CHAPTER 1
This is freedom-to loose all hope is freedom, sinking deeper into the perpetual darkness, all his vaguely familiar emotions relented, he felt the ease with all the demons that hitherto laid contentions on him let him go, he was emerging victorious and his mind remarked upon the paradox of the cynical observation 'victorious' in the realm of an otherwise labyrinth of overwhelming darkness. he is now the lover of his delusional paradise, he in this state of absolute power over his world albeit in the confines of his powers of observation of the real world, the fertile imaginations guided almost by nothingness, succumbed to the ruler and the ruler finally finds a way to accomplish his demonic deathly hedonistic pleasures.
Seldom is a person blessed with the rare hallucinating spectacle of seeing oneself in the dream and being conscientious of it too. He was both flattered and disturbed for taking the bait of dream's confidence. He got so disturbed that his mind tried to find vents, to let his conscience escape this maze of fertile power, meanwhile, he tried to capitalize on this rare opportunity of being the maker, follower, omnipresent, omniscient entity. He jumped into the abyss of darkness, knowing fully well that he was making it happen; he had the power over the degree of darkness in and around, power over the gravity in the abyss, power over the speed of body flow and above all power over regressing back into a state of rectitude from a state of absolute decrepitude. He was floating in the air at one moment and sinking in water at the other moment.
He wanted to go back, tried to regain consciousness, so he could build upon the images that he had seen and perhaps construct a more exciting drama next time around. He kept trying, exacting all his conscience through the door to the level of higher conscience, he finally made it. To his utter disillusionment, his mind double-crossed him, though he got into a level of higher conscience, he still wasn't in the base level of conscience that he shared an acquaintance throughout his life-real world. Now, he was getting real nervous, he desperately wanted to go back and feel real things, sense them, feel them, was wanting to speak and hear people speak, he almost begged his mind to let go of this despicable test. He could not move his limbs, he was virtually immobile. Not until after another 1 hr or so, his mind let him go and the first thing that strikes his mind-is this the real world? Of course, he can feel all the objects, listen to real noises, but the eye of skepticism would not close, wish he had more evidence. He began thinking that perhaps, there is another higher level of conscience above this level and that all these people are only as much real as the people he saw in a level of lower conscience. But, how could this be possible? He was at complete unrest in the levels of conscience lower than that he is experiencing now -true, but, what if all the people in that lower levels felt the same way, if they ever happened to pop up into the higher or lower levels. State of unrest should definitely be higher as one travels into a level that’s higher than the incumbent level compared to one traveling from a level of higher to a level of lower conscience. Why did he think so? because he experienced it across 3 levels, the lowest level (definitely not lowest, there must have been some more levels lower than that, aren’t there more ?) was absolute comfort and offered bliss to him, middle one was not easy as he constantly made an endeavor to travel further into the next higher level. Does this explain anything?
What if he belonged to the lower level of conscience and only is visiting this supposed higher level for time being? How could that be? He feels at ease here, this must be where he belongs. Why is he so adamant about his being in a level of higher conscience? This is very disturbing. perhaps, that’s how higher levels of conscience are- they offer a greater degree of understanding but people don’t buy it, they prefer deluding themselves of false and dubious virtuosity while they are in a higher level of conscience than the ones they experience in their dreams. This explains a thing or two about dreams. Dreams offer substantial evidence in regards to travel between levels of conscience. Apparently, dream also tells one that he doesn’t belong to a level of conscience, that he is but a figment of imagination of someone in a higher level of conscience, that he is allowed to make choices in dreams, but the maker of choices is elsewhere, he talks his imaginative self into doing things at the mere dispense of his volition. He offers his imaginative self a certain degree of conscience, takes absolute care in not giving too much of it, he gives only as much to suffice in keeping his imaginative self in a state of rest. Through his offering conscience to his imaginative self, he makes an effort to break-even with the degree of conscience that the level demands. This nexus of conscience transfers happens across all the levels and at each level, the giver retains at his disposal-the power of cutting his imaginative self off his supply of conscience and the taker is oblivious of the existence of a giver, he in this state of oblivion, manages to create an imaginative self of himself in an immediate lower level. Although, some of the entities feel the obfuscation, their powers of conscience continue to serve them only till that point, beyond which, the giver cuts off the supply of conscience and he goes of into nothingness like the puff of a smoke. Occasionally, a person gets the visibility of his successors of conscience- not just the immediate lower levels, but also of the immediate one of the immediate. This is where the entities of the lower levels get confused by the transfer of conscience across two or more levels by two or more entities from two or more different levels.
CHAPTER 2
Spud woke up with enigma dawning on him. He had no intentions of pursuing the course of recollection and comprehension of the psychotic dream he had. He walked himself into the backyard filled with acrid smell of previous day’s barbeque his neighbors had. From where he was standing, he was able to see through the open door of his neighbors, his neighbor Steve had and his wife sera were having one of those routine altercations. Sera was a beautiful woman, she had the ability to talk people into her way of doing things with her charming wit and insuperable chivalry.
How long was he asleep? It was Sunday and kids were already playing in the ground. Sound of his telephone ringing brought him back into his unpleasant life reminding him again that Sunday was only for kids. His colleague called him, enquired if a mutual friend of theirs has left a message for him, spud’s reply was affirmative, he gave caller the message in question and hung up. Something was bothering him, something indefinable and inexplicable. He decided to drink a cup of coffee to beat the yet anonymous and elusive vagueness in his thought profile. He drank coffee, but in vain, he figured that this familiar yet highly enigmatic thought is trying to reach the surface of his conscience sea, but for some reason is not granted a decent reception at the surface and is eventually returning back only to try and swim back to the surface again. He talked himself into ignoring his time constraints for a while and grant the welcome that’s needed for the familiar intruder. He lay with his back on the couch and began envisioning all the details of the dream frame by frame. He had his ups and downs, moments of unblemished recollection of some frames and total failure of his recollection instincts at other frames.
Not pleased with himself, he deserted the exercise of recollection. He was both excited and at the same time dejected with the findings form his exercise. He wished he had remembered more of his dream or on the other hand not remembered a thing about it in which case he would not have pursued the exercise of recollection only to feel depressed.
He contemplated if to jot down the finer details of his dream, decided against it as he was certain of remembering those, it was the other details he was worried about, not the finer ones.
Spud went to a library and borrowed books on dreams. He was not quite sure of the findings and was fairly reluctant in his approach to reading books, soon he got completely engrossed in one of the books.
“Dreams are the reflection of the status of one’s cognitive mind during the day. One is very unlikely to dream a fair nexus of events which upon reassembling the order and connecting would make the connections look unique and distinguishable. One is more likely to have a holistic dream during the day for a human brain is proved to be more active during the day than at night. Dreams are not a measure of one’s understanding of the events around him or a measure of one’s moral status. Dreams are not caused out of sleep deprivation or insomnia. Although none of the above mentioned assertions can’t be proved for their infallibility, many thinkers of today would agree on them. Dreams are triggered by stimulation; internal or external. To prove this, studies have revealed that a person would for instance dream about being strangulated if the person in question has trouble taking in large gasps of breath, this could possibly be because the person is sleeping with his head beneath the pillow or he moved aside while asleep towards an object that’s obstructing him from breathing easily. One would dream about falling off a cliff or an airplane when one is on the verge of his bed after having altered his sleeping position while in sleep. One would dream about playing a refugee and is captured by a mercenary, who is holding him by his leg and would not let go of it, while in reality a heavy object is placed on his leg. One would dream about getting amputated in an altercation while in reality his feet are numb owing to the change in his sleeping position while he is still asleep One would dream about church bells ringing while in reality he would only wake up to find his alarm ringing.
Internal stimulations also trigger dreams just as the external ones do. A person with high fever would dream about being in the middle of a house lit on fire. Changes in metabolism have proved themselves to be good at triggering dreams”.
Spud found this amazing, he stopped reading and tried to back track if his dream had a stimulator too. ‘Sleeping on the very end of the bed’, perhaps this is the reason why he felt sinking deeper and had no occasion to build courage, he gave up and eventually found freedom in giving up everything. Surprisingly, He embraced his judgment with utmost sincerity and thereby forestalled further debate. This can but explain only a part of his dream-the beginning. But, what about the travel between conscience levels. Why was he unable to travel back into the current level, what must have been the rationale behind the strange illusion of different conscience levels. Why was he dreaming in the dream? What then would have been the simulator for the second dream inside the first one? After some thought, he gave credit to the appearance of ‘freedom’ in the dream. ‘Freedom’ from the first dream triggered the second one in which, he had in his repertoire all the laws of nature at his volition, he decided to swim in water, to fly in air, all this was possible in the second dream, he even ended the second dream voluntarily. Why did not the first dream run by the same set of rules, he was unable to exact voluntary action on the first dream as he did in the second one. He thought for a while and decided that the stimulators decide the level of conscience inside the dream and the degree of voluntary action.
