Broken Hug

Newspaper

While walking back home restlessness had the better of him. A continent of thoughts kept on lingering in his mind. He opened the iron-gate and stood near the guava tree in the yard. He understandably nodded at the tree, shook his head. No, that’s fine. The six-foot tall tree with a moderate amount of foliage nodded back when he turned his eyes to the concrete yard. That was the second place, the tree and the naked earth, of his house he counted as his favourite. Sitting at his attic-study, whether reading or writing, sometimes his mind looked out unmindfully. And whenever his eyes fell on the tree, it soothed him. Soothed his mind. Caressed it.

He did not know why he stood there, next to the guava tree. Perhaps he was reflecting, perhaps counting numbers. Perhaps humming a tune.

Sometimes a song somehow gets trapped inside the mind, a new song which you hear over the radio, T.V., or when you are walking on the road the pedestrian who crosses you unmindfully sings the song. And no sooner do you hear it than your sensitive ears pick it up and your brain records it. Sometimes you even sing it unmindfully in your sleep.

And yes, it was The Sound of Silence of Simon and Garfunkel that Rohan was humming now.

No sooner did he begin Hello darkness my old friend than he felt a pricking sensation arise in his finger. He turned his palm and looked at pinky, the small finger of his left hand. It was twitching. Rohan transferred his cell phone to his right hand and raising the palm found the little twitching finger involuntarily go up to the screen. Next the same sensation pulled the finger on the screen of his cell phone and rested on it. It then swiped the screen from left to right. And as soon as that happened a picture appeared. A hazy picture surrounded with cloudiness around. But gradually the cloudiness began to distort and zoom out in slow motion, and in its centre a face appeared. Hazy.

Yes. The smoky beings. The male and female partner, both complete with their attire and earrings, and the lady with the choker.

The pain in Rohan’s little finger increased and the skin swelled. A pinprick of stinging pain followed, and a dot of blue liquid appeared at the tip and rested.

The female and male smoky beings brought their hands towards the screen and as soon as the screen became blank, things happened in the speed of light. Rohan felt himself lifted and when he opened his eyes, he at the New City Flyover. Suddenly a voice spoke close to his ear: 

Go there. Yes, to the newspaper vendor.   

Caught by a trance, Rohan walked down to the newspaper vendor and bought The Evening Light. On the first page, below the mast head was the picture of a young man and woman. And below them, a fresh piece of news, printed in big headline, caught his eyes.

Another suicide by a pair of lovers.

Picasso Dylan 23 and Sylvia Keats 18 were found dead at the southern train tracks. Their bodies were separated from their necks. Local residents found the two bodies lying on the tracks close to the car repairing yard where Picasso worked. A suicide note signed by Picasso and Sylvia were found in Sylvia’s pocket which said, “No one is to be blamed for our action. We love each other and that is that.”  None of them had any parents and they lived all alone. The police could dig no other information of the hapless lovers from the neighbors.

Picasso lived in South-Wind Mansions and Sylvia’s residence was in the Bow Barracks, near China Town.

*

For how long Rohan remained there he was unaware. He wanted to come out of the vision and so he closed his eyes, but the incident of the lovers was still spinning in his mind. His finger pricked once more and the smoky young man and woman appeared on his screen. The man with three prominent lines on his forehead and a silver stud on his left lobe. And the lady with a mole on her left cheek, a pair of gun-metal earrings and a choker. They embraced, and their lips gently met and crushed against each other’s. Their tongues sought passion within the hollows of their mouths.

The man looked at her beloved.

Suicide is a Jupiter trip, isn’t it hun? Rohan heard him whisper.

Yes, the lady nodded. And she again crushed her lips on her partner’s.

In the midst of their amorous act, they turned their faces towards Rohan, and Rohan, baffled out of his wits, found their faces changing to those of Picasso and Sylvia’s.

The man fixed his eyes on Rohan.

“We love our life, Rohan.” The man’s voice was slow, and it was raspy. “See we have blue blood in our veins. When I look back, I see my seventeenth ancestor…”

“But who are you?” Rohan interrupted.

I’m Juliet,” the girl said. “And this is Romeo. We come from two rival families. Our families were involved in a feud and that goes back years before any of the members were born. Yet the feud still continued due to the fact that neither family was ready to forgive and forget the past. But history distorted the story. We courted for one full year from one blood moon to the next year’s blood moon night before the friar married us off in the church. During our courting days, I conceived and a beautiful girl, Carlotta, was born to us…”

“Juliet’s maid-in-waiting, Veronika,” Romeo began, “looked after baby Carlotta. It was after she was born that our family feud came in the way, and the rest is known to all, that is, how we committed suicide.”

“But Veronika took Carlotta to her cottage and brought her up with all the love a mother can give. Carlotta grew up, fell in love, had a love child, but Carlotta committed suicide. Thus our family members grew in a restricted manner and died too in the same way. But we, suicide lovers, the harbingers of love, are alive in the next dimension.”   

“Picasso and Sylvia possessed our genes. So anyone genetically joined to us suffer a suicidal death. You will find that last year too another suicide took place, Binny and Julie too had met their deaths in a similar manner. Surprisingly, you too have the same genes. Our genes. Romeo and Juliet’s genes.  Yes Rohan, it’s natural for you to be surprised.”

“But we wanted to live,” Juliet interrupted. “However, someone can break this chain of suicide. And you can do it, Rohan. Break this chain of suicide. Look for a birthmark of half moon on your body. You will find an X in it. That is the sign of our genes. Anyone possessing this birthmark has blue blood running in his veins. But breaking the chain is not something you will win with your hands down.”

The pair of lovers brought their open palms to the screen and the cell phone went blank.

Rohan’s head began to slow spin again. He sat down on the sidewalk and started to reflect on what he had just seen and heard. Was it a dream?

But soon his legs became light and his body lifted once again. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself zooming for a split second one more time and next he was lying on his yard beside the guava tree.

Whew, that was close. He looked all around. The image of the smoky beings was still circling in his mind when he opened his eyes further. He got up, shook his head and brushed his trousers. He was in his yard, and the tree where it had been.  

He remembered he was humming a song. He got up and started to pace about the yard in the rhythm of the song Hello darkness my old friend, then, fidgeting about, clicked open the door. The darkness of the living room blended with the words of the song though it was four-thirty and the sun was yet to sink on its knees.

And as soon as he switched the light on, a tap-tap sounded. Someone was at the door. He slid it open. A girl with straight hair. Thin lips. Soft eyes.

Charoen.

Did Rohan’s heart skip a beat?

Perhaps she had the same blue jeans on, but the shirt was different, light green. A pair of small earrings dangled from her ear lobes.

A soft smile spread all over her face, molten butter kind of, on a warm slice of bread.

Before he could say anything, she said, “I found out the house by asking a few people.”

He smiled back. “But you stay quite far away from school, so…?”

“I cabbed it from home.” She interrupted before pausing, her eyes falling on the bare part of his hairy chest. “And I know this route quite well.”

He gestured and she stepped inside. From her proffered seat at the corner of the big couch, her eyes fell on the guava tree. The tree looked back at her.