The violin, puppet, and firefly

The Old Man :

Both of his wrinkled, veins laden hands helped in thrusting him forward as he tried to get up from his sofa, sending in the ages-old springs in it into action, followed by a twang sound and there he was, looking out to the horizon, where an orangish hue welcomed his tired eyes, as a slight commotion of light entered his dilapidated room, caressed by specks of dust spiraling the borders. His eyes circumnavigated the perimeter, starting from the gramophone, which played a melancholic tune since eternity, that clay puppet dressed as a ballet dancer, that piano, accumulating tons of cosmic dust and his violin perched over. There was this strange tune that kept playing on his mind, that tune which stayed buried, instead, kept buried by him, as it needed both the violin and the piano. That tune that was last played, ten years back! What is all this tomfoolery? Why is his mind playing tricks with him, convincing him to play that tune? This unsurmountable urge drove him mad as he stood his ground, fighting within himself, to prevent his soul from reaching for the violin, as he knew it won’t be possible to stop himself after that. As beads of sweat started to form on his forehead, he gave in! His hands reached for the gramophone, turning it off, and out went to the violin, and slowly picking it up, then tingling the strings, carefully, assuring himself that they are in tune, and after a moment or two, his eyes towards the horizon, now dotted with some migratory birds, waiting for the sun to set and the moon to take its place in the cyclic order of the day, he started to play. The first sounds of the bow touching the strings sent goosebumps all around his body, and as he kept getting engulfed in the melody, he entered a different universe. Their universe. That universe where the violin and the piano played together, happily, ever after. Ever afters are a farce! There’s nothing called Ever afters! It all ends and becomes a part of the cosmos from where it took birth! His half-closed eyes looked towards the piano stool, where she used to sit, and play along, her eyes on him, a smile laced across her face, throughout! How he missed that. How he missed her! His companion for fifty years. His hands trembled for a second, there was this ball of uneasiness spiraling near his throat, his vision blurred by those teardrops, eager to come out, and then he heard something. A sound on the piano. Is that really her? Or is he hallucinating? He didn’t want to know. He really never cared, as his hands, with this sudden energy, found a direction and continued with the tune. His ears seemed to not believe what it heard. The sounds of his violin punctuated, at correct notes, with the piano! It had to be her, it had to her, his heart danced with joy! His focus improved and improved as the tune reached that crescendo, and with a giant thud, he fell to the ground! The violin spiraled away, breaking into a few pieces, as the Kashmiri, dusty mattress sent out a couple of sleeping flies to the air, along with globules of dust, suddenly shocked with this event! The clay puppet kept looking on!

The Clay Puppet:

The Clay Puppet sat there, dumbstruck with the events that unfolded in front of him on the chair.

His brain, still trying to make sense of what just happened, playing the last five minutes in repeat mode. And in that particular moment, a thought hit his heart. What would happen to him? What would be his significance now? His life has been a tumultuous journey, his mind being tampered with, for so long, in so many ways, that rational thinking has left him for good! It all started from that cube of clay. That wet, lump of clay, which slowly gave rise to him, or so to say, first of the many forms he had to undertake in days to come. Forms, that would manage to question himself about his identity, about what would happen to him in the long run. He had heard of human beings getting lost, spiraling into a black hole of depression, if their identity is lost, and sometimes, how it takes a lifetime to grow an identity, but no one ever cared about his identity, is it only because he’s a non-living object, having not a sense of feeling or emotions, or perhaps because the humans do not see beyond their realm of living beings. It is all so tipsy and beyond their understanding, perhaps. Probably because of all of these mind-bending thoughts that keep crawling in his head, he never came to comprehend what is to be done with him, where it would start, where he would journey through, and where it would end. Or would it end? Do clays really decay? The only thing he had to believe was that whatever is to happen with him would be for his good. But, what is good, because for a clay puppet-like him, there’s no death. There’s this cyclic progression of rebirth into a different shape, into a different structure, taking a multitude of forms and entertaining human children, being controlled, head to toe, by a puppeteer. And as soon as you would feel, that yes, this is it, I am now this character and would love to stay in the same throughout the remainder of my life, which again is an irony in itself, but again, in limbo, for the next play, you’re changed.

Probably it is a necessity, both for him and the maker. And soon, he lost himself. Lost himself amongst many others, similar to him, speechlessly letting themselves being murdered at will by humans. Machines drilling into his feet, shapes of his eyes, his nose, his ear, all disfigured continuously as his identity shifted from Pinocchio to Hansel and Gretel to Cinderella to the ballet dancer, and now, this bull puppet. Designed specifically for a show for the children. Last week he was a bull too. And now, re-designed with an updated face and eyes, transforming him from a raging bull to a friendly one. The audience probably didn't quite like the rage, they want something funnier, it seems.