Spud opened the door and found sera outside dangling in the air with no hooks to suspend from. He found Steve mocking at his countenance and gesticulated contempt that he had occasion to witness several times prior to this time. Steve was not in a comfortable position himself, he was gaping at the spectacle from inside the garbage can. Sera looked beautiful, like always. Her complexion so fair that the luminescence exuded by her body lit the whole backyard just like the rising sun did on several occasions before. She beckoned him with her milky white hands, he moved forward, planted a kiss on her lips. Phone began ringing incessantly and he had to choose between sera and the phone, sera laughed at his lack of intuition and vanished just like a puff of a smoke. Steve stayed for a while, left after sera accusing stud of his uncommonly behavior. He woke up to find his alarm ringing.
Apparently, his willingness to dream fairly complimented by his love for sera triggered the dream. Not an inspiring dream for he never had the occasion to ponder upon the doors to the next conscience level. For all his efforts in the dream, he had but one respite, that sera smiled at him with a countenance that had an abstract and hidden meaning which he deciphered as ‘I know stud, I love you too’. He relished on this thought for the whole day, little did he knew that this moment of relish would later have disconcerting consummations.
Steve mentions spud’s imaginative self to sera, he explains to her how revealing his thoughts have been lately. He goes on to suggest that they talk to spud about their mutual liberations of freedom, about how their lives can be more of action rather than the usual vapid discourse. This being one of Steve’s addictions, sera’s conscience has long since ceased to exist for her precisely at moments like this one. Steve would speak volumes on abstract thoughts, vague instincts, conscience and the poor and dismal use or even lack of conscience. He would sermonize her on the apparent indifference to the ‘big things’ happening around them. By ‘big things’, he would contrive the term into letting his anger, lack of courage or the complacency to flow though the term’s broad definition and conjure up as literature of rare intensity. Nothing mattered for sera, she would only heed his words, partly to avoid the dejected agony of his vision unheeded by his beloved wife and partly because she believed him, only she is not worried about things. All the same, a part of Steve’s congenial conscience provided him with the facts, that his wife is neither beckoning him to proceed nor comprehensively apathetic to his thoughts. Steve wished he could make things better for her, to stop thinking about ‘bigger things’ as he would put it and just be a husband she has always wished he could be. Steve considered this for a while as he did on many occasions before, he believed the necessity of comforting his wife, but not at the cost of relinquishing all his virtues that he held so dear to him.
Steve worked as an editor for one of the most reputed magazines in the city. As it happens, Steve is perpetually in the thought process, his job is to think, to idealize forgotten art works, to bring them back and revolutionize the arts of yester years. He is not at pressure to bring his thoughts form the dead pigeonholes and put them into words, his uniqueness surpasses his reputation at work and he is only occasionally asked if he has anything concrete for the print. His articles are published rarely, once in a month or so, there are no deadlines for thoughts like his would need the collection of substantial evidence in order to convince the people. Last article of his was on art and how demeaning art is in the hands of the people of today, how inconsequential and how wayward art has become.
“For art to assume holistic sense apprehension in the mind of an intelligent being, to regard art in the form of beauty and beauty to envelope art in its convenient grip, acknowledgement of cerebral intensity with an utmost sincerity demands to empty eulogical prerequisites of all its fragments and assume a monolithic entity. Art with its intensity can be but languorous in its approach insofar to locate the vents and purify the intelligence of the possessor which has since the dawn of mankind shown an unreasonable peevishness in an apparent act of lechery towards societal forebodings. An intelligent being first locates his object of praiseworthy exuberance, apparently caught exuding chivalry and apprehends it his mind's eye and thereafter proceeds to capture the same object against a seamless background of finely meshed inexistent background. this exercise although is discarded later in the life of an intelligent being for he would have by then encountered many objects of his taste and mastered the art of apprehending it. This exercise at the mere dispense of volition of the being in question conforms itself to the certified evidence of necessity owing to the capacious availability of the invasion of evil forces outside the purview of the mind eye's intelligence. Art’s power is in attempting to convey the beauty of abstract ill-potent objects that can invigorate the minds of few good beings in finding them worthy of a pigeonhole, a notch higher than its impending mediocrity”.
Steve had very specific social demands, he was fairly reclusive for a man of his objective vulnerabilities. He would not attempt to dictate terms to people, but nevertheless is very disconcerted at the way things happen around him. He believed that somewhere at the least expected corner of sera’s mind, she believed in his virtues and she loved him for them. His virtues that he developed in principles and in person have attracted sera to respond emotionally, an emotion that transcends sera’s comprehension and clouds her vision of the transcendence.
Sera was a beautiful woman, she loved Steve and is not totally aware of the presupposition she took for her love towards Steve. She wished he would be ‘normal’ by her standards, Steve wished sera would add deeper, meaningful and efficacious perspectives to his thoughts.
Spud had wishes too, he wished sera would love him, although he believed she did, all the same, he wanted to hear it from her. He was in his late forties and sera was only in her early twenties. Spud never realized how oddly uncommon it would seem for a common observer.
‘Hi there’ sera walking past spud wished with an odd chivalry that was never exhibited before in his courtship.
‘Hello, how are you doing today’ replied spud staring at the contents of her basket.
‘I am doing well, my name is sera, would you mind for a cup of coffee, I just got chocolate flavor from the grocery store’
Spud gave an affirmative reply, although fairly reluctantly, once inside, he introduced himself to sera and began by asking her about her husband’s work. Sera’s reply left an odd and funny impression on spud for he observed her admiration for Steve’s work, but at the same time she wasn’t excited about his work. Sera asked him what he does for a living, Spud replied ‘I worked for a theater, was a manager there until very recently, when they made it very clear that I should consider premature superannuation’. They both devoured coffee, sera found spud very thoughtful, not like her husband, but nevertheless she found him interesting. She ascribed her attraction towards him to natural tendency for he was ‘natural’ unlike her husband who would clearly choose not to be ‘natural’.
‘To my recollection, you moved in to the neighborhood very recently, about a week ago’.
‘Yes, about a week, I own an apartment near my office, used to live there, now that I am no longer working, I decided to rent it and move into a calmer place’.
Sera asked him, If he had any plans for his future, then he mentioned his penchant for reading books on vague topics and trying to capture the same feeling in reality. The discourse was sensible, for sera it meant something ‘natural’, spud just needed it. Sera’s recognition of his emotional flow began to form concrete enticer and she finally confessed to him that she is not happy with her married life.
‘Spud, do you think, it’s reasonable for a girl like me to stay in a relationship that she doesn’t find creditable’.
Those words hit spud with a rapier of familiarity. He knew it all, he was only waiting to hear the exact words which would convince him beyond the reason of doubt. He summoned enough emotional restraint in portraying his countenance so as not to reveal the absurd treachery he had been orchestrating. He gave her the familiar ‘I am sorry, I totally forgot about something, I have to leave’ line and escaped before Steve’s entry into the stage of his dream.
In his dream the previous night, He knew he was dreaming and so after familiarizing himself with the art of dreaming the events with a fair nexus, he did what he always wanted to. He contrived sera into confessing to him, he liked the dream and so was beckoned by the immediate glory of possessing a beautiful girl like sera, he voluntarily in the guise of him in his dream went about having a conversation with sera which would end up in sera falling in love with him. To his recollection, Sera uttered the same words as he imagined in his dream.
Spud felt guilty for having stooping so low as to introduce distaste into sera’s life. He was initially confused, thought the happenings inside his brain that are totally guided by him could under no circumstances replicate themselves in real life, but sera’s choice of words did the convincing he needed. Spud felt the necessity to redeem himself of the guilt, he dismissed the thought of explaining the whole eventful dream of his to sera, he instead choose to dream again and correct things this time around.
In spud’s dream that night, he meets sera and makes it very clear that he has no feelings for her and he goes on to suggest that she should not seek his advice.
‘I am not in the business of advising anyone’.
Immediately after this discourse, spud withdraws his volition from the dream, what next follows leaves an impressionable despise of his for his dreams. Steve who was eavesdropping on this occasion walks into the house, hysterical and intolerant to his wife’s indulgence, he accuses her of adultery and leaves the scene calling her names – whore, as he approaches the front gate, he is reminded of something and comes back into the house, only this time he is more composed and he is not cursing her. He tells her that he would sign the divorce papers first thing in the morning and that she would only speak to his lawyer instead. After Steve left, spud and sera are left to deal the uncomfortable silence that envelops the scene with all its power.
