I'm home...

The music was blaring away from my speakers. It could no longer be called music. It was noise. The beat seemed to mercilessly batter the walls. My heart bet along as fast as it could, matching the beat. For anyone outside, it made no sense. It could drive them mad, make them lose themselves. It wasn’t something I had heard before, but it made sense to me. Somehow, life was a similar noise sometimes…

The road killed behind me, my past still lingered for me to embrace it and get drowned in it. My eyes closed and the music silenced away. Images passed by my mind, like a dairy of a million pages embedded with memories, photos, tragic moments, pain, happiness, love, lust, weakness and a million other emotions. It reminded me of times I’d cried out for a bit of kindness but the world had turned its face away from me. The sleepless nights on the way to my destiny. The times that I have been backstabbed and still had to wear a smile on my face… I have been mocked, had people talking behind my back, have been humiliated and yet had to walk back in the next day. And many were those days when you felt you had everything but lost it the last moment… The times when people you loved so much simply had to leave… Most people I meet seem to want to find a way to use me, hurt me and throw me away… Why was I this way? Why was life this way? Why was it this endless? Why was it like living a nightmare…? My eyes were tired. Couldn’t keep them open anymore...

“Life doesn’t suck…” My love had told me a year ago…  Whenever I think of her, I smile. Like a mirage in a desert of nothingness…  She’d taught me, a lot of believing in life, in the short time that we were together. She was the happiest part of me, I’d never told her. And the day she left, she told me to move on. But I couldn’t. No… I just wouldn’t. I wanted to enjoy every moment of it again in my mind, like a tape on replay every time it got over. For if love is true and the its truth lied in having to let go, coz she had to go, then what sense would it make if I just moved on and forgot about it in just few days. Whatever we had was beautiful, I wanted it to stay beautiful for a while, but not forever and not be drowned in it…

                There was a sense of gloom that settled in me, probably coz I was resting, doing nothing else, and having nothing else to think about after a long time. There were no running around, no mixed emotions, no strenuous journeys, just my soft bed and me. I couldn’t hear the music anymore, even though it still blared into the room. Coz life was a similar noise sometimes, but I always found a meaning.  I felt a certain sense of weightlessness, a sense of tiredness in my feet, a sense of heaviness of heart. There was a sweet scent in my room that reminded me of someone special. I embraced it.

Life never was a losing battle. Life doesn’t suck.. (Like she had taught me)…  Nothing of it may makes sense at one point, but don’t let go… When I think of it now, looking back, the days were a blur. Some stand out as clear memories to cherish. Some were days of victorious battles and some of disastrous defeats.

And an inner voice seemed to say, ‘there’s more from where that came from…’

True…  The battle has just begun… 

The last stand...

“General…  We need you. Do you copy?”

“General… It’s over. The fort will fall any minute. Orders sir. Do you copy?”

“Repeat! Do you copy?”

“I copy.”  The general replied over the microphone. “ It’s not over till I say its over…”

Pushing away the stones and the part of the wall that had fallen over him in an explosion, the General got up. He looked at the rest of his soldiers lying there beside him covered in blood. The fort had been hit by a shell fired off a tank. The main wall had fallen. They would soon be surrounded. There was no escape, he knew. There wasn’t another day. It would end tonight.

                The fort had been shelled , with large bullet holes covering majority of the walls that were left standing. Bodies lay beneath the ruins, below large pieces of the collapsed ceiling. “Major?” he called out into the microphone, looking for him among the bodies. “Sir…” gasped a marine near his feet. The General bent down towards him, looking at the agony in his eyes. “You did your part well son…”  said the General. He gave the General a half salute before he breathed his last. The General looked away from his face. There was probably noone left. The fort had been wired with enough C4 to take out a whole town. He knew it was the only way or the capital city was at stake. “We either stop them or we die” he told himself.

