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Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage


The feeling of emptiness pursued her ruthlessly, she wandered hither and thither aimlessly, but stubborn in her wavering, with an instinct supporting her, and beckoning her to step forward. Ursula wondered how irrational it might appear for an outsider, how superbly inane, and how inelegant. But, she would not let these external faculties ruin her person, her character, and her intuition.

What would I like to have? Ursula thought, what did the broad nosed man know, what she wanted, did it matter.' just a cup of tea please', waiter left, but the expression that he put up on his face attracted her, summoned her articulation, and she opened her brown book with golden letters embossed on the front page, began writing with her fountain pen. She wrote ' the short, stout man, walking past the table in a steady gait robbed me of my intuition, now I feel his creation, my thoughts horribly becoming his. He stared at me, as if he knew prematurely, all my thoughts. His standing there awaiting her words, was but a silly thing, he read my thoughts callously, did not mind my uneasiness. For him, she did not exist, yet he stood there all the time, waiting for the sacred words' 'madam, here is your tea, would that be all?’ Intolerable, how he grabbed her mind with his hand; shook it off its articulation that was perspiring over the surface, bubbling, sprouting, and throbbing. How he emptied her of the stream of articulation, and how dare he still stood there, as if he did not know her reply. No, she did not want anymore, she did not want to have anything; she did not want this inhospitable and pretentious bullying. He knew that she would not order for more, yet he asked, unbearable, she palpitated with anger. Her thoughts, oh, how he mockingly shed her off them, and now, she has to find them all, strung them all together into one meaningful stream of thought.

She looked closely, atmosphere looked intense, promoting flavors, gratuitously offering substance, she looked around, and all the people around her defied her logic, her rationale. All the people appeared calm and composed, but they were not, everyone in their own way was representing a barrier for thoughts, they all looked superfluous in their delivery, in their pursuits for a decent discourse, they picked thoughts off tangent, albeit unconsciously, but ironically pursued their deliverance in that highly thought deprived direction, they behaved like a bunch of school kids trying desperately to enact their teachers. All those off tangent thoughts resulted in apotheosis of superfluity, and they pushed their emotional and intellectual faculties further, as the discussion proceeded to higher echelons of superfluity, they pushed it even harder, for they were immensely incapable of admitting the truth, that they chose to grope in that direction aimlessly, because they were afraid of climactic situations, it scared them. Discourse was never self sufficient, it was a mixed bag of intangible assets, making an irreparable damage to the heart of discourse, but they never retreated, for they did not care, they did not know, so it appeared to Ursula.

Swords of light pushed through the loose corners of drawn blinds, slantingly illuminated a table there, a table here. Its insouciance appealed Ursula, how elegantly poised it was, how admirably inefficient the whole place looked, it was in need of sun's gratuity, those slanting edges of rectangular islands did anything but suffice the need of grandeur, it was all so delicately poised at the moment, She should have been out there in the open, she imagined sitting on the beach, watching the dreamy wonder of all darkness suddenly showing signs of a martyr in the horizons. How the morning darkness, that chilled air, freezing cold hugged her, and the darkness told her, that she would be there for her, always. It all looked so promising, she needed darkness, and she wanted to sit there watching that immense and vast darkness, which showed no signs of malaise, incorruptible, invincible. Sound of waves reaching out for her frock, while she sat there on the beach, how they retreated back, after gently caressing her frock, and the sand beneath her pulling her with all its might into the darkness, into the vastness, yet she stood there, she loved the sea, she loved the seamless horizons. She loved the retreating sound of waves that appeared relentless in their entreaties, they wanted her inside the sea, that she would fit the jig saw and finish the puzzle, and then the monolithic entity would roar in jubilation, of centuries of subdued strength. How the entity kept pulling sand on the shore proposing favors, and yet how unfairly Ursula denied the necessity. But, now the entity would celebrate the collaboration, how Ursula finished its puzzle? There she sat, and then it happened, rising martyr threatened to lacerate the vastness, the darkness, how could this happen to her, she hated it, watched in horror, as the yellowish martyr with his sword cut the vast darkness horizontally, ripped it into half, and slowly raised upwards form the lower half, which still appealed her, and moved into the vastness of blue. Slowly, but gradually the martyr burnt into a fire ball, while the sea beneath it radiated with life, reflecting its gratuitous light back into the bluish vastness above it.