Spud ponders over his last night’s dream and the consequences. As he went by the events holding by its chain of sequence, he realized that he spearheaded the dream initially, but after the withdrawal of his conscience from his dream, he was just a part of the dream and had no authority over it. He decided that he should check in to a hotel, stay away from sera for the whole day, no sleep, no dream, that way he would not be confronting her and eventually the break up won’t happen.
He returns to his house next day first thing in the morning, walks past sera’s house and he notices the front gate wide open. He could not resist but walk into her house, sera opens the door for him, she beckons him to sit on the couch and leaves to make some chocolate coffee for him. Spud observes the absence of Steve and remarks upon it. Sera replies ‘we broke up yesterday night, he walked in, accused me of adultery, told me he would send the divorce papers today’. Spud for an instance thought, he was daydreaming, how could this have happened? He wasn’t there in the scene to trigger the turbulence, initiate the break up. They both drank coffee with no word exchanged between them during the period. Sera broke the silence ‘I still don’t understand, one moment he wasn’t there, the next moment he was standing right in front of me, hysterical and very annoyed. I didn’t put up a fight, just let the events take the course of action, it’s as if I was talking to you a moment earlier which is when Steve entered the house. But, you weren’t there and still I felt that you were there all the time, that you somehow had a part to play in the events that happened yesterday. I wish I had spoken to Steve, because clearly he did not watch us together yesterday and still he accused me of misdemeanor on that occasion staking his claims entirely on his observations of yesterday. It’s as if the script was written earlier and that none of us had any voluntary grip over the situation. It’s as if an element of the whole episode went missing, an element that would have made much more sense, because right now, I don’t understand anything’.
CHAPTER 3
Over the next 3 days, Spud had no dreams of significant appeal, he began wondering if he was imagining the whole thing right from the start, everything that happened was a sheer coincidence and had nothing at all to do with his dreams. Sera and Steve got divorced the following day after their altercation, Spud made a conscious endeavor in streaming frivolous or often hilarious dreams and thereby temporarily alleviate himself of the responsibilities his dreams would bestow upon him. Spud didn’t meet sera after she got divorced, he even began contemplating if his work stress over the last 30 years left his brain with some serious damage and now that he is retired, his brain is relishing in a hallucinatory mode by driving all its energies into creating images for him in his dreams.
Another week passed, nothing much changed except for the occasional colloquies that sera drags spud into. She would speak about art, books, movies, music and morals. Last element of her hedonistic pleasures always left him in awe. She would say ‘you know spud, marriage is a flawed institution’ Spud knew that much, he would reply in an affirmative tone, often adding an observation of his own, nevertheless she kept the conversations short and they would dismiss the meetings abruptly. Spud was walking down the park one evening and found a girl about 10 years old sitting on the bench in grave introspection. The degree of her contemplation appealed to spud and he sat himself beside her. She had a book in her hands, its title read ‘history is repeating itself’.
‘That’s an interesting topic you got in there’.
Little girl replied ‘Sorry Mr. I don’t talk to strangers’
Spud explained to the girl that he knew her father and he was the one who got spud the place he is living right now.
‘My name is spud, I live just round the corner’.
‘My name is Tess, I am in my sixth grade now’.
‘So Tess, what’s bothering you, You look blue’.
‘It’s the book, It says, we don’t have long to live and we put ourselves in this position’
“3000 million years prior to now, period when our planet started to cool down and the initial fillip, a pat on the back for life was first made. The color 'Green' made its phenomenal acquaintance with planet Earth. What began as a mere chance, a possibility of life on this planet turned out to be incredibly promising? 1000 million years down the line, planet Earth had bosomed in it a plethora of creatures, plants, there was enough water and oxygen for a spineless miniature to consider evolving on this planet. There was more food for thought and I might add more food than would have satiated even the largest creatures. Then came Dinosaurs, they came in all shapes and sizes. 'Solidarity' not just managed to make it's acquaintance with this creatures, but got so entrenched that the ubiquitous sight of food to feed could only have pushed the entrenched thoughts deeper into the brain and turn them into prejudices. Creatures used to hang around the forest with their kind. So, the solidarity levels were primitive and were confined to their own kinship. What next happened did not come as a surprise to any of the creatures that lived on this planet then.
It was inevitable, the levels of solidarity that found place amongst their own kind could have only grew up a notch higher, meanwhile the inter-kinship as opposed to intra-kinship was loosing its shine and finally lost its face, like it never existed. This decimation of inter-kinship precipitated perpetually and after 3 generations the mere faceless inter-kinship turned into anger, hatred and bigotry. The creatures killed the ones from the other kind, out of love for their own kind. In this chaos and confusion, dinosaurs happened to take the upper hand which is pretty much understood, thanks for their huge bodies. What they did not know was, this chaos which was not triggered by any living soul, this hatred could not be traced back, not because it’s intricate and complex, not because it’s bizarre and inexplicable, but because it’s clear and tacit. That’s how it works. There were lesser number of creatures left on this planet for the big dinosaurs to quench their insatiable hunger.
Dinosaurs took respite in the fact that they were invincible, thanks to their blissful ignorance and the self-righteous hedonistic pleasures, paved way for the birth of an evil, not that this could have been avoided. Dinosaurs were left with little food and their intra-kinship was growing weaker by the day, bigger ones started feeding the smaller ones, the smaller on the smallest, this cascading effect left no tracks and no dinosaur was left out of the loop. They started leaving their place, migrating to other places in the false hope to find food, they were deluding themselves, there was no food. Then it happened, the ones that were left over started fighting among themselves and as was expected, the slaughter and carnage left no traces of life that seemed very promising when it started off one fine morning.
Well, I ask all the intelligent people of this planet that are audacious enough to dig the past down its throat and not sweep it under the cover. It appears that the chronological occurrence of the events is happening with this genre of creatures as well.
I can substantiate my claim. Didn't we draw borders between us? We pigeonhole ourselves into different countries, the hatred, anger, bigotry? Don't you reckon we don’t have long to live and quite unarguably we are beyond the state of repair, communal prejudices are entrenched deeply in us.
History is repeating itself. We are in the final stage of the chronological events that decimated the dinosaur era”.
Spud and Tess argued on the authenticity of article’s forebodings and the supposed happenings of the distant past. Tess was persistent on the catastrophic event of the past triggered by an external force- a meteor of some kind. Spud tried to reason with her by his objective assumptions. Tess wouldn’t agree which is when Spud showed her a plantation by the park and asked her ‘Tess, do you know why those men are spraying insecticides?’
Tess looked at him with a contemptuous countenance and replied ‘To kill insects’.
Spud then explained to her that prior to agricultural era, there was never a need for insecticides for plants of contextual disparities grew in harmony with each other and thereby never existed as safe bridges for insects. Insects of a particular kind would feed on a particular genre of plants, when man began growing all these plants that are at par with each other in their needs and yields, he virtually made a selective paradise for insects. Tess argued that he was missing the point and was purposefully adapting the oldest trick in the book ‘ideological transgression’. Spud had to bring his argument to its rightful culmination sooner rather than later, so he told her how men are bending the laws of nature, by planting all the relatively similar plants together and providing insects with safe habitats, which had hitherto been in nature’s hand to let plants with enough disparities grow hand in hand, which would put a cap to the insect populations. Man is taking the path of a dubious alternative by spraying insecticides which could otherwise be dealt with growing layers of disparate plants in between, by spraying insecticides, man is quite unarguably augmenting the survival instinct of insects and thereby is forced to invent better insecticides everyday. Insects abiding by Darwin’s survival of the fittest are growing immunity thereby mocking at the scientists working in their laboratories.
Insecticides thus sprayed are showing their demonic effects on plants, soil, men and other habitation.
‘Its possible that Dinosaur era got decimated by an external force, but Tess, our era doesn’t need an external force, we are capable of destroying ourselves inside out’.
Tess mused on the imminent danger and left after promising spud that she would meet him again the next day.
