There was a time, when Sins would have given anything, including his decrepit looking, sentimental value possessing black shirts to anyone who so ever desired it, if only, if only he were given a sense of hope, a calm, rational, guiding voice, so to speak in his life. Maybe, it was already there, maybe it wasn’t, he did not know. If it was, he could not see it. If it was not, it didn’t matter anyway. What was the point of complicating and analyzing about things, when none even existed in the first place in reality; existing only for his own sake, in his own mind.
10 days seems like a long time. 10 days also seems like a short time. The truth was obviously that, it depended on the circumstances. He had blown away months which felt they had been days, while some days would seem to go on and on forever, simply because it was the source of his discomfort. Personally and professionally, he felt that the past 10 days were a harbinger of sorts, about the things yet to come. Like the brief lull period, before one’s first year of college (for those socio-economically lucky enough). And he had also met Starr.
Starr wasn’t someone who would roll over for him. He liked this thing. For the brief amount of time they had spoken, something around 40 odd hours, if you included WhatsApp, what he realized was that not only was he a complicated person into himself, but so was she. Not only had she gone through and dealt with way more things than he even had any inkling of was possible, but she had also been the elusive light he had been waiting for. And the bond was not the typical relationship per se, spoken about or harked about behind hushed backs and limbs, but rather one based on honesty and open-mindedness. They were both fucked in their heads, and they knew it. Sins especially liked the fact that, both of them were fucked out of their heads, because of personal and professional things of a complicated nature.
“Into the abyss, all through we go!”, he screamed madly to no one in particular, except a small mosquito who had been prospecting at his knees like a diligent miner in search of gold, only to end up with bare bones and hairs of an ugly nature. He smiled at the mosquito dazedly, wishing it would never come back, especially since he had just exhaled copious amounts of cannabis smoke towards it. Ever so slightly, the mosquito seemed dazed too. He wished it well and decided to focus on his feelings, something he thought he was out of touch with, as if they had been suppressed for some reason, sometimes deliberately or sometimes absent-mindedly. At least now, he was aware of them.
He wanted to head outside and run randomly in different directions. A sudden burst of energy seemed to grip him, like an imminent nuclear explosion, the only difference being that such explosions rather than being channeled in the right places, served as mouthpieces for mental health symptoms, especially when expressed in front of the wrong people. As far as he was concerned, Starr would probably smile at him for this, and the explosion would pass off into something more beautiful, like walking and holding hands along a waterfront surrounded by nature. The polarization expressed amidst the wider world bothered him to no end. He just could not understand the demands, vagaries, needs and wants, that plagued multiple cultures and communities all across the world, as if one or more groups were in perpetual war over another. Can someone real please stand up? Who owns whom? Who wants what? Who’s better and who’s not and why? Where were the answers? Who are the mediators?
He did not believe in conspiracy theories that advocated that a small group of men and women controlled the world. One because, they were never clear on the nature of this control. What exactly is control? Directing someone to do your bidding like a mindless slave? What is ‘being in control’? No answers. What exactly is this so called group, controlling? Central banks? Mines? Oil wells? Gold? There are again no answers. The thought that a small group was simply printing wads of currency and orchestrating an entire show on Earth simply sounded too simple. He was sure that the world was too complicated for one person or group to handle. For it was indeed true, no one needed to be in conflict at all, for this group’s wishes would always take precedence.
Was he himself in control of his own life?
He liked to think he was, and maybe he was. But what he could do other than ensure that he stayed as fit as possible to fight another day, while planning to learn as much as possible about both, people and the world’s knowledge reserves?
Marijuana Maharaj 