But, here in this cafe, suddenly everything looked so bleak, so dishonest, so unapproachable and indecent. The people around her did not evoke pleasure in her, they did not trigger imagination, they were too ineffectual, too boring, and they were unconsciously driven, unconsciously deemed to end up, to end up in unfathomable obliqueness. How could they be so irrational, why wouldn't they empty their conscience, float in thoughtfulness with pulling weight left beneath them, untethered by the weight of discipline, by the weight of aim and purpose, they would then fly in awe and amaze, undeterred by the earthly communiqués, they would then spread their wings apart, swish and dance in thoughts. With Self aggrandizement augmenting their self esteem, they would flutter, as the sea of discipline beneath them would stutter with swords of education, swords of loyalty, and swords of morality. Undeterred they would fly; devour sand, savor on the impulsive thoughts. But, they never did.

Ursula drank her cup of tea, and was about to leave it on the glass coaster, when she found written on the glass coaster 'each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage', how blissfully ignorant she had been, how profoundly languid she had been in her pursuits, how could she have so callously gotten misled by the indignities surrounding her. It was right there, the answer to her inspiration was right in front of her eyes, this was the moment of elation. It’s her righteous infatuation to the objects of inspiration. She opened her book, and began writing, she wrote with the strength of accumulated thoughts, the weight and burden of the thoughts to present themselves on the paper bemoaned her, her imagination encircled her, protected her from the external faculties of disturbance, and she wrote.....the surge of electricity from her mind flew in ripples and waves frothing at the tip of the nib as they struck the paper. some thoughts flew past the others carelessly presenting themselves before their right turn. But, Ursula was an embodiment of perseverance, she collected all the thoughts, she did not care if precedence to presenting thoughts was not observed meticulously, because, she was working under the weight of deliverance, and she delivered quite happily. As she wrote, with each string of imagination buckled into an electric thought delivered by the wave of impulse, frothed at the end of nib, she felt the ease; she felt the storming rage losing its nature, the turbulence captured into the narrowness.

It was her imaginary voyage, she was now staring straight into the burning fireball, the yellow martyr was no longer there; the fire ball must have consumed him. The pebbles on the coast glistening in glory sought her attention, their turgid smooth surface told her a story, a story of each wave that ran up over them, to cleanse them, each wave that broke upon their surface with benumbing sound and speed, rollicking over them, dancing, frothing, in tides and ebbs. Every drop of water that touched them, that tinged and tickled them, and before the knowledge of a retreating wave surfaced on her thought profile, here it comes again, how beautiful, how so immensely delightful it was to her, to sit there and watch all the pebbles taking pleasure in their subdued state. Ursula could be a pebble, sit there on the beach, washed with each wave, pulled into the ocean with each retreating wave, the closer she got, the better it was, it was unimaginably promising. She watched as the waves broke in front of her eyes, watched them and freeze that moment, the dancing wave with its neck raised above its body, about to deliver, the strange colorlessness, how the neck of the wave lost its color, its characteristic bluishness and plunged in one giant swell of power, thrust her away from the shore, wetting her completely.

Then she walked away from the shore, and let the sun gaze upon her, to dry her. Each drop of water evaporating from the surface of her body, pulled her along in an intangible thread of allegiance, but the threads were too light, and could not lift her upwards, instead they left a goose bump on her skin, a mark of expectancy, a mark of love. The sun loved her, it tried to pull her towards her with shafts of thin threads filled with sunlight, each shaft dug deeper into her skin, hooked onto the insides of her skin, and lifted her up, only the marks remained, they could never lift her, for the earth and the ocean loved her too, they pulled her towards them ever so strongly. Sun eventually gave up, and the goose bumps magically disappeared, the shafts of light were unhooked. Earth and the ocean won the battle, they won Ursula, they fought the infernal rage of sun for Ursula, and she felt ever more beautiful.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Dubito, ERGO cogito.
Cogito, ERGO sum.(René Descartes)

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