Insecticides are sprayed, chemicals slowly but gradually seep deeper into the soil and into the deeper core of earth’s crust with the aid of water that connects upper crust with water bodies inside the core. Water thus mixed with harmful chemicals finds vents in the form of agricultural wells, water bodies and oceans, thereby spearheading another chain of events, meanwhile soil where insecticides are sprayed provide a chemically infested environment for earthworms which are bound to die, but some of them grow immune to the chemical presence and sadly more than three quarters of birds feed on earthworms and there is another chain of infestation. Chemicals carried away by air resulting in acid rain forms yet another chain of infestation. Herbivores feeding on infested plants in turn are eaten by carnivores form another potential chain of infestation. Spud envisioned all the chains high above in air, all the thinner chains on superimposing with each other are forming thick and deadly chains, while this is happening, man is insanely trying to discover new forms of chemicals and augmented the burgeoning thickness of chains, the thickest of all pointing upwards until very recently turned around, stared directly at him and ripped right past through his stomach. Spud blurted out blood profusely and woke up with a start.
‘Was that infected blood that I blurted out vehemently’ was the first thing that struck him. Spud seriously sat himself on the couch and contemplated if his dream would come true the following day.
His dream evidently didn’t materialize, which was expected of it. He suspected a metaphorical meaning would deduce itself instead of the actual dream. None of this happened the following day, perhaps because he wasn’t offered voluntary action in the dream. After 2days, he went to the park, met Tess and told her about the dream he had. Tess as always mused on his dream for a while, spud had no intentions whatsoever of disturbing her brilliant celebration of intuitional validations. After a while Tess asked him ‘Are you a bad person? My mom says so’.
Spud like Tess a lot and found it repulsive and depressing that her mom should inculcate such a lie upon her daughter, whatever her reasons are?
‘Mom tells me, you broke Sera’s relation’
‘I did not intend to do that, you have to believe me. I had no voluntary role to play in their break up’.
‘My mom and Steve are seeing each other, probably they will get married’.
‘How bad are you taking it?’
‘None at all, I am indifferent to my parents’ choices in their lives’.
Spud forestalled the debate further, made lame excuses and went home. He decided to confront Steve and get things straight with him.
Spud meets Tess’ mom at her home after Tess left for school, Tess’ mom ventures an opinion after listening to Spud’s enigmatic story.
‘You are old enough to leave the young ones like Sera alone, I neither confer nor confute with your subjective and baseless observations. What are you here for?’
‘I have to meet Steve and correct his version of the story for I am not at ease with the culpability he managed to bestow upon me.’
‘I disagree Spud, He did not inculcate you with an unsupportive judgment, he could have made things very unpleasant for you. He rather choose not to do so for you are old enough to atone your hasty engagements.’
She gave Steve a call, told him about the illogical argument Spud choose to have with her in his absence, this made Steve apoplectic and he approached the police with accusations amounting to disrespect towards the fairer sex. Police arrested Spud on charges of harassment and misdemeanor for a man of his pragmatism. Spud’s anger with regards to Steve got rigid and was awaiting the channel of devious discourse. The inspector in charge made things clear to spud, that he will be staying a night in the cell and would be entitled for a phone call first thing in the morning. Spud had trouble sleeping in the cell, but eventually, he fell asleep.
He escapes from the cell and heads directly to Tess’ place, he finds their bedroom still lit up and two images which he supposes as Steve and Tess’ mom engaged in a serious debate. He checks the perimeter for possible electrocution, climbs up, enters into the house after finding the door open, It didn’t strike odd to him that main door was left open, he pursued his course of retaliation, as he approached the bed room, he heard Tess’ mom arguing with Steve about his marital status and about the grave and inescapable tones of obnoxious dictates that she would be put against in the event of a marriage with him. The ill timed argument captured his interest for a while, but it did not for the second time strike him odd that the argument was ineffectual as the other participant did not utter a single word through out the argument. He heard a loud bang and the insides of his head dislocated disproportionately, before he fell down to the ground clutching his head with both his hands, he saw Steve running away from him with what looked like a steel rod in his hand. Steve began dialing violently, Spud realized that he would be calling the police station, his mind was working fast despite the hard hit his head took and he tried desperately to channel his conscience away from his pain towards the necessary action. He had a lot of ground to cover before he could seize the telephone receiver from Steve’s hands, so he began looking for an object to toss at him. He found a flower vase by his right side, he flung it at Steve in a fraction of a second. It hit Steve and the glass shattered against his skull with a deafening sound, minutes later Steve was dead with the receiver still in his hands. Tess’ mom approached Steve’s body and explained how Steve set him up, how he made it easy for Spud to escape from the cell, turned off the electrocution of the perimeter fence, left the main door open, deceived him into supposing that both Steve and she were inside the room having an argument. Spud asked her why all this was needed. She replied, Steve needed concrete misdemeanor from him to shut him in the prison for a considerable time.
The Sound of approaching Police cars struck him with an immediate need for an action, he had to think fast, decide between getting caught for charges of murder and being labeled a fugitive. Four policemen including the officer in charge demanded the residents of the house to open the perimeter gate, upon irrational dissent all the officers chose to climb over the fence after making sure that the fence wasn’t electrocuted. Spud who was observing this exercise from inside turned the switch on just when the officers were right on top of the fence, they were dead in a moment, all of them. He figured he could still chose to go back to the cell, like nothing ever happened, so he decided to kill Tess’ mom to erase all the tracks that could possibly lead to his convicting of murder. He strangled her until he could not feel her pulse anymore, he was leaving when he found Tess peeping through her bedroom window, the consequences of his actions on the little one dawned on him in a split second, she was scared, but her brain was still functioning on some basic instinct of survival.
Some one began pounding on the door violently, Spud had no occasion to ponder on Tess’ inclusion in his escape strategy, the pounding on door began increasing and soon turned into deafening proportions.
‘Hey Mr., You seem to have had one hell of a sleep, you can make your phone call now’ said the guard on duty opening the cell’s doors for him. He rang up his X-colleague at the office, phone was ringing, but no one answered the phone, he tried again, he was listening to the ring at the other end of the phone and the ringing grew into incessant tones. He woke up to find his alarm ringing.
CHAPTER 4:
To Spud’s recollection, His arrest by the police was the former and involuntary part of his dream and his conscience had no volitional advantage over the actions. His dreaming in the cell was volitional and he enjoyed insuperable authority over actions, for instance he was looking for an object close by to fling at Steve, there was none initially, but he conjured up one for he was the master of his dream, he even electrocuted the officers without much of an action, the officers cut down the main supply to the whole house by disengaging the line over the nearest electric pole, but Spud still managed to kill them.
Spud wished he could escape the events that would follow, he reminded himself of Sera’s version of the break up, how she found an element missing out of the episode and how she could not fill in the jig saw, he knew he had to be a part of the events to make them holistic. His inclusion would perhaps grant him a chance to see through the events without much of a disturbance.
He made himself available for the former part of the dream, it did not surprise him a bit, when he gave up involuntarily to the police without much of a resistance. Once he was in the cell, he recollected and it struck him with an awe that he knew it was coming, but could have done nothing but be a part of it. He observed that he had the conscience of his dream, but had no volition over the real events. He mused over this for a while and concluded that he can only enjoy volition in his dream and once the events take place in his dream, his conscience withdraws into its groove and would discard further volition. He learnt that he had to correct things in his dreams, because once he loses his grip on the dream, he would cease to be the master of his dreams.
He choose to stay in the cell, thereby reducing his dream to the availability of an alternative. He comprehended the enormity of his adaptation to the alternatives. He can create alternatives in his dream once he manages to dream inside his dream given he can transfer his conscience to his dream self in the level of volitional dreaming.
Next morning, guard woke him up, he called up one of his x-colleagues and left for home.
CHAPTER 5:
Spud has a severe headache the following morning, but undeniably that is the least of his worries. Comprehension of dream, its appealing nature of complexity, inescapable touch of reality were worrying him relentlessly and he decides to liberate himself from this enigma, to refuse taking the dream’s bait, to ignore the confidence his dream seems to be seeking from him.
After having sat himself through various procedures often involving more than one reputed doctors of the institution, he let his conscience stabilize and help him concentrate on the present. Doctors gather around what seemed like his test results and while they were discussing among themselves as to the authenticity of the test reports, Spud observed that for a fleeting second, Steve laughed at him. One of the doctors walked him into another room, this one was even more sinister than the previous one. He dismissed the thought that doctors would together involve in murky ways of treatment in the pretenses of curing him. It was almost afternoon, doctors have been doing some tests on him, not satisfied with the results, they were performing tests with even more sophisticated equipments, upon questioning the necessity of the tests, in reply Spud was granted a ‘you are not the doctor mister’ look and soon Spud gave up further questioning.
Finally the doctors took him into what looked like a classroom, one of the 3 doctors began scribbling something on the board, the second doctor occupied himself with closing the doors, windows and even the ventilators. Third doctor came close to him and asked
“Spud, Do you have any close relatives or anyone that we can call to attend your operational procedures with our hospital”
“What operation?”