                There was a bang from a flash granade and for a few moments he couldn’t see anything. He could hear marching. Arming himself and taking as many granades as he could, he stood up. The turrents had finally seemed to stop shelling as their enemies stepped into the fort, or whatever was left of it. There were screams, the General closed his eyes in pain as they walked in shooting the ones who had already fallen and were dying. There were a few coming his way.  “Welcome to hell!” The General exclaimed as he opened fire on them. He was too fast for them to notice. Gripping tight on a granade, he threw it towards a group of them coming towards him. The explosion was tremendous. More people poured in from the unguarded fort entrance.

                He moved deeper into the fort to find the Major and the captain who was little wounded. ”What took you so long General”

“Was a Little preoccupied there…”

“The fort is gonna blow. She can’t take it anymore. We’re outnumbered…! Call for evacuation…” called out a marine near them.

“No!” Said the general. We may be out numbered, but never out manned!

“You with me Major? “ asked the general.

“Ready when you are General...”

“And you, Captain?”

“I thought you’d never ask…”

“There’s a plan. We blow  the fort with the buried C4 and let it take them. We get out the back and hold our stand as long as we can. Are we clear?”

 The clicking of metal rhythmed into the distance as they wreched their guns to load. The night had been endless and so were their enemies…  The General looked at either of them, “Don’t look back. Fight till your last breaths. It’s an honour to have fought by your side… !”  The general plunged into the darkness and they followed…

There were sounds of explosions and heavy gun fire…

(Oh and this was a dream.. :)  )

Caustic...

The station was silent. Only the occasional hustle bustle of people passing by when trains arrived. I sat there on an age withered bench, having reached there only a few moments ago in one of those trains and caught in the ambush of otherwise calm people rushing to get out. It was late. I should be going home. But I had something caught up in me...I wanted to simply sit there and brood over it...

Why was I there again? This typical indecision. Thoughts that need not be watered to sprout; Questions that I wouldn't want to ask, but had to answer... I did not know what was going on in my head. Tired of sitting there or the occasional ambling about the station, I decided to go home. Waiting for a taxi was not an option at an hour so late in the night. I was really tired, could feel the occasional blurring of my vision as I walked out, bent a little under the weight of the bag I carried over my shoulder.

Home was so far away. I longed for the warmth and comfort of my bed. My feet were sore from this race of life. I thought of my cousin bro, who was just 2 years old.  (That’s him in the pic)  The smile that dawned on his face when he saw me, the sparkle in his eyes which weren't ever so tired as mine. Little does he know that everyone is going to expect something or the other from him as he grows up. That he would have his life already planned out for him by someone else. That he would have to live up to what people expected from him, even people who he may have just met only yesterday. 

There was a ringing in my head apart from the sound of vehicles that vroomed past me in their endless quests to reach their destined niches. It had started to rain. The path was far from clear and my hand and shoulders felt numb carrying the heavy bag. Drenched and barely able to walk anymore, I reached the welcoming footsteps of home. My 10 year old cousin ran up to me. I smiled at him as he dragged me to see his new toy. He had hid it from his mom coz he had broken it and wanted me to fix it. It was actually a collection of broken bits that he wanted me to glue together. His eyes were innocently sure I could. For him, there was nothing I couldn't do! Weakly, I smiled again.

Strength was a matter of perspective. For me, it was about being there for everyone who needed me. Doing what they expect of me, for we are all bound by love, by the expectation love brings...  My cousin would call me Iron man. Because I always had a way out of every problem he had. I couldn't survive a 200 rounds from a AK-47 or survive a missile fired off a tank or even fire fancy light thingy (according to him)  from my palm or even have an arc reactor planted in my chest and hope for even lighting a torch bulb with it. But he believes I can. Well yeah, he is only a kid. But the elder were worse off in their expectations, in their own way.

Caustic... this race is and has always been...  My feelings had long been suppressed or eroded in this endless race to make a difference, to try and be something I'm not...  

What was I? I would often wonder. Long lost amongst the ambush of expectations that I have to live up to and the labyrinth of broken dreams, did I ever even matter....?