Marcus was young once, there was a time, a world that existed, in which he was young, but he jumped into the successive worlds every other moment, it never occurred to him that he did not have a choice, but only the prospect of choice. He dreamt of more vibrant days, where he would dance with a vivacious young lady, where he would earn a lot, and be respected. This coaxed him into taking giant leaps, into interconnected worlds; from where there was no return, the way ahead was the only way. The choice of living in the current world was never there, for the current world existed only as long as the senses captured their individual images of the world outside, put together in mind, they all created in unison, a virtual world. He was never able to tell, if the world he lived in, was the same as the virtual projection inside his mind, it felt real, the smells, the sounds, the light, everything was on the outside, everything was relayed into his mind by his senses, and the virtual world was thus created.
It was raining outside; Vanessa woke up, opened her eyes heavily, pushed the blinds on the window aside, rose up to watch through the window that overlooked the stretch of whole street. It was raining heavily and the wind pushed the stream of rain helter-skelter. A milk van rattled past, over the gravel on the road, kids made paper boats, and embraced each other in quaint jubilation, for oddly enough, all the ships sunk in that vehement outpouring of muddy water. A young lady pinned her frock up, walked cautiously with an umbrella in one hand and a basket full of roses in the other. Vanessa rubbed her hands together, closed them on her face for warmth, folded the rumpled draperies, held them by her hand, and she could feel the apples knitted in velvets on the woolen fabric, Vanessa nipped the sharp features of the apples, as a small white dog ran into the street, prancing rollicking in the tingling rain. Vanessa pulled the folds tightly together, as the dog wetted his naked paws, dipped his nose into an object here, an object there. he attentively ran round the perimeter of the fountain, swooped down upon a mound of garbage, shook the wetness every now and then, pursued his ambitious vigilance unheeded, until finally his master, the meat vendor across the street called him, and the dog ran up to him.
‘A moment passed, a world renounced, while another reckoned, the inevitable beckoned, and we submitted hopelessly. dog prancing, young lady pinning her frock up, milk van rattling, meat vendor petting his dog’ , Vanessa sloping on to her drapes thought, as the wind dramatically slanted the rain, trees disheveled, streets were desolate. water inundated slums in some part of the city, somewhere a truck struggled to wheel out of the slipping mud, a man choked to death somewhere, the electric pole glistened in glory as the rain water cleansed it off, and the morning sun tore the thick clouds somewhere, not here, but somewhere.
It stopped raining; the silvers above the stagnant water housed a tree here, a brick wall there. The clear skies invited the dawn of the day; air smelt of wet mud, faint voices from the neighboring houses imploded into one giant conflagration as everyone stepped outside. An old man stroked his chin, staked his lazy body against the brick wall, kids left for school, men left for offices, women retreated into their homes, and the old man stood there stroking his chin, gazing at the blue sky wondering if the moment has already passed, the world that he renounced, the world in which it rained, in which, everyone was inside, world of activity, of devouring constancy.
'I love your sense of disconnection' Marcus revealed once to Vanessa, she was a vibrant young lady then, 'in that world' she thought as she returned Marcus's gaze, who stood magically transparent against the backdrop of clean sky sprouted with tall buildings and a pool of muddy water before him that reflected Marcus's image. Water pool had a Marcus stroking his chin with the opposite hand as the blue sky behind him receded into the backdrop, once again transpired through him magically. Marcus gazed at the water body, and the water returned his gaze, a world of vision thus transpired in his mind, and he thought 'I am looking through myself'. A world thus seated itself inside his eyes, a world in which he existed. The Marcus that stood by the fountain in the world inside his eye gazed at the water pool before him, the water pool returned his gaze and another world thus formed in the eyes of Marcus that stood in the eyes of Marcus that was being watched closely by Vanessa through her window. ‘we all live in one of the worlds, which have a succession of procession of worlds, and in each of these worlds, a Vanessa would exclaim in horror that she was but living in a virtual world, with an infinite regress of worlds, and an infinite succession of worlds’ remarked Vanessa with an air of dejection. These worlds are connected somehow. She loved Marcus in another world, she could not hold on to it, but she felt the gaping hole that existed before her. It was horrible, how she can never live in that world again, but the connection from that world haunted her through out her life. What led to this connection? Time, but what was time.
Time is a thread that weaves the fabric of worlds together into a giant drapery, but what is an individual world made of? Time again, for it is the time that makes the moments, it is the time that we exist in, it is the time that in which, Marcus loved her, in which Vanessa loved him. Time, fabric, thread, drapery....... time made fabric, thread and intertwined them into drapery. She, Vanessa draped herself in one, Marcus in one. Someone draped it so tight around his throat, that it choked him to death. Some one's fabric was so heavy that he fell like a giant tree fell. 'The more intense one's moments were, the heavier one's drapery got,' Vanessa adjudged, her drapery was lighter, Marcus's was lighter, for they loved each other, but stayed disconnected, for each felt that they could not make their moments intense, it would smother them to death. They loved each other, and that was enough.
There was a time, when her drapery was heavy, she could not lift it, Marcus lifted it for her, and he grew older by the day, while she remained young. Then she realized, with the realization grew the weight of drapery, and she finally shed the weight off it, she beat her drapery against the unknown as a house wife would beat a mat against the wall to free it from the dust.
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