First doctor called
“Spud, would you mind explaining to us, what you see on this board?”
“It’s a rectangular sketch in blue borders with white paint. What operation doctor” asked Spud looking at the Third doctor.
“Spud, we are only trying to help you, you have to be very supportive, we understand that you are in a lot of pressure right now, but we want you to know that we are doing everything in our capacity to get you back on the track”
Spud found the second doctor being very considerate to his discomfort, but that doesn’t explain why his hands were tied to the chair and why he felt so lightheaded.
First doctor by the board attracted Spud’s attention by directing the laser beam in his hand at him.
The sound of nearing train was surprisingly not the cause of his getting scared; instead it was the train’s head light with its burning nature of radiance, he felt as though the train’s light was ripping past him into the far reaches of the tunnel. Then it went blank. First doctor was not the least surprised, he beckoned Spud to the board, asked him what he saw.
This infuriated Spud, It was the same sketch, Spud wished he could express his anger, agony and anguish at the way things were handled by these doctors, but he could barely talk, it must be the after effects of all the liquids they gave him in the false pretenses of medicinal procedures. He told the doctor what he saw and tried to get up.
Doctors were forcibly chopping his hands off his body, he felt the pain surge through his nerves and before his brain could respond, his spinal cord generated an impulse of involuntary action and Spud moved his arms closer to his body.
He was sitting down and he noticed the sharp nylon rope ends left marks of struggle against its stable force augmented by the parallel component-his stupid impulse of getting up having completely forgotten the fact that he was tied up to the chair.
He woke up, to his grave astonishment, he recollected one of the doctors injected him with what must have been a strong anesthetic before his world became completely blank.
A nurse who must have been watching him closely on one of the TV screens barged into his room, announced that the doctor’s trio would be with him very shortly. Spud wasn’t dizzy anymore, he walked towards the window, spread his arms up to reach the bolt. He gave up as he realized the bolt was vanishing into nothingness as his hands cast shadow on it. He tried again and this time he found the bolt moving towards him, it was on his right hand now, he overturned and found the bolt still there, he moved his left palm towards the bolt and ‘bang’ the bolt popped up on his left palm and his right one was free from the bolt now.
“Hello Spud”
“You have got some explaining to do doctor” is all Spud managed to say after all the rehearsals of venting his anger.
“Spud, you have a rare dysfunction in your brain, the main artery that carries blood to your brain, which helps brain function smoothly got dislocated due to the sudden and incomprehensible expansion of the rear side of your brain, this is causing a pressure drop in the artery, thereby increasing the speed of blood flow into the brain.”
“Can this be cured Doctor” asked Spud without much of an emotion involved.
“Well, let’s first explain the effects of excessive blood flow to the brain. Your brain is functioning faster than it is supposed to be doing, your brain is expending major part of its energy on your bodily activities, the left over energy is expended in creating hallucinations. Normally, when a person is taking rest at nights, physical activity is minimized, brain will have enough energy at its disposal to create dreams. In your case, your brain is having excess energy even during the day, it gets even worse at nights.”
Spud looked at the window bolt and observed a beam of light projecting the appearance of window on a plain background. What he assumed to be a window was a mere beam of light and he was even under the impression that the bolt was moving closer to him. He was wrong all the time, his brain tried to find ways of expending its energy and began creating different images, misguiding him so the excessive energy can be utilized some how.
“Doctor, can you fix my ailment?”
“Spud, we are afraid, we can’t. The skull is protecting the main artery from the outside, your brain is fast closing in from the inside, any attempt to operate upon the main artery can result in permanent loss of memory”
The second doctor that he remembered as the considerate guy walked close to him and said
“Relax Spud, we are with you, we have devised a plan to outsmart your brain’s indulgence in expending the excess energy. You just have to concentrate on multiple acts a t the same time thereby expending the excess energy and believe me, you won’t be stressed as your brain seems to be capable of working under considerable stress.”
Internal stimulations also trigger dreams just as the external ones do. A person with high fever would dream about being in the middle of a house lit on fire. Changes in metabolism have proved themselves to be good at triggering dreams”.
Spud found this amazing, he stopped reading and tried to back track if his dream had a stimulator too. ‘Sleeping on the very end of the bed’, perhaps this is the reason why he felt sinking deeper and had no occasion to build courage, he gave up and eventually found freedom in giving up everything. Surprisingly, He embraced his judgment with utmost sincerity and thereby forestalled further debate. This can but explain only a part of his dream-the beginning. But, what about the travel between conscience levels. Why was he unable to travel back into the current level, what must have been the rationale behind the strange illusion of different conscience levels. Why was he dreaming in the dream? What then would have been the simulator for the second dream inside the first one? After some thought, he gave credit to the appearance of ‘freedom’ in the dream. ‘Freedom’ from the first dream triggered the second one in which, he had in his repertoire all the laws of nature at his volition, he decided to swim in water, to fly in air, all this was possible in the second dream, he even ended the second dream voluntarily. Why did not the first dream run by the same set of rules, he was unable to exact voluntary action on the first dream as he did in the second one. He thought for a while and decided that the stimulators decide the level of conscience inside the dream and the degree of voluntary action.
Spud opened the door and found sera outside dangling in the air with no hooks to suspend from. He found Steve mocking at his countenance and gesticulated contempt that he had occasion to witness several times prior to this time. Steve was not in a comfortable position himself, he was gaping at the spectacle from inside the garbage can. Sera looked beautiful, like always. Her complexion so fair that the luminescence exuded by her body lit the whole backyard just like the rising sun did on several occasions before. She beckoned him with her milky white hands, he moved forward, planted a kiss on her lips. Phone began ringing incessantly and he had to choose between sera and the phone, sera laughed at his lack of intuition and vanished just like a puff of a smoke. Steve stayed for a while, left after sera accusing stud of his uncommonly behavior. He woke up to find his alarm ringing.
Apparently, his willingness to dream fairly complimented by his love for sera triggered the dream. Not an inspiring dream for he never had the occasion to ponder upon the doors to the next conscience level. For all his efforts in the dream, he had but one respite, that sera smiled at him with a countenance that had an abstract and hidden meaning which he deciphered as ‘I know stud, I love you too’. He relished on this thought for the whole day, little did he knew that this moment of relish would later have disconcerting consummations.
Steve mentions spud’s imaginative self to sera, he explains to her how revealing his thoughts have been lately. He goes on to suggest that they talk to spud about their mutual liberations of freedom, about how their lives can be more of action rather than the usual vapid discourse. This being one of Steve’s addictions, sera’s conscience has long since ceased to exist for her precisely at moments like this one. Steve would speak volumes on abstract thoughts, vague instincts, conscience and the poor and dismal use or even lack of conscience. He would sermonize her on the apparent indifference to the ‘big things’ happening around them. By ‘big things’, he would contrive the term into letting his anger, lack of courage or the complacency to flow though the term’s broad definition and conjure up as literature of rare intensity. Nothing mattered for sera, she would only heed his words, partly to avoid the dejected agony of his vision unheeded by his beloved wife and partly because she believed him, only she is not worried about things. All the same, a part of Steve’s congenial conscience provided him with the facts, that his wife is neither beckoning him to proceed nor comprehensively apathetic to his thoughts. Steve wished he could make things better for her, to stop thinking about ‘bigger things’ as he would put it and just be a husband she has always wished he could be. Steve considered this for a while as he did on many occasions before, he believed the necessity of comforting his wife, but not at the cost of relinquishing all his virtues that he held so dear to him.
Steve worked as an editor for one of the most reputed magazines in the city. As it happens, Steve is perpetually in the thought process, his job is to think, to idealize forgotten art works, to bring them back and revolutionize the arts of yester years. He is not at pressure to bring his thoughts form the dead pigeonholes and put them into words, his uniqueness surpasses his reputation at work and he is only occasionally asked if he has anything concrete for the print. His articles are published rarely, once in a month or so, there are no deadlines for thoughts like his would need the collection of substantial evidence in order to convince the people. Last article of his was on art and how demeaning art is in the hands of the people of today, how inconsequential and how wayward art has become.