He did whatever was wanted of him, always, never complaining, still adjusting! Stuck in a black hole, forever! But he wanted an escape. Escape, out of this into somewhere, somehow, where he’ll have his own identity, far away from this land. But Is there a remote possibility for that to happen? Will there be a magic potion stored in some corners of the world, which may reach his hands and he can just run, run away. Or somehow, all the puppets from around the world, would come together to protest this injustice? Who knows if there will actually be an end to all of this? Or like clay, he would be discarded eventually when all the fancy colors, all the freshness would wither away and what remains of him would just be like a dilapidated house on the verge of collapse. He knew his mind is probably blabbering more than usual, and that he may soon go completely mad, and thereby it is sometimes better, he felt to converse to himself, to spurt whatever’s there to himself and only himself. That helps. That helped before too. He breathed a sigh of sadness and kept watching that Firefly that danced across the window. How he wished to be one and just fly away!

The Firefly:

The Firefly smirked as it flew across this newly found room, filled with lots of old stuff that needed repairing. On the ground, lay this old man, a thin line of bloodstream flowed across to the corner where a piano stayed, watching over the room. And this clay puppet sat on one of the chairs, staring towards it, those eyes! Those eyes touched him, it was filled with grief and pain, that needed a helping hand to pull itself up. But alas, he was just a firefly, with lots of stuff going on in mind! As he saw a group of young men break through the door, and pick the old man up into an ambulance, later on, his lips uttered a short prayer and started its journey back to the sea beach. Ohh, and one of them even took that clay puppet away! Who knows where! Thinking of the sea beach made his light sparkle a bit more, with a bit more intensity. His memories could not ascertain what he saw sometime back! That view remained etched to his mind, like a picture pinned on a wooden wall. He can still feel that his excitement levels are going threefold thinking about the same. A sense of happiness, unknown, to him, in all these years, kept bubbling inside him, wanting him to go back, go back to that source of happiness. Why did he fly away in the first place itself, he tried to remember. Maybe to reminisce what he saw over and over again, that sweet little memory, permanently transplanted in his brain. But not anymore, he had to go back. And so, he flew, he flew back to that place, thinking again from the start, what actually happened that day, which was such a life-changing event for him.

As he was taking his daily fly across the sea beach, his eyes caught hold of something that came in with the waves. Small dots of light, perched on the beach, so many of them. Blue and green. He thought it was some of his friends flying too low, but no, they were something, some fireflies of the sea! He never, ever thought there would be fireflies living in the seabed. He instantly took a dive down, towards the sea and keeping a safe distance, noticed them. Some living organisms, for sure! He was awestruck and was on the verge of colliding with one of them, and he realized as he crossed that particular organism, that there’s something in it that attracted him, instantly. His heart knew no bounds as he kept bouncing in the air, taking dives, up-down, left-right, and thinking. A small home perched somewhere near the beach, which would be accessible both by him and that Firefly of the sea. When he’d fly with his lights on, his partner would glorify the sea beach with its light. Together they’d form a lovely couple and live happily forever!

All these thoughts increased his heartbeats threefold as he flew towards the beach, ready to tell that Firefly of the sea, about his love. He cannot waste a single second now before his friends jump in! As he zoomed into the seashore, his eyes couldn’t believe what it saw. The beach was silent and dark, with only the waves hitting the sands. His eyes frantically searched for those lights, everywhere, but they had vanished. Vanished in thin air. He cursed himself for leaving that place in the first place. He should have never left it, instead waited there on the tree leaves and waited for the right time. Those memories which he was sewing a moment back came to a standstill, tearing apart like pieces of paper, and that sense of love that he felt seemed to vaporize in thin air. For a second, he didn’t know what to do, whether to fly towards the salty sea in search of the beloved that the universe presented before him for a moment, and he failed to get the signs, or just sit there, on the sea beach, hoping against hope, for their arrival, again. As dollops of tear formed on his eyes, his sparkling light dimmed and dimmed and slowly just went off! He sat by the beach, perched on the nearby tree, looking to the infinitely dark horizon. To the sky, with so many stars, twinkling dots, perched millions of light-years away, somewhere in the Milky Way, or maybe already gobbled by a black hole, looking over him, a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. His heart hoped that group would be back, back for him, someday, soon, and he’d wait, he’d wait for their arrival, sitting atop this branch, counting days, watching over the sea waves that continued to lash on and on and on.

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