01 — Calm Green Sea

Calm green sea. I open my eyes and jump in. There is little to see, little to touch, little to breathe. Still, I go on, swimming forever. Never drowning. Never missing a single stroke. I keep pushing myself harder, only to face the truth, that it won’t make a difference. Whether I stay afloat or sink to the bottom, life shall remain lost in continuity. To stop however is not an option. And so I don’t. I keep swimming further and further away, far astray from the course I had once set. The shore seems nowhere in sight. I might just close my eyes once again.

5th June 1989

The events surrounding my life hold no relevance. Neither where I live, nor what I believe. What matters is all I think. And the foremost thoughts that loop in my mind are the ones related to my birth. Like others, I had the great misfortune of being born. While some got accustomed to this, I never gave up the revolt. A sensation contrary to my will to live has forever stayed by as a companion. Taunting me in the most obscene ways. Rejecting every plausible effort I made. Insolence of the highest degree. If it would’ve been someone else, they surely must’ve killed themselves by now. Fortunately, it is me who has been doomed to this hazard. It spews a web of presence all around my life spheres, caricaturish as they may seem, the throbbing repetitions that shower me with urges, must not be taken lightly. Contemporary folks call it something, the orthodox treat it in their own ways. I stay aloof to such remedies. Perhaps I don’t want any treatment. I am fine by its sickening sweetness. This sensation that transcends into an inexplicable emotion, is daunting. But its rarity preserves my merit. I deserve applause. Not from others, but from myself. And when I do that, often looking at myself in the mirror, I feel encouraged to continue the havoc a bit longer than I can. Caught in such unfailing betrayal, it’s been thirteen days. It doesn’t matter to please ourselves with the genesis, to orgasm our way through narratives. The best we can do for our times is to give in, and not protest.

6th June 1989

Mother came in today. She wanted to know if I was okay. I rebuked her for the visit. I’ve always had, but she never listens. I keep telling her that her arrival only makes me more conscious, that I don’t deserve her pity. But such words often lead to the strengthening of her resolve. Yes, I do have a mother, she constitutes a part of what I call my family. But needless it would be to talk about them. Better drown my head in the bath. Mother came, helped me up from bed, walked me to the bathroom, washed my face, undressed, and laid me down in the bath. It was cold, could’ve been warmer, but I didn’t contest. She told me to rub myself clean and call her in when I was done. But hours after she left, I had no courage except to continue lying lifelessly, as the air around me faded into a fog. When I woke up, it was to a knock on the door. My man-servant Dmitry asked for permission to come in, I didn’t reply knowing very well that he wouldn’t ask again. When the water had actually grown warmer, only because it was cold no more, I decided to get up once and for all, I was sick and tired of my hands and feet bloating up. Though I didn’t act on that decision. At least for another hour or so. When I did, I saw my decaying body, a tinge of saffron had swept over every part, a wasteland I appeared. I would’ve ripped out my entrails then and there if it didn’t feel too unforeseen of a step to take. Rather I continued to stare, my flaccid penis, deprived of blood for so long, my thighs, the gained girth around their soft edges, and my stomach hanging mid-air. I might’ve grown older since I last saw myself. Especially after having all the mirrors removed. Noticing how self-absorbed I had become, I walked my way out of the slipping floor. Only a moist towel around my waist did I carry to cover the obscenity.

Mother was sitting outside, involved in no considerable pursuit. Dmitry was in the kitchen, keeping himself busy with preparations unasked for. Presumingly it was mother who had commanded him so. “You need to go out more often,” she said to me. I heard the spoken word, but could barely decipher all that came along. By way of expression and concise gesticulation, my mother had made her point clear. That not only did she want me to go out more often, also she loathed all of what I had become. About how my life had become entrapped like a domesticated animal. “I would if I feel so. Anything else you’ve to say?” I saw Dmitry’s anticipatory gaze breaking into our conversation. She didn’t pay me any heed, so I walked over to see what Dmitry was preparing. When I assessed from the scattered ingredients, I could infer that the dish was not exactly what I had been eating for a few days. I kept quiet. Dmitry watched my anguish rising and falling in sequence. “Mother, did you ask him to make this?” She sighed and complacently explained that even the sickest man sometimes deserves the best pleasures. But I was no sick man, I was healthier than ever. Except that my appearance didn’t suggest so to almost everyone who concerned me, or took concern of me. “Would you like the salt as usual?” asked Dmitry. “No. Add as you’ve been told” my mother said and escalated from her seat. She walked across the dining hall, right into the kitchen where he and I stood. She gave us a strong glimpse, and before I could tell her to stop such intervention, expecting my rant to begin, she left. “How much then?” Dmitry asked again, confused as he’d ever been. “As much as you want” I drew a sorrowful breath and went back to my room.