“For art to assume holistic sense apprehension in the mind of an intelligent being, to regard art in the form of beauty and beauty to envelope art in its convenient grip, acknowledgement of cerebral intensity with an utmost sincerity demands to empty eulogical prerequisites of all its fragments and assume a monolithic entity. Art with its intensity can be but languorous in its approach insofar to locate the vents and purify the intelligence of the possessor which has since the dawn of mankind shown an unreasonable peevishness in an apparent act of lechery towards societal forebodings. An intelligent being first locates his object of praiseworthy exuberance, apparently caught exuding chivalry and apprehends it his mind's eye and thereafter proceeds to capture the same object against a seamless background of finely meshed inexistent background. this exercise although is discarded later in the life of an intelligent being for he would have by then encountered many objects of his taste and mastered the art of apprehending it. This exercise at the mere dispense of volition of the being in question conforms itself to the certified evidence of necessity owing to the capacious availability of the invasion of evil forces outside the purview of the mind eye's intelligence. Art’s power is in attempting to convey the beauty of abstract ill-potent objects that can invigorate the minds of few good beings in finding them worthy of a pigeonhole, a notch higher than its impending mediocrity”.
Steve had very specific social demands, he was fairly reclusive for a man of his objective vulnerabilities. He would not attempt to dictate terms to people, but nevertheless is very disconcerted at the way things happen around him. He believed that somewhere at the least expected corner of sera’s mind, she believed in his virtues and she loved him for them. His virtues that he developed in principles and in person have attracted sera to respond emotionally, an emotion that transcends sera’s comprehension and clouds her vision of the transcendence.
Sera was a beautiful woman, she loved Steve and is not totally aware of the presupposition she took for her love towards Steve. She wished he would be ‘normal’ by her standards, Steve wished sera would add deeper, meaningful and efficacious perspectives to his thoughts.
Spud had wishes too, he wished sera would love him, although he believed she did, all the same, he wanted to hear it from her. He was in his late forties and sera was only in her early twenties. Spud never realized how oddly uncommon it would seem for a common observer.
‘Hi there’ sera walking past spud wished with an odd chivalry that was never exhibited before in his courtship.
‘Hello, how are you doing today’ replied spud staring at the contents of her basket.
‘I am doing well, my name is sera, would you mind for a cup of coffee, I just got chocolate flavor from the grocery store’
Spud gave an affirmative reply, although fairly reluctantly, once inside, he introduced himself to sera and began by asking her about her husband’s work. Sera’s reply left an odd and funny impression on spud for he observed her admiration for Steve’s work, but at the same time she wasn’t excited about his work. Sera asked him what he does for a living, Spud replied ‘I worked for a theater, was a manager there until very recently, when they made it very clear that I should consider premature superannuation’. They both devoured coffee, sera found spud very thoughtful, not like her husband, but nevertheless she found him interesting. She ascribed her attraction towards him to natural tendency for he was ‘natural’ unlike her husband who would clearly choose not to be ‘natural’.
‘To my recollection, you moved in to the neighborhood very recently, about a week ago’.
‘Yes, about a week, I own an apartment near my office, used to live there, now that I am no longer working, I decided to rent it and move into a calmer place’.
Sera asked him, If he had any plans for his future, then he mentioned his penchant for reading books on vague topics and trying to capture the same feeling in reality. The discourse was sensible, for sera it meant something ‘natural’, spud just needed it. Sera’s recognition of his emotional flow began to form concrete enticer and she finally confessed to him that she is not happy with her married life.
‘Spud, do you think, it’s reasonable for a girl like me to stay in a relationship that she doesn’t find creditable’.
Those words hit spud with a rapier of familiarity. He knew it all, he was only waiting to hear the exact words which would convince him beyond the reason of doubt. He summoned enough emotional restraint in portraying his countenance so as not to reveal the absurd treachery he had been orchestrating. He gave her the familiar ‘I am sorry, I totally forgot about something, I have to leave’ line and escaped before Steve’s entry into the stage of his dream.
In his dream the previous night, He knew he was dreaming and so after familiarizing himself with the art of dreaming the events with a fair nexus, he did what he always wanted to. He contrived sera into confessing to him, he liked the dream and so was beckoned by the immediate glory of possessing a beautiful girl like sera, he voluntarily in the guise of him in his dream went about having a conversation with sera which would end up in sera falling in love with him. To his recollection, Sera uttered the same words as he imagined in his dream.
Spud felt guilty for having stooping so low as to introduce distaste into sera’s life. He was initially confused, thought the happenings inside his brain that are totally guided by him could under no circumstances replicate themselves in real life, but sera’s choice of words did the convincing he needed. Spud felt the necessity to redeem himself of the guilt, he dismissed the thought of explaining the whole eventful dream of his to sera, he instead choose to dream again and correct things this time around.
In spud’s dream that night, he meets sera and makes it very clear that he has no feelings for her and he goes on to suggest that she should not seek his advice.
‘I am not in the business of advising anyone’.
Immediately after this discourse, spud withdraws his volition from the dream, what next follows leaves an impressionable despise of his for his dreams. Steve who was eavesdropping on this occasion walks into the house, hysterical and intolerant to his wife’s indulgence, he accuses her of adultery and leaves the scene calling her names – whore, as he approaches the front gate, he is reminded of something and comes back into the house, only this time he is more composed and he is not cursing her. He tells her that he would sign the divorce papers first thing in the morning and that she would only speak to his lawyer instead. After Steve left, spud and sera are left to deal the uncomfortable silence that envelops the scene with all its power.
Spud ponders over his last night’s dream and the consequences. As he went by the events holding by its chain of sequence, he realized that he spearheaded the dream initially, but after the withdrawal of his conscience from his dream, he was just a part of the dream and had no authority over it. He decided that he should check in to a hotel, stay away from sera for the whole day, no sleep, no dream, that way he would not be confronting her and eventually the break up won’t happen.
He returns to his house next day first thing in the morning, walks past sera’s house and he notices the front gate wide open. He could not resist but walk into her house, sera opens the door for him, she beckons him to sit on the couch and leaves to make some chocolate coffee for him. Spud observes the absence of Steve and remarks upon it. Sera replies ‘we broke up yesterday night, he walked in, accused me of adultery, told me he would send the divorce papers today’. Spud for an instance thought, he was daydreaming, how could this have happened? He wasn’t there in the scene to trigger the turbulence, initiate the break up. They both drank coffee with no word exchanged between them during the period. Sera broke the silence ‘I still don’t understand, one moment he wasn’t there, the next moment he was standing right in front of me, hysterical and very annoyed. I didn’t put up a fight, just let the events take the course of action, it’s as if I was talking to you a moment earlier which is when Steve entered the house. But, you weren’t there and still I felt that you were there all the time, that you somehow had a part to play in the events that happened yesterday. I wish I had spoken to Steve, because clearly he did not watch us together yesterday and still he accused me of misdemeanor on that occasion staking his claims entirely on his observations of yesterday. It’s as if the script was written earlier and that none of us had any voluntary grip over the situation. It’s as if an element of the whole episode went missing, an element that would have made much more sense, because right now, I don’t understand anything’.
CHAPTER 3
Over the next 3 days, Spud had no dreams of significant appeal, he began wondering if he was imagining the whole thing right from the start, everything that happened was a sheer coincidence and had nothing at all to do with his dreams. Sera and Steve got divorced the following day after their altercation, Spud made a conscious endeavor in streaming frivolous or often hilarious dreams and thereby temporarily alleviate himself of the responsibilities his dreams would bestow upon him. Spud didn’t meet sera after she got divorced, he even began contemplating if his work stress over the last 30 years left his brain with some serious damage and now that he is retired, his brain is relishing in a hallucinatory mode by driving all its energies into creating images for him in his dreams.
Another week passed, nothing much changed except for the occasional colloquies that sera drags spud into. She would speak about art, books, movies, music and morals. Last element of her hedonistic pleasures always left him in awe. She would say ‘you know spud, marriage is a flawed institution’ Spud knew that much, he would reply in an affirmative tone, often adding an observation of his own, nevertheless she kept the conversations short and they would dismiss the meetings abruptly. Spud was walking down the park one evening and found a girl about 10 years old sitting on the bench in grave introspection. The degree of her contemplation appealed to spud and he sat himself beside her. She had a book in her hands, its title read ‘history is repeating itself’.
‘That’s an interesting topic you got in there’.
Little girl replied ‘Sorry Mr. I don’t talk to strangers’
Spud explained to the girl that he knew her father and he was the one who got spud the place he is living right now.
‘My name is spud, I live just round the corner’.
‘My name is Tess, I am in my sixth grade now’.
‘So Tess, what’s bothering you, You look blue’.
