He couldn’t sleep that night, his mind remained transfixed on her.
He wondered what it was, and took deep, very deep breaths to calm his mind down, drifting into a sleep punctured by weird dreams, in which faceless human beings carried him on their backs, taking him to a temple that housed the mother goddess, draped in all her splendour, spouting curses on him and banishing him into the depths of a vast underground lake, populated by creatures of all shapes and sizes, smiling at him warmly.
The next day, Sins thought he was going mad.
He couldn’t focus on one thing for more than a few minutes, something that had never happened to him in his life. He prided himself on his capabilities, which included a great vocabulary, an above average physique and a liking for numbers and visuals among a few. He couldn’t understand, thinking that his recent food habits – skipping breakfast, having only one meal a day, yet working out, were taking a toll on his mind, Yes, that was it. Adding her into this equation probably was the likeliest reason. Relieved to have found the problem, he began brainstorming for a solution. Another factor he had forgotten to count in, was – cash, he had none of it, burning it on multiple circumstances that seemed to follow him like a faithful dog attached to his master. He had done a small deal recently, two nights before, and managed to lay his hands on some cash that would tide him over till his salary reflected in his bank account. But, he had things to do with it, other than nice meals. He wanted to take her out and talk to her, know her and hold her, in his arms, tightly and never letting.
Sins thought about the hunter-gatherers of bygone eras, who foraged, hunted, fucked and slept each and every day of their lives, with one singular purpose on their minds – live in the moment, hustle, survive and protect their clan and band members – moving in small knit groups which grew in size, coalescing into bigger groups and ultimately into chiefdoms that further morphed into states and kingdoms. The only few engaged groups, groups where his participation was emotional and engaged, that Sins had been a part of, in his brief life on twenty three years included his football teams of school and college and the people he met in college – who were held together by the strength of marijuana, since that required camaraderie and co-operation.
Sins had been sober, not a drop of alcohol or a molecule of cigarette or marijuana fume, for a period of eight continuous days, and it felt weird, because he wasn’t used to living without a hint of haze inside his mind, as if those fumes were desperate to latch on to the last remaining threads of neurons that they had manipulated and convinced into changing sides from sobriety to toxicity. Suddenly, Sins felt sleepy, tired even, and still couldn’t shake off her image from his senses, her image dancing in front of his eyes, her smile intoxicating his bodily chemicals, her mere imprint that lay spread across the screen of his mind, enabling him to visualize things perfectly, so much so that he closed his eyes, creating a world where they frolicked about, in fun and laughter, roaming about an endless canvas of green and blue hues, dancing around fields of golden soil, from which sprouted rows upon rows of fresh, ripe marijuana flowers.
Sighing contently, his opened his eyes and spied a lizard crawling across quickly towards one end of his wall to the window edge, probably being summoned by his betrothed, to make lizard love. Sins’ childhood had passed, without having any sort of remarkable conversation whatsoever, due to the fact that he was afraid of being called out, ridiculed of the sin he had committed, when barely thirteen years old, he had been caught scrawling some words in the boys’ bathroom, and caught re-handed in the act by another boy, who had promptly scurried off and spread the news far and wide, blowing his innocent reputation to smithereens. Ever since that fateful day, he had turned inward, avoiding people whenever possible, because abruptly, some boys would raise the episode, and Sins couldn’t develop the maturity to laugh it off and be brave in their faces of gloat. As a result, his social skills hadn’t developed, and to this day, a full ten years later, he felt the repercussions of not grasping social cues, even called by some people to be axed from his job. Sins agreed with them.
But it was different this time. He would fight, he would speak up, because the content wasn’t the problem, the delivery was, the courage was. Mentally, he was fine, it was opening up that was proving to be the problem, and he had improved by leaps and bounds from two years ago, when he was afraid to even make a cold call.
Sins was fine. He relaxed, and dialled her number.
Marijuana Maharaj 