Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Pill Merchant




It takes a little blue pill every time, to wake each of us up. We stay on the other side, happy in our sleep, allowing ourselves to live our life in the drowsiness of misery.  Nothing in this city surprises me anymore, the dust had long settled in the crevices of my lungs. No health official with his lousy application and flashy chart of referral  medicines could do anything about it. Sometimes when I am out on the roads choking carbon colloids and coughing my breath away- I don’t even get to excuse myself and on those days perhaps the anthem that’s locked inside my body oozes out through my mouth. The days go by in the arguments of lust-less opera. The silent opera of one’s mind make funny hideous sounds, and sometimes you meet people who in their own misery excuse themselves to be angry at the world- angry at their situation and yet sitting idly like a tall tree without a shadow to offer. I have often wondered that one day I would turn out like them, and I have often been scared.
On merry sunlit mornings over thinking leads to depression, and then I would look for ways to stay away- from people, situations, love and the likewise disease of the human condition. On one such morning, tired of my condition I looked for a solution. And this went on for quite some time before looking for a solution itself started becoming a problem. The gentle thunder storms were all over the city now, flashing electric signals over our head. On one such day, when the skies were roaring in connubial laughter; I met him. He was like any other man on the square, selling lozenges, to earn his daily bread. I felt his presence like you feel a magnet. It was different- that’s all I can say. As I approached him he started smiling tilting his head on one side and telling me – I have got the perfect dose for you mister. 10 buck a piece. I trusted his words, for I weren’t like those people who were locked in their own misery that  they were afraid to check out on the world. I must hate this world a lot too- I must hate people a lot too, perhaps that’s why I keep on mentioning them time and over again. I must remain above this, I thought. Those days I didn’t have any friends and people had an utmost dislike for me because I didn’t fit their understanding- or perhaps I was too bad. Sometimes the simplest explanation about ourselves offered us the most solace and yet if someone loved you they wouldn’t believe that.

I am evil, I must be evil.


The songs from the morning were locked in my head. Young lovers in tunic dresses, that’s how the lyrics went on. The man took out ten blue capsules and put them inside a paper envelope, and said, one for each night for the next ten days, and you will find happiness. I smiled at him allowing myself to feel humoured and amused both at the same time. The circumstances under which all of this happened was rather a turbulent one- my insides were still choked in conflicts and my outsides expressed that in whopping coughs, an ugly man the Pill Merchant he called himself gave me ten blue pills, to wake up on the other side of reality-
was it death?


It takes a little blue pill every time, to wake each of us up. We stay on the other side, happy in our sleep, allowing ourselves to live our life in the drowsiness of misery and then one fine day it all makes sense- this silent suffering and we get better, better than the present and the past.  I met a lot of funny people here and our stories ran parallel, and most of us weren’t what we thought of ourselves- we weren’t evil, our silent confirmations that we were sensitive and a bit ahead of our time, was confirmed, that was the beauty of that world. We were safe. I sometimes wonder if that world is a lie. But holding on conflicting opinions within you makes you a paradox- it’s better than being a bigot perhaps. The world still doesn't get us at times I feel. I don’t know what the Pill Merchant would think. He always smiles tilting his head.




The truth is I have been visiting a shrink lately, for all normal folks it must be a sin I guess, but I am a doer, if I have a problem I work on it, and when he heard that I write he asked me to write something for him. I don’t know if he would like this story, not every day you get
to meet a pill merchant, that too
an ugly one.

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