‘It’s the book, It says, we don’t have long to live and we put ourselves in this position’
“3000 million years prior to now, period when our planet started to cool down and the initial fillip, a pat on the back for life was first made. The color 'Green' made its phenomenal acquaintance with planet Earth. What began as a mere chance, a possibility of life on this planet turned out to be incredibly promising? 1000 million years down the line, planet Earth had bosomed in it a plethora of creatures, plants, there was enough water and oxygen for a spineless miniature to consider evolving on this planet. There was more food for thought and I might add more food than would have satiated even the largest creatures. Then came Dinosaurs, they came in all shapes and sizes. 'Solidarity' not just managed to make it's acquaintance with this creatures, but got so entrenched that the ubiquitous sight of food to feed could only have pushed the entrenched thoughts deeper into the brain and turn them into prejudices. Creatures used to hang around the forest with their kind. So, the solidarity levels were primitive and were confined to their own kinship. What next happened did not come as a surprise to any of the creatures that lived on this planet then.
It was inevitable, the levels of solidarity that found place amongst their own kind could have only grew up a notch higher, meanwhile the inter-kinship as opposed to intra-kinship was loosing its shine and finally lost its face, like it never existed. This decimation of inter-kinship precipitated perpetually and after 3 generations the mere faceless inter-kinship turned into anger, hatred and bigotry. The creatures killed the ones from the other kind, out of love for their own kind. In this chaos and confusion, dinosaurs happened to take the upper hand which is pretty much understood, thanks for their huge bodies. What they did not know was, this chaos which was not triggered by any living soul, this hatred could not be traced back, not because it’s intricate and complex, not because it’s bizarre and inexplicable, but because it’s clear and tacit. That’s how it works. There were lesser number of creatures left on this planet for the big dinosaurs to quench their insatiable hunger.
Dinosaurs took respite in the fact that they were invincible, thanks to their blissful ignorance and the self-righteous hedonistic pleasures, paved way for the birth of an evil, not that this could have been avoided. Dinosaurs were left with little food and their intra-kinship was growing weaker by the day, bigger ones started feeding the smaller ones, the smaller on the smallest, this cascading effect left no tracks and no dinosaur was left out of the loop. They started leaving their place, migrating to other places in the false hope to find food, they were deluding themselves, there was no food. Then it happened, the ones that were left over started fighting among themselves and as was expected, the slaughter and carnage left no traces of life that seemed very promising when it started off one fine morning.
Well, I ask all the intelligent people of this planet that are audacious enough to dig the past down its throat and not sweep it under the cover. It appears that the chronological occurrence of the events is happening with this genre of creatures as well.
I can substantiate my claim. Didn't we draw borders between us? We pigeonhole ourselves into different countries, the hatred, anger, bigotry? Don't you reckon we don’t have long to live and quite unarguably we are beyond the state of repair, communal prejudices are entrenched deeply in us.
History is repeating itself. We are in the final stage of the chronological events that decimated the dinosaur era”.
Spud and Tess argued on the authenticity of article’s forebodings and the supposed happenings of the distant past. Tess was persistent on the catastrophic event of the past triggered by an external force- a meteor of some kind. Spud tried to reason with her by his objective assumptions. Tess wouldn’t agree which is when Spud showed her a plantation by the park and asked her ‘Tess, do you know why those men are spraying insecticides?’
Tess looked at him with a contemptuous countenance and replied ‘To kill insects’.
Spud then explained to her that prior to agricultural era, there was never a need for insecticides for plants of contextual disparities grew in harmony with each other and thereby never existed as safe bridges for insects. Insects of a particular kind would feed on a particular genre of plants, when man began growing all these plants that are at par with each other in their needs and yields, he virtually made a selective paradise for insects. Tess argued that he was missing the point and was purposefully adapting the oldest trick in the book ‘ideological transgression’. Spud had to bring his argument to its rightful culmination sooner rather than later, so he told her how men are bending the laws of nature, by planting all the relatively similar plants together and providing insects with safe habitats, which had hitherto been in nature’s hand to let plants with enough disparities grow hand in hand, which would put a cap to the insect populations. Man is taking the path of a dubious alternative by spraying insecticides which could otherwise be dealt with growing layers of disparate plants in between, by spraying insecticides, man is quite unarguably augmenting the survival instinct of insects and thereby is forced to invent better insecticides everyday. Insects abiding by Darwin’s survival of the fittest are growing immunity thereby mocking at the scientists working in their laboratories.
Insecticides thus sprayed are showing their demonic effects on plants, soil, men and other habitation.
‘Its possible that Dinosaur era got decimated by an external force, but Tess, our era doesn’t need an external force, we are capable of destroying ourselves inside out’.
Tess mused on the imminent danger and left after promising spud that she would meet him again the next day.
Insecticides are sprayed, chemicals slowly but gradually seep deeper into the soil and into the deeper core of earth’s crust with the aid of water that connects upper crust with water bodies inside the core. Water thus mixed with harmful chemicals finds vents in the form of agricultural wells, water bodies and oceans, thereby spearheading another chain of events, meanwhile soil where insecticides are sprayed provide a chemically infested environment for earthworms which are bound to die, but some of them grow immune to the chemical presence and sadly more than three quarters of birds feed on earthworms and there is another chain of infestation. Chemicals carried away by air resulting in acid rain forms yet another chain of infestation. Herbivores feeding on infested plants in turn are eaten by carnivores form another potential chain of infestation. Spud envisioned all the chains high above in air, all the thinner chains on superimposing with each other are forming thick and deadly chains, while this is happening, man is insanely trying to discover new forms of chemicals and augmented the burgeoning thickness of chains, the thickest of all pointing upwards until very recently turned around, stared directly at him and ripped right past through his stomach. Spud blurted out blood profusely and woke up with a start.
‘Was that infected blood that I blurted out vehemently’ was the first thing that struck him. Spud seriously sat himself on the couch and contemplated if his dream would come true the following day.
His dream evidently didn’t materialize, which was expected of it. He suspected a metaphorical meaning would deduce itself instead of the actual dream. None of this happened the following day, perhaps because he wasn’t offered voluntary action in the dream. After 2days, he went to the park, met Tess and told her about the dream he had. Tess as always mused on his dream for a while, spud had no intentions whatsoever of disturbing her brilliant celebration of intuitional validations. After a while Tess asked him ‘Are you a bad person? My mom says so’.
Spud like Tess a lot and found it repulsive and depressing that her mom should inculcate such a lie upon her daughter, whatever her reasons are?
‘Mom tells me, you broke Sera’s relation’
‘I did not intend to do that, you have to believe me. I had no voluntary role to play in their break up’.
‘My mom and Steve are seeing each other, probably they will get married’.
‘How bad are you taking it?’
‘None at all, I am indifferent to my parents’ choices in their lives’.
Spud forestalled the debate further, made lame excuses and went home. He decided to confront Steve and get things straight with him.
Spud meets Tess’ mom at her home after Tess left for school, Tess’ mom ventures an opinion after listening to Spud’s enigmatic story.
‘You are old enough to leave the young ones like Sera alone, I neither confer nor confute with your subjective and baseless observations. What are you here for?’
‘I have to meet Steve and correct his version of the story for I am not at ease with the culpability he managed to bestow upon me.’
‘I disagree Spud, He did not inculcate you with an unsupportive judgment, he could have made things very unpleasant for you. He rather choose not to do so for you are old enough to atone your hasty engagements.’
She gave Steve a call, told him about the illogical argument Spud choose to have with her in his absence, this made Steve apoplectic and he approached the police with accusations amounting to disrespect towards the fairer sex. Police arrested Spud on charges of harassment and misdemeanor for a man of his pragmatism. Spud’s anger with regards to Steve got rigid and was awaiting the channel of devious discourse. The inspector in charge made things clear to spud, that he will be staying a night in the cell and would be entitled for a phone call first thing in the morning. Spud had trouble sleeping in the cell, but eventually, he fell asleep.
He escapes from the cell and heads directly to Tess’ place, he finds their bedroom still lit up and two images which he supposes as Steve and Tess’ mom engaged in a serious debate. He checks the perimeter for possible electrocution, climbs up, enters into the house after finding the door open, It didn’t strike odd to him that main door was left open, he pursued his course of retaliation, as he approached the bed room, he heard Tess’ mom arguing with Steve about his marital status and about the grave and inescapable tones of obnoxious dictates that she would be put against in the event of a marriage with him. The ill timed argument captured his interest for a while, but it did not for the second time strike him odd that the argument was ineffectual as the other participant did not utter a single word through out the argument. He heard a loud bang and the insides of his head dislocated disproportionately, before he fell down to the ground clutching his head with both his hands, he saw Steve running away from him with what looked like a steel rod in his hand. Steve began dialing violently, Spud realized that he would be calling the police station, his mind was working fast despite the hard hit his head took and he tried desperately to channel his conscience away from his pain towards the necessary action. He had a lot of ground to cover before he could seize the telephone receiver from Steve’s hands, so he began looking for an object to toss at him. He found a flower vase by his right side, he flung it at Steve in a fraction of a second. It hit Steve and the glass shattered against his skull with a deafening sound, minutes later Steve was dead with the receiver still in his hands. Tess’ mom approached Steve’s body and explained how Steve set him up, how he made it easy for Spud to escape from the cell, turned off the electrocution of the perimeter fence, left the main door open, deceived him into supposing that both Steve and she were inside the room having an argument. Spud asked her why all this was needed. She replied, Steve needed concrete misdemeanor from him to shut him in the prison for a considerable time.
