Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 11
by Md. Nayeem Haider
(I)
“I have been to this place before.”
Every time, without the ghost of variation, I think these words upon finding myself in that place.
“How strange”, I think right after.
But strange barely begins to describe this world.
Something compels me to move forward.
But what is it?
Indecipherable voices call out to me. Invisible arms beckon to me. But to whom do they belong?
I cannot say.
I must walk.
Only that I know for sure.
But where?
What is my destination? There is nothing in this world save void and sand.
A landscape of just that–of dunes stretching as far as my eyes can see. It is a world without a sun, a moon, or any stars–yet there is light.
Where does it come from? This very dust on which I stand?
I cannot say.
Walking is torture.
My feet are bare, and the sands, whimsical.
Oftentimes, I feel them scorch my feet; the sensation of fiery serpents biting into and tearing the skin off the soles of my feet. It is as though I’m about to turn to ash in a mere instant.
At other times, a bone chilling cold overwhelms me, and threatens to freeze the blood running through my veins. In those times, my feet can hardly move, as if steadily turning to ice.
Why do I keep moving forward? Why can I not stop?
The answer is simple.
To not move is to stay still; to be rooted to the same spot; to exist, and nothing else; to simply observe this null, this desert of emptiness.
There can be no worse pain; no greater suffering; no torture more terrifying.
I must walk.
The methodical thumping of my feet is what keeps me sane; there is no other sound; no such thing as smell. The footsteps I leave behind let me know of my meaningless progress–this parade of moments that marches onward, perhaps towards infinity.
I do not stop–it is not that I don’t want to, I simply cannot.
My destination lies much further away. Every cell of my body screams for me to stop; to turn back, but the mind is the master, after all.
It simply refuses to acquiesce.
I must walk.
(II)
I have reached the banks of what looks to be a sea.
A blood-red sea–a body of liquid that gives not life, rather takes it aplenty. My unbearable unease could easily have been ameliorated by the gentlest movement of this crimson fluid–by the
smallest aberration; by a nigh unnoticeable variance in this harrowing uniformity.
But of course, how could such relief come to me?
She is a sea of absolute stillness, birthing not even the most miniscule wave.
But of course, how could waves exist in the first place?
There is no such thing as wind–not even the faintest hint of a breeze. The only testament to the presence of air is the fact that I’m still alive.
I am still alive.
I am still alive.
Am I still alive?
I cannot say.
At the shore of this red sea, this ocean of blood, lies a small rowboat. It has been left there for me, and on it, I’m destined to make my crossing.
The voices have grown louder, but that unearthly chant is still unique against the methodic sound of futile resistance of blood against oar
This sea is lethally poisonous, yet seductive nonetheless.
“I mustn’t drown”, I tell myself over and over again, but wouldn’t it be nice if I really could drown?
If only…..
If only there wasn’t the ceaseless agony to accompany it.
In time, yet another sandy shore appears out of the timeless void, quite identical to the last, and my journey to nowhere resumes on foot.
I must walk.
(III)
Perhaps a minute later, or maybe ages after, I finally reach my destination–the place where the voices originate.
Amidst the darkness, there exists a vast graveyard–the final abode and a place of rest for over a thousand or so. In the center of the graveyard, there is a gigantic tree–a tree that must have been lush and full of life once, but is now dead and withering.
From the branch of that tree hangs a corpse–limp and lifeless, it is a body that has tired of waking and ceased to do so; a body that lost its destination and chose to stay still forevermore.
It is the first stimulus I have come across in this mind-numbing journey. It is the first moment of excitement I have felt in what seems like an eternity.
I should scream.
I should freeze over.
I should run away, never to return to this horrible place again.
But I stay rooted to the spot, fascinated.
The answer to everything–to this man’s death, to this world, to my very existence–lies here, and I must find it.
This must be it.
My purpose.
The reason I was brought here.
I go over to the graves, scrutinising each and every one of the thousands of tombstones, searching for something–for anything.
Time is forgotten; totally abandoned; utterly rejected.
Loneliness and Purposelessness die temporary deaths as I search through the rows and columns of the deceased–with whom I form a strange attachment–almost a friendship of sorts.
It is then that I realise.
The voices–the wails that had called me here–were emanating from these very graves.
They were calling out…
Repeating the same words, over and over again…
I couldn’t understand it before, but now I do.
My head turns of its own accord, and my gaze meets the vacant, dead eyes of the lifeless man hanging from his noose.
A smile is etched on his face.
Finally, I feel it–
The tendrils of Terror creeping over me, wrapping me in her icy arms, enclosing me in an inescapable embrace.
An embrace of Death.
I wake up shivering, breathing heavily, and in tears, as I often do these days. Averting my eyes from the disordered, decaying room, I look at the mirror, a crack stretching right across.
The repulsive dead man stares back at me from within.
The chanting of the long deceased.
The name engraved upon each of the thousand tombstones.
His name.
My name.
They were all one and the same.
Epilogue
In daylight, I find myself again in a vast desert–one both like and unlike that of my nightmares. It is a desert with a sun, a moon, and innumerable stars. It is a desert of blue and green–one consisting of millions of dunes of concrete and steel.
In this desert, there is somehow a sea of humans, and even in that sea, there exist fools who snatch for themselves loneliness even in the midst of a crowd; who see no one else as they drown in their respective oceans.
Something compels me to move forward.
But what is it?
Where does this path lead? To that graveyard in the desert of emptiness? Again?
Or perhaps an oasis somewhere? A garden of happiness?
I cannot say.
But I have to get there. Somehow. Anyhow. There is no other choice; not a single alternative road available for me to take.
And for that…
Once more, even through this desert of nothing and everything…
I must walk.
