Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Prism: First

Three Corners

The tea cup tumbled on the table. And an emptiness that had filled it up to the brim, spilled over the orange tablecloth. Straining it. Alas! There was no one to praise the beauty of the spreading strain.

* * * * *

She woke up on the wall. Her eyes still unable to recover from her dream of the orange tree. She climbed down onto the right side of the wall. She remembered that on the other day she had been on the left. There were trees on this side; so were there on the other. There were houses on this side; so were there on the other. There were people on this side; so were there on the other. Both sides were essentially the same..... Except that the left became right and the right was left.

She had deduced a few days back that the wall was actually a mirror glass. None of its sides were real. But whether any of them were imaginary, she could not tell. She just had to live in both of them.

* * * * *

In the years of the massacre, there used to be a town that recalled no visitors. And deep inside this town was the house of three corners. No one knew why it had such a strange shape. No one knew, as well, who lived in that house. Some said, though, that they had watched a man standing naked by the window. He had his body painted with a compilation of unknown colors. Indescribable. And that he would look at them as if they were clowns. And laugh.

* * * * *

This morning when the girl started walking, her head was still filled with the words and imagery of the last night's dream...... the color of the tree was orange. And like all people who couldn't forget their dreams, she was trying to analyze it ..... trying to decipher its meaning, when she reached the windmill. She found that the wind was blowing from exactly the opposite direction than it had been the other day when she had been on the left side of the wall. And the windmill went exactly the other way round. But then she left a deep breath - A change in direction doesn't change the world after all.

* * * * *

Sitting in one corner of his three cornered room this morning the man realized that the void that he had been feeling so long is actually just above his head. A region of wordlessness. Yet not silence. A cluster of meaningless noise. A crowd of disturbing formlessness.

He had tried to look up... to the space above his head. But God had created him with a strange form. He cannot look above his head. His head recedes in the same pace in which his glance follows it through.

The solution, however, was simple. A mirror.

The difficult part was - He didn't have one in his home.

* * * * *

The day was ageing, slowly. The sand in the desert was burning. Alas! There was no one to praise the beauty of the invisible fire. Alone stood a table in the middle of the desert.... For no certain reason. No one knew how it had come to be there. Or who had ever taken tea in the cup that had been left on the table-top. No one knew, as well, why the tea cup tumbled on the table. No one was there to know.

A warm, warm breeze started in the desert. Its name was agony.

* * * * *

For the first time in his life the man decided to come out of his house. For the first time he stepped out on the road. The road was empty. They were the years of the massacre, and this morning there was a premonition of chaos. So the townsfolk decided to stay behind their closed doors. Security was their only aspiration.

The road was empty. But it didn't matter to him at all. In fact, if there would have been people on the road it would be difficult for him to control his laughter looking at them. For just because there was no mirror in the town none of them knew that they looked exactly like each other. But right now he needed a mirror for himself .... To watch the space just above his head.

"I might have to walk miles for that", he thought.

That's exactly when agony arrived. A warm, warm breeze carrying grains of sand bathed him so that when he opened his eyes he remembered not being able to see anything.

But whatever it was that he was trying to see he could not remember.

* * * * *

"What is it that changes our world forever?" she was trying to figure out. At the same time, she was also trying to figure out the cause of her meaningless meanderings upon things so insignificant. Perhaps, this search for a cause too, was a part of her meaningless meanderings. And this almost gave her Goosebumps for it meant that all her thoughts were meaningless.

Then, it suddenly occurred to her that the breeze that was blowing from the opposite direction was a lot warmer than the one that had been blowing the other day when she had been on the left side of the wall. A change in temperature was not a property of the mirror.

"Does that mean" she thought once again, "that a change in direction does change the world after all? Or perhaps, I was wrong from the very beginning. Perhaps, the wall is not a mirror at all."

That's exactly when agony arrived. A warm, warm breeze carrying grains of sand took her in so that when she found her senses back she remembered not being able to understand anything.

But whatever it was that she was trying to understand she could not remember ever again.

* * * * *

Both of them found themselves sitting on opposite sides of a table, on the center of which a tea cup had tumbled down.

2 comments:

Indeterminacy said...

Thank you for the images you gave with this story. I can't remember reading anything that blends reality and fantasy the way you've done it here, and for that matter, in all of your stories. You bear the title "Illusionist" quite well.

The Clown said...

Thank you, Indie. With that comment you've succeeded in frightening and embarassing me at the same time.