The Sound of approaching Police cars struck him with an immediate need for an action, he had to think fast, decide between getting caught for charges of murder and being labeled a fugitive. Four policemen including the officer in charge demanded the residents of the house to open the perimeter gate, upon irrational dissent all the officers chose to climb over the fence after making sure that the fence wasn’t electrocuted. Spud who was observing this exercise from inside turned the switch on just when the officers were right on top of the fence, they were dead in a moment, all of them. He figured he could still chose to go back to the cell, like nothing ever happened, so he decided to kill Tess’ mom to erase all the tracks that could possibly lead to his convicting of murder. He strangled her until he could not feel her pulse anymore, he was leaving when he found Tess peeping through her bedroom window, the consequences of his actions on the little one dawned on him in a split second, she was scared, but her brain was still functioning on some basic instinct of survival.
Some one began pounding on the door violently, Spud had no occasion to ponder on Tess’ inclusion in his escape strategy, the pounding on door began increasing and soon turned into deafening proportions.
‘Hey Mr., You seem to have had one hell of a sleep, you can make your phone call now’ said the guard on duty opening the cell’s doors for him. He rang up his X-colleague at the office, phone was ringing, but no one answered the phone, he tried again, he was listening to the ring at the other end of the phone and the ringing grew into incessant tones. He woke up to find his alarm ringing.
CHAPTER 4:
To Spud’s recollection, His arrest by the police was the former and involuntary part of his dream and his conscience had no volitional advantage over the actions. His dreaming in the cell was volitional and he enjoyed insuperable authority over actions, for instance he was looking for an object close by to fling at Steve, there was none initially, but he conjured up one for he was the master of his dream, he even electrocuted the officers without much of an action, the officers cut down the main supply to the whole house by disengaging the line over the nearest electric pole, but Spud still managed to kill them.
Spud wished he could escape the events that would follow, he reminded himself of Sera’s version of the break up, how she found an element missing out of the episode and how she could not fill in the jig saw, he knew he had to be a part of the events to make them holistic. His inclusion would perhaps grant him a chance to see through the events without much of a disturbance.
He made himself available for the former part of the dream, it did not surprise him a bit, when he gave up involuntarily to the police without much of a resistance. Once he was in the cell, he recollected and it struck him with an awe that he knew it was coming, but could have done nothing but be a part of it. He observed that he had the conscience of his dream, but had no volition over the real events. He mused over this for a while and concluded that he can only enjoy volition in his dream and once the events take place in his dream, his conscience withdraws into its groove and would discard further volition. He learnt that he had to correct things in his dreams, because once he loses his grip on the dream, he would cease to be the master of his dreams.
He choose to stay in the cell, thereby reducing his dream to the availability of an alternative. He comprehended the enormity of his adaptation to the alternatives. He can create alternatives in his dream once he manages to dream inside his dream given he can transfer his conscience to his dream self in the level of volitional dreaming.
Next morning, guard woke him up, he called up one of his x-colleagues and left for home.
CHAPTER 5:
Spud has a severe headache the following morning, but undeniably that is the least of his worries. Comprehension of dream, its appealing nature of complexity, inescapable touch of reality were worrying him relentlessly and he decides to liberate himself from this enigma, to refuse taking the dream’s bait, to ignore the confidence his dream seems to be seeking from him.
After having sat himself through various procedures often involving more than one reputed doctors of the institution, he let his conscience stabilize and help him concentrate on the present. Doctors gather around what seemed like his test results and while they were discussing among themselves as to the authenticity of the test reports, Spud observed that for a fleeting second, Steve laughed at him. One of the doctors walked him into another room, this one was even more sinister than the previous one. He dismissed the thought that doctors would together involve in murky ways of treatment in the pretenses of curing him. It was almost afternoon, doctors have been doing some tests on him, not satisfied with the results, they were performing tests with even more sophisticated equipments, upon questioning the necessity of the tests, in reply Spud was granted a ‘you are not the doctor mister’ look and soon Spud gave up further questioning.
Finally the doctors took him into what looked like a classroom, one of the 3 doctors began scribbling something on the board, the second doctor occupied himself with closing the doors, windows and even the ventilators. Third doctor came close to him and asked
“Spud, Do you have any close relatives or anyone that we can call to attend your operational procedures with our hospital”
“What operation?”
First doctor called
“Spud, would you mind explaining to us, what you see on this board?”
“It’s a rectangular sketch in blue borders with white paint. What operation doctor” asked Spud looking at the Third doctor.
“Spud, we are only trying to help you, you have to be very supportive, we understand that you are in a lot of pressure right now, but we want you to know that we are doing everything in our capacity to get you back on the track”
Spud found the second doctor being very considerate to his discomfort, but that doesn’t explain why his hands were tied to the chair and why he felt so lightheaded.
First doctor by the board attracted Spud’s attention by directing the laser beam in his hand at him.
The sound of nearing train was surprisingly not the cause of his getting scared; instead it was the train’s head light with its burning nature of radiance, he felt as though the train’s light was ripping past him into the far reaches of the tunnel. Then it went blank. First doctor was not the least surprised, he beckoned Spud to the board, asked him what he saw.
This infuriated Spud, It was the same sketch, Spud wished he could express his anger, agony and anguish at the way things were handled by these doctors, but he could barely talk, it must be the after effects of all the liquids they gave him in the false pretenses of medicinal procedures. He told the doctor what he saw and tried to get up.
Doctors were forcibly chopping his hands off his body, he felt the pain surge through his nerves and before his brain could respond, his spinal cord generated an impulse of involuntary action and Spud moved his arms closer to his body.
He was sitting down and he noticed the sharp nylon rope ends left marks of struggle against its stable force augmented by the parallel component-his stupid impulse of getting up having completely forgotten the fact that he was tied up to the chair.
He woke up, to his grave astonishment, he recollected one of the doctors injected him with what must have been a strong anesthetic before his world became completely blank.
A nurse who must have been watching him closely on one of the TV screens barged into his room, announced that the doctor’s trio would be with him very shortly. Spud wasn’t dizzy anymore, he walked towards the window, spread his arms up to reach the bolt. He gave up as he realized the bolt was vanishing into nothingness as his hands cast shadow on it. He tried again and this time he found the bolt moving towards him, it was on his right hand now, he overturned and found the bolt still there, he moved his left palm towards the bolt and ‘bang’ the bolt popped up on his left palm and his right one was free from the bolt now.
“Hello Spud”
“You have got some explaining to do doctor” is all Spud managed to say after all the rehearsals of venting his anger.
“Spud, you have a rare dysfunction in your brain, the main artery that carries blood to your brain, which helps brain function smoothly got dislocated due to the sudden and incomprehensible expansion of the rear side of your brain, this is causing a pressure drop in the artery, thereby increasing the speed of blood flow into the brain.”
“Can this be cured Doctor” asked Spud without much of an emotion involved.
“Well, let’s first explain the effects of excessive blood flow to the brain. Your brain is functioning faster than it is supposed to be doing, your brain is expending major part of its energy on your bodily activities, the left over energy is expended in creating hallucinations. Normally, when a person is taking rest at nights, physical activity is minimized, brain will have enough energy at its disposal to create dreams. In your case, your brain is having excess energy even during the day, it gets even worse at nights.”
Spud looked at the window bolt and observed a beam of light projecting the appearance of window on a plain background. What he assumed to be a window was a mere beam of light and he was even under the impression that the bolt was moving closer to him. He was wrong all the time, his brain tried to find ways of expending its energy and began creating different images, misguiding him so the excessive energy can be utilized some how.
“Doctor, can you fix my ailment?”
“Spud, we are afraid, we can’t. The skull is protecting the main artery from the outside, your brain is fast closing in from the inside, any attempt to operate upon the main artery can result in permanent loss of memory”
The second doctor that he remembered as the considerate guy walked close to him and said
“Relax Spud, we are with you, we have devised a plan to outsmart your brain’s indulgence in expending the excess energy. You just have to concentrate on multiple acts a t the same time thereby expending the excess energy and believe me, you won’t be stressed as your brain seems to be capable of working under considerable stress.”
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