The Doctor, the Patient, the Shaman, his Parents and Everyone Else: Episode One

I went to his room. There was a commotion already in place. "What happened?" I inquired. "He refuses to wake up." I was told. I was surprised. "What do you mean he refuses to wake up?"
He is not getting up, his mother told me. He has been asleep for a week now. Frantic activity all around me. Doctors, nurses, excited whispers, a few guffaws. How can a person not get up? I picked up the glass of water lying there on the table. Hasn't ate or drunk since then. I flung the glass of water on his face. A collective gasp went up, I was a barbarian. But from the guy, not the slightest twitch. "Is he dead?" I asked the important looking doctor. She huffed and puffed. "No he is breathing. All EEG readings point to a REM sleep." REM as in the band, I like their songs. I stupidly inquired. "No," she rolled her eyes. "REM as in Rapid Eye Movement" she said with considerable stress on Movement. He is perfectly normal. "So he is hibernating basically." I smiled a smiled that was not shared by anyone in the room. His mother was already crying. I took a cigarette from my pocket and started to smoke. The doctor wrested it from my lips and stubbed it out, pointing to him. "What?" I was flabbergasted. "A he is not sick B he is a SMOKER. I am sure he misses the smoke."
"Get out," she howled. I ignored that. Please don't act like I am not concerned, I said, I don't know what to do, same as you. Can't think of anything else. "Are you a friend of his?" his mother asked me. I thought for a moment. I believe I am. Who is a friend by the way? I thought. Is he drugged. I know he does coke. I told the doctor. No, this is not a symptom of coke, or any other drug, this is unlike anything that is known. No coma even. "You were hoping that he was in a coma." I asked her. I could probably have cured his coma, she replied, but I don't know what to do now. Healthy males don't suddenly lose control of their motor systems.
I looked at the saline drip that was keeping him alive. The steady whir of the dialysis machine. The silently sobbing mother. The bustling crowd gathered to see a miracle. He has taken a samadhi his father suddenly announced, excitedly. I am proud of him. There were tears in his eyes. I slapped him hard and punched him in the face. It became ugly. People suddenly grabbed me and formed a defensive wall around him. Like it was frigging Troy.
His mother tapped me lightly on the shoulder after the people had let me go. His father was eyeing me warily and continued shedding tears like a defective tap, I thought.

"Please don't mind him. He is trying to cope with the loss of his only son."
" But he is not dead. He is just refusing to be awake. I tried to point out.
She smiled. I hope so it is. "Is that because you don't have enough savings and he had a paying job? Who will support you now?"
I wish it was that simple she said. We are already dead. He should live on. He has a long life ahead. Yeah but he could have had an accident and then he would be really dead. I interjected. She stifled a sob. Yeah that would have been bad, but this is no better now, is it?
The way I look at it, I told his mother, he is just refusing to wake up. There has to be a cure for that. Say if we suddenly put lots of ice-cubes on his stomach and at the same time bring a candle near his feet, the pain will wake him up. It'll be like Pasteurization.
" Are you a monster? You barbarian shaman," the doctor asked me visibly disgusted by my idea. "Well you seem to have a better idea," I told her. She looked at me. Deep in thought. This is not what I got a degree in medicine for. She replied. Hmm... But I believe you got a degree so that you can cure people. I told her. She looked at me surprised. As if I was really a barbarian not capable of sensitive thinking. Okay we'll give it a try, she said with much difficulty. I smiled, "Okay leave it to me."
I got in midst of all the congegration. I clapped my hands to get everyone's attention. Okay everyone, thanks for being here. So long. I have an announcement to make. The patient has been diagnosed with the extremely rare sleeping sickness, which is highly contagious. So will you all please get the fuck out of here. And I mean now. The room was empty before I completed the sentence. Now only remained the Doctor, the parents and the shaman. Which was high praise according to me, only the most intelligent and brutally clever guys became Shamans in their tribes and were like the leaders behind the throne. Ensured of my place in history... I took my position with a lighted candle as the doctor brought a pack of ice-cubes.

A God's Lament

Should I just obliterate all existence and be done with all the charades? I am after all a God left at the mercy of whimsical beings. Is the capacity to bear infinite pain my omnipotence? Why did I create when I knew that this day will come? Am not I above errors? Then why is my reflection not blemish free?
Why can't the fountains of Heaven quench my thirst? Where did I go wrong? How could I go wrong? Why won't the blood come off of my sleeves? This isn't what I planned. This is exactly what I imagined. Who do I seek forgiveness from? Who do I pray to? Where is my Messiah? Cornered and wounded. I was. I am. I will be. The power to create. The power to sustain. The power to annihilate. And much worse, the power to remain. A passive observer to an experiment gone horrendously wrong. Witness to the pain and grief of a decaying civilization. A dying world. A voiceless potrait. An image to be afraid of. To be revered, yet never to be understood. Omnipresent and yet blinded.

Inside every heart yet doomed to be alone. Who decided my fortune?

The shimmering haze. The merciless sun. Everyday the same. A victim of my own ire. The humble vassal. The noble slave. The priest and the renegade.

The sinner and the scion. The god amongst men.

Words and meanings. Objects and intentions.
Life and death. To understand and to be understood.

To try and to fail. To fall and to get up again. The biting cold, the searing pain.
Tears drop like rain. Won't see you again, but miss you all the same.

The tick tock of the clock. The sound of pages being torn. The beat of the heart and the poisoned dart. The singing drum and the exploding bomb.

To kill and to die.

