Chaitanya Nazmul
John opens one eye; the other one is glued shut. A few seconds later, his second eye opens. Both are thin slits. He looks around the room hazily, slowly pulls his hands from underneath his blanket, grabs his temples, and then moans. He puts his hands through his hair grabbing it, and then yawns quietly. Shakes his head as if regretting what happened on the previous night. Looks to the side of where his desk is, stares into space for some time, scratches his face, and rubs his eyes.
The room is almost dark, slightly illumined. He feels like it is early morning. The window blinds are half-lifted. It is fall now, chilly outside. He feels tender warmth inside the comforter, which is giving him a sense of security and tranquility. Seeing the darkness around him, he pulls the blanket over his shoulders and turns away from the source of the light. He feels his head a little heavy due to previous night’s drink. He puts his head heavily into the left palm. He is thinking about sleeping a little more as he feels good in his comfort zone. Today his work starts late in the afternoon. He hears the wind howling outside quite suddenly. He turns his head around, over his shoulder, looks suddenly into the window. In the dim light outside, a silhouette of a maple leaf fallen off the tree is outlined on the window; it is stuck due to the mist. He stares at its outline, the rest of the window blue. He feels a wave of zeal to continue looking at it.
The wind howls again. The leaf does not move. He sits up on the bed, covering his legs and lower part of the body with his blanket. He bends crouching himself with childlike innocence awaiting restful haven, so keen to return to his mother’s secure lap. He feels the warmth of the comforter and pillow as it is his mother’s vital nourishing touch, and insanely wants to be a child right now, free from any bondage — a gift of love, a universal being. Looks at the sky, and then looks down at the floor. He looks through the window again from his bed. A few other shadowy leaves at a distance are falling off the maple trees adjacent to his window. Through the branches, he looks as far as he can for no apparent reason straight into the shadowy trees. He looks more into the sky, and gets surprised (eyes slightly open) to see a bunch of lovely pink clouds cluster in the distance. The wind howls again.
He looks back at the trees near his window, sees other shadowy branches not so full of leaves dancing in the mid-fall misty breeze. He hears faintly a car driving down the lane. The lights from the car cut through the blinds, cutting the bluish walls with yellow trickles of light. He sees his desk, messy, his computer, glued with some stickers. Some statutes appear near to it. He sees his wardrobe, small, dark, opened. A chair. A shelf with papers and files randomly placed on it. The room is not messy, but it is not proper, not cleaned, and cold. There also is no mess, no conglomeration of stuff. The walls are free of posters. Then it glances of the photo picture of a girl with a frame around it.
After glancing off the glass covering the picture, it disappears. In his mind his past love Nicole’s face suddenly appears. He gets a sense of lacking and a kind of vacuity in the heart. After a moment, he sighs. He closes his eyes and starts thinking about his past love, and lies back down on his bed. Maybe Nicole is now in the arms of a different man and they are enjoying life. He feels despaired, covers his eyes with his hands. He may not get her back anymore in this lifetime.
In the meantime, he hears a car with a powerful noise speeding by. He looks at his computer quickly and darts his eyes at her picture. Then he sighs again deeply, looks down in pity that something went wrong with what he was doing, maybe that she left for someone better off in some sense than him. He starts to pacify himself with a sense of self-pity. He feels desolate; he thinks of himself in a kind of solitary exile. From lying position, he again gets up, moves to the side, looks at the window, and sees the shape of a waning half-moon. Close to his head on the side table is the alarm clock ticking restlessly. It diverts his attention. He looks at it. The sound of the clock feels like it is poking straight into his heart. He grimaces, after staring at it blankly row a while. He looks at the clock; it is 5:31 a.m.
The room is still dim. He feels a little restless and moves his right hand over his blanket to find something on the bed. He does not find what he is looking for.
After hearing the wind howl quietly this time, he gets up, walks over to the desk. He looks at the things on the table and puts his hand on the table near to his girl’s photo. He hears a big truck pass by loudly outside. This makes him stop looking at the picture and start looking for what he was looking for. He finds the remote control and presses the button.
His sound system plays a melody. However, this is not like any traditional music. It is nature’s sound called ‘Mystic Forest’. This music could sound weird to many people when they hear about it. Some of them give a peculiar look; some even shrug their shoulders. Some of them remain without expression. But he knows he has a broader sense of perception and an ocean-depth thirst for ‘knowing’. He considers himself a lifetime student and accordingly habituates himself to studying every single day. Recently he graduated from a community college in computer graphics but no good opportunity he has met yet. For now, he manages to be a sales clerk in a bookstore at downtown.
The music in the background is giving him tranquil feelings. He thinks that this sound of innocent birds’ chirping and the sound of the fountain or rainstorm always rejuvenate him and heals his heart from the malady of falsehood, deception, fake love, greed and selfishness everywhere in everyday life. This sound helps him to make a bond between his innermost ‘Being’ and the outer nature’s core of every kind.
He closes his eyes in meditation. He reclines in his chair. The wind howls; he looks back at the picture of his girl. He had been in relationship with Nicole for the last five years. She was sweet, tender and shy, the things he likes the most. But her obstinate character is another side of her, the key note of their break-up. This obstinate nature of any individual pales the sweetest bond of two hearts many a time. He liked computers, but he always wanted to design something on them, to draw something to create visuals. She stubbornly told him all the time that it was stupid, that he should just do something not very creative, something very simple, but with an easy job opportunity. She did not wish to understand his urge to try to do what he wanted in the depths of his soul. This confrontation, especially the difference in their life-views, was the main reason for their break-up. She believed everything could be measured or calculated.
He then hears a bird chirp, and looks at the window. His face shows inner tranquility and deep pensiveness. He wants to be in this state forever but according to the law of life, ‘comfortable moments’ are transient. So respecting that law, may be, the high-pitched alarm appears with a mystical synchronicity. He changes his position to stop the alarm clock and then walks to his window. He looks through it. He notices that the pink clouds have given birth to a new day. He sees colorful leaves dancing in the transparent golden rays of the rising sun, falling off the trees, and being carried away by the morning breeze to their gray, final destination.
[Chaitanya Nazmul is a writer and musician based in Toronto, Canada.]