27th June 1989

I’ve been feeling incompetent. Worthless more than I once was. It’s been weeks now. A week of confinement. It doesn’t feel the way it used to. There was certain pride at first, a certain novelty of letting go. Abdicating the liability of pursuit. None of that exists anymore. It has faded away. What remains is a scenic hollowness. I feel I should step out after all. There’s no use continuing this self-arrest. Even Dmitry has been acting strange lately. His aggressions have become less passive than usual. Might be sick of serving me so long that he’s stopped asserting protest. He needs his freedom. Much more than I do. But he’s a servant after all. I pay him for giving up the freedom. Acting out my needs. Doing things that I’d rather not do. If he begins to resist, I might’ve to let him go. But I won’t, as long as he doesn’t make his displeasure evident. And when he does, I’ll know. Chances are less. I rarely get to see him these days. He’s been following my request too rigorously. I’d told him seven days back to restrict our interactions only to the meal times. That too is only for setting the table and serving the food. Everything else must remain as per the usual necessity. No novelty needed. And there have been countless times that I regretted that decision. I don’t know why I’ve been cutting off from everyone, it’s just instinctive, no justification in sight. It feels necessary.

XXX

I don’t remember the date today. It’s been raining since morning. I’ve masturbated watching the wall paint twice already. There’s no source of stimulation except the past memories. I can’t even be aroused looking at myself. It’s a mechanical release, nothing more. Sometimes I feel someone is watching me. Although the doors are locked, it’s the insecurity that keeps slithering in. No matter how much I try to get past, but it finds its way. From everyone else, however, I’ve mostly been secluded. That’s how it is, how it always was. Only the realization has set in. About my alienation, and accompanying depravity that has made me vigilant. Self-aware. Similar to how one notices his own breathe and shifts in its pattern. Wish mother could’ve been here. I wouldn’t have felt this alone. She stopped visiting ever since the last time. It’s fascinating how I stayed clear of causing her offense all my life. And now that I need her the most, she accepted my hostility. It’s time to change things. No aid is coming. Better yet help myself to a cause. Cause is all you ever need. Once that’s lost, it becomes unbearable to continue.

5th July 1989

Dmitry has left for his hometown. He didn’t ask. Just left. Didn’t care to collect his pending payments. Didn’t say goodbye. Good thing he did that. I wouldn’t have paid him his departure. Rather would’ve just…I don’t know what I would’ve done. It’s futile, imagining possibilities. Rather just stay and let whatever that stays. That is the only perceivable truth, everything else is just crafted lies. Some prefer to believe them, others do not. Now to face it all, it seems that there’s no one left to take care of my ailing self. In such a scenario, I must stop terming myself as ailing. Rather just open the window and shout out on top of my lungs “I am free!! I am free!!” But what good would that do? Appreciating your own freedom won’t make others feel free. And what is freedom anyway? Having money to spare? Having places to go? Having things to do? Being locked up in your home all day, is that not freedom? Inability to step outside, is that not freedom?

8th July 1989

I lost touch with things. Couldn’t keep track for a few days. Have been feeling numb except for this constant vibration that grasps the cavity beneath my ribs so hard that I lose track. The only way to escape is to masturbate, drink at times, read a book maybe. But I can’t jerk off all day, or drink or read. A man has to live. doesn’t he? He needs to make ways to meet means. What if he’s stripped of such basic rights? The paralysis of his ability. Mental, physical, and every other al. He is reduced to a piece of meat, slave to sloth, rusted and dead. Passive and unmoving. Guilt beyond reason. Only if reason could prevail. Good reasoning about having sufficient sums to meet every request, conquer all conquests. But no. It doesn’t work that way. Dissatisfaction has its way of seeping in. What next? It is the only thing I keep thinking about. What next will happen? Will the sky freeze, evaporate all of a sudden. Would someone come barging through the front door and try to rob me at gun-point? Threaten to kill me if I don’t give him what he wants. That’s the kind of thing that excites me. But its improbability is a torment that follows along. I have lost the pleasure of sleep. It once used to be a precious respite, after a day of hard labor, all you ever needed. Now it’s a monotonous endeavor that serves to kill time. Nothing more than an inmate I have become. An inmate of my own past. That lures me with all that I never could appreciate. Until now.

10th July 1989

I have decided to stop writing today. This will be my last attempt. Here on, I will be on my own. But before that can happen, I have my fair right to put up with a lost fight. Sinful as I’ve been, I do not have a bad heart. It’s just that…the times are bad. Else I could’ve been a good person. I tried every way I could, to untangle myself out of this mess. Nothing worked. And now that everyone has choicefully abandoned me, it’s time that I abandon them all. It’s all because of the mirrors. I shouldn’t have removed them. No one wishes to come and see me now. It was a mistake to go against the popular desire. After all, it’s just appearances that keep people together. That everyone wishes to delve in. If not their own, then of someone else. However I have shed them all together, and it makes no sense to wear them back on with a pretense. To lose the ability to perceive oneself is a condemnation of the highest degree. But I must pursue, not cease and desist. I won’t look at myself ever again. Whether I am afloat in the bath or sinking in the sea. Whether my body wrinkles away, or whether my soul withers away. I must succumb to solitude. This is the time. I can’t be more rife with intuition.

Goodbye Mother. Goodbye Dmitry. And to hell with everyone else. I think it’s time to return to the calm green sea. It’s time to return back where I came from. My mother’s soft womb. After all is said and done, I am just a stillborn.