Right now all can think about is all the gruesome deaths that would end my life. So why haven't I ended my life. Okay makes no sense to me. Drivel. All of the above. Maybe, maybe not. What do I live for? Audioslave has disbanded and there last album was not even a millionth as a good as their first. So basically what is the point in living? Well Gears of War comes for PC this Christmas. So I might wanna hang around till New Year. Then what will be my raison d'etre? If I mispronounced sorry, I am not French. Anyways I mean what is the reason of my existence? What will I do? Anyways I thought that I had risen above the self-deploring death-begging pessimistic inhuman existence that I had been leading, but things rarely go according to plan right? Damn I hate optimists and their happiness. As someone wisely said you need pain to understand the true worth of happiness or something like that. Yeah if you have been following my writings. You'd have guessed it right. Quiz tomorrow. I am quite unprepared also. So 2+2 =4.
Anyways I am happy to announce that I am no longer that concerned about being happy or anything. It doesn't really matter I think. All that matters in my life is a good MTech CPI and a fat paying job. See I changed my priorities. I will probably now become an investment banker. So sorry world I am not inventing the fusion reactor anymore. What do you guys care? Happy enough with gasolene that you are. So the new plan is IB and then a fat sum of money. See happiness is for the mundane, it truly doesn't matter. Of course I am not going as far as Van Gough who cut an ear of his and made a self-potrait. As far as I am concerned happiness can go rot in Hell for all my sins.
So here is the complete list of things I have decided I won't be needing 10 years from now: Happiness, Friends, Relationships, Parents(a wee bit undecided here, blame my upbringing, but I believe they'll be better of without me), Religion, India(along with any residual feeling of patriotism left in me Good Riddance), Hindi Movies( I downloaded Chak de but I won't watch it, I have decided, ever), in fact movies of any kind or language, faded denims( good bye old friend been nice being with you), Family, MotoSLVR L7 (Good for now won't want to be hanging on to a piece of junk 10 years from now), Hindi(written or spoken), Sandals and boots, Tropical Summers, Monsoons(which means Australia won't be my eventual abode, never liked them anyways), Newspapers(already given them up for years), News from any media(what is the big great urgent need anyways, except my gizmo feeds and gaming news you need to stay with the times after-all where it matters), Health(I don't fall sick anymore, not even fevers or colds and I hate that completely), Cable connection/Dish TV(or whatever replaces that 10 years from now), Congegrations and crowds(I get claustrophobic, crowds are worse than caves) Sunlight(manage to avoid it mostly alreay). Memories(Hard drives get better once all the clutter is removed, but I know not a way) Whew exhaustive but maybe not complete.
Now the things I need: Money, Money, Money. Everything else follows. See money buys stuff. Stuff brings contentment. Contentment brings happiness. Quod erat demonstrandum. Oh and also my brother(what would be the point of living if we can't meet at least every now and then?) God(I know he exists, my birth was no accident :P).
Also I have decided that 50 is a ripe old age to die(thankfully I didn't grow up watching football or I would have been satisfied with a couple). 50 is 30 more than what I have lived. Which is more than all the time I have existed for. And I have been alive as far back as I can remember so that is a lot of time. I can do without all the added burdens of old age thank you very much. All I want are a couple of thrills. And 30 years are long enough to have them.
So its not I am not scared of death. Well scratch that. Infact I am not afraid of death. I can look anyone in the eye and say that. Even myself. Why should I be afraid of death? Next I would be expected to be afraid of the Sun. I am sorry but I am not going the way ape-men went millions of years ago. I am not conforming. That is for sure. That doesn't mean I am not scared of dying. I am scared because it is supposedly very painful. Death is infact the one last suspense. Pain I know of. See basically if I can be guaranteed that I won't feel a thing I won't mind dying. Not suicide though. Suicides I don't like. Maybe because a few of my friends went that way. Also suicides are notorious for failing. Suppose I survive the fall and get paralysed neck down. That would suck. And all the fuss that is made about death. See death is a word with a very negative connotation. Conclusion is such a better word for what actually happens. A chapter concludes with a life. It is a given. If you're born you'll die. Even the Colossus of Rhodes fell and was destroyed. So was the Titanic. It is something that we must expect. Death can't be wiped out. Maybe it can be delayed indefinitely or our existences recycled in the crude forms of souls or something similar but still death will strike. If you don't wanna die probably you should not have been born. So. Anyways as I was saying, Death is but the conclusion of a book or a song.
I don't know if I'll be welcoming it with open arms but it is worth waiting for.
So I got distracted and out poured a rant. But I believe the above few lines are the only meaningful ones in this whole article.
My grandfather died when I was in a very impressionable age. I was like barely teen-aged. So it had a very huge affect on me. Not suddenly. But over time. I don't recollect being sad at his death. After all we had always been told that one should not be sad when someone passes away, because they've went to a much better place. I don't really remember what he looked like anyways. But I remember that he had to use a stick to walk ever since he was very young.
I had been told that he fell of a horse when he was a kid. But now I think maybe it was because of polio or something. But you can't really explain that to a kid now. He might get scared. But say granpa fell off a horse and he is awed. So anyways, I did not cry instatly, but finally I did. I did that when I say everyone was crying. Even my dad, and I have never seen him cry. So that was huge. I remember saying to my aunt that I am not crying. I hugged her and then started crying. Or maybe it was after I saw my brother crying that I thought that I should be crying. One of the two or both. I am sorry about the inaccuracy. But it is not the kind of memory that my brain would strive to preserve.
With all this said I am killing this article. I mean concluding this article. I hope that gives everyone who reads this some food for thought. You are welcome to have my share of happiness if you offer me your salary. I am satisfied with playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 at the moment. Say is happiness in anyway like the feeling I had when I killed 2 AI characters with a single sniper bullet?