techniques for searching her sister and to irrevocably transport herself into the other world. In the first attempt, she tore off few pages from the book before she began to read. While in the midst of her scene, she felt a pause. Usually the change in scenes is swift and calm, but this time the scene was at halt, but then to her surprise the scene automatically got shifted to the next setting. She felt a time lapse, certain discontinuity, but that’s all about it. The story continued to move further, and before she could realise she was extracted out to her own room. The plan had failed and she didn’t touch another book for a long time. During the second attempt she was cautious of her last failure and more desperate to break through this life. She picked a book on dreams, she was certain that this time she would manage to get lost between the shifting dreams sequence, and then would loiter around the space. She would have enough time to even search her sister, and make repeated attempts till she finally gets united with her. Although she had her doubts that her sister might not be the same person as she thinks her to be, or she might not want to share her new life. The second attempt was a tricky one, as expected there were streaks of reality entwined among the sharp dreams. There were interesting overlaps among the dream sequences, and series of incidents moving in and out of reality. Kalsi felt an ease having lost herself among these notorious conditions, where reality passes through the dreams without creating any turbulence. She spent few days loitering aimlessly in those dreams, sometime getting shipped away to another set of dream or reality. She had forgotten the difference between the two, both looked alike. And then, the threads were getting united and she found herself standing alone at the very end of the chapter, ready to be extracted once again.

She was disappointed with herself; her gift seemed to have betrayed her at the exit, putting her in a more vulnerable spot, exposed to say the least. But today, she felt prepared; she was absorbing the heat and consciously taking a note of her world around. The vast ground, tall trees, this street and her own room, would now become part of her memories. She wanted to store every bit of it, along with her displeasures and disengagements with the world. As expected her heart was feeling heavy with the pressure building inside her; the body was giving missed signals of preparedness and hesitation. She moved away from the window and left the panes wide open, allowing the wind and light to continue to fill the room. Her confidence was shivering along with her body, but there was no time to argue. She could feel that distinct taste in her mouth; without wasting any further time or allowing herself to be swayed away she opened the book.

There was music in this scene, waves crashing at the beach, rolling and swirling, making her trembling body to calm down. The stretch of this land paralleled the limitless sea. The sand was gently slipping beneath her feet with the retreating waves, gently caressing her with warmth. This enormous body of water was filling up inside her empty stomach and the familiar salt overpowered that distinct taste in her mouth. The palm trees bordered the scene, reminding her of the tall eucalyptus which will always be missed. There was no sign of any other presence at the beach, but she was in no hurry to search her sister. She had written the first two pages of this fiction, thoughtfully sketched the details, and left rest of the pages blank. She had her own doubts, but there was still enough time in her hands. She took a stroll on the golden sand, carefully picking the empty shells and many coloured stones on her way. She continued to walk, this time with a smile on her face.