Allegropolis. Episode Three. The Bridge over Lethe.

The bridge stretched forever, a thread of light held taut between civilization and the blind horizon. The rain was beating down on my hat; streams of water cascading off its rim. Through the curtain of water, I saw the blackness of Lethe pummeled white by the torrential downpour.

Allegropolis, where everyone smiled. Flanked on either side by the endless blackness of Lethe. And Lethe, that seemed to stretch till forever. Lethe, so wide that its banks disappeared beyond the horizon. The raindrops added to its width, and depth.

The water cycle. Evaporation. Precipitation. Evaporation. As I stood by the siderails, water running down my chin, the black oblivion seemed to be soft velvet. Somewhere i could sink in. Where the blackness would wrap me up. Hold me swaddled (or shrouded) in its womb.

Lethe was so full of thoughts, reflections, remembrances, recollections. So saturated, the words and letters got so muddled up, they no longer made sense. The raindrops were words too. Words cast out of mind. Words on exile. For in Allegropolis, all should smile.

The lights of Lethe were upon me. A psychedelic concoction of joyousness. As I looked back through the mirror, I saw that gilden thread of light fading into the white sheet of rain, somewhere in the middle of Lethe.

Lacing my shoes

I wished
The light night breeze would carry,
Softly swaddled,
The scent of your hair
Through the thickness of the air.
I wished
The words you dropt,
Casually strewn,
Would turn the black asphalt
Into a clear starry sky.
I wished
The air was as liquid,
And feather-light,
That it may blow off
My thoughts, hopes and memories.
But my shoelaces
Are entangled,
And I trip and fall
And wake up bruised.
The air was thicker
Than the blood on my arm,
As it spoke to me,
A voice deafeningly calm -
Ain't it better that you walk alone?
It better 'cause
The air ain't thicker
When you wont take away my breath.
The wind blows softer
Not ODing on crystal meth.
At least
Though i trip on my laces,
I dont fall over the words
You left on the ground...

Contemplations on Trance Music

The tones play on.
Muted melancholy.
The residual silence
Of some 140 beats per minute
Trying to
Shape the air into comprehension.
The beats were meaningless.
Some abstraction.
Craving to make sense
To seem significant
In the ensuing and preceding silence.
I was listening
To those
140 momentary spasms
Of silence.
Silence chopped violently into pieces.
Those 140 tiny moments
That paused with pulsating energy.
Like a heart.
Holding back to pump life
Down the veins.
The track peaks.
The violence is shudderingly real.
And once it breaks...
Oh bliss.
My heart falls back to its lazy rhythm.
The turntable is melting into haziness.

Their eyes were watching god

So says Hmmmbug.

As god was working his divine rearside off, trying to replicate his abode on earth, as he twisted clay within his hands and made out his divine image in two ungaily stickmen, those eyes didnt comment on his craftsmanship. If god was a better sculptor, we would have been living in paradise. He was the prodigious kid. He was also the prodigal son. Those eyes waited for him to falter. For him to fall on his knees, in frustration, for failing to be the promise he was born as.

God could have made a better sculpture. His fingers very nimble, dexterous. He simply chose not to. Thus was his revenge. We are collateral damage of god's self-exacted revenge on those formless eyes forcing him to form.

On a Green Meadow on a Misty Afternoon

The clear blue lake spread out in front of him. And beyond them, the distant blue hills paled until they merged and became one with the clouds and the pallid blue afternoon sky. The lake rippled in the breeze and the sunlight sparkled off the lapping waves.

He didnt know why he had to be here. Why now. He simply had that urge to escape. Run away from those thousand and five invisible hounds that all but clipped his heels. He was tired from running away. But it was even more tiresome staying where he was. And now as he left his body loose, stretched out on the bright green grass of that endless meadow, he felt like had left the lot behind, and maybe his body too. A feeling of transcendental bliss.

He sat up. Picked up that pebble lying next to him. This pebble too must have chosen to run away someday, and laid himself down by this lake until he became a fossil of his existence, he thought to himself. He felt its smooth cold texture on his palm, felt the weight of a thousand years that had polished him to compliance. He took a breath and launched the pebble towards the lake.

He wanted to see the pebble skim over the surface. Instead, the pebble plinked down to the bottom of the lake at the first bounce. Its ripples cut a swathe through the tepid waves that lapped the bank.

The anticipation of expectancy. That longing for perfection, of a perfectly smooth pebble skimming over the fragile surface of that dreamy blue lake, endlessly, until it disappeared over the horizon into the mist that shrouded the hills. It was not to be, for the pebble wished otherwise. It was an outcast like himself.

The frustration of a thousand shackling dreams, the bewildering anticipation of a thousand hopeful fingers that tore their way through the ground, pointing him the path they wanted him to take. And groping for his feet while he tried to trample over them. The thousand blades of grass all around all pointed skywards, that pinnacle of perfection.

His eyes were rooted far away in the distance. Across the lake where he had willed the pebble to go. Do the blades of grass point skywards there too?! Or may perhaps someone might send the stone skimming back from the far bank, through that veil of mist?

At the bottom of the lake, the fossil finally found solace among many more of its sort who didnt make it to the other bank.

Allegropolis. Episode Two. The Wholly Trinity.

I wait. Stretching myself out on one of the long wood and cast iron park benches. The bench is cold. No one usually sits and waits. Waiting is in the temporal. The past. No pauses for the future any longer. The wooden backrest bites into my back. Cold venomous reality. The electric trains are cold embodiments of ruthless efficiency. Silent as a cocked gun waiting to explode. But all i hear is an implosion of silence. The muted conundrum of bustling voices do not count. I throw my head back, and watch the sunshine pierce in like coloured spears of joy through the stained glass ceiling. City of Joy indeed.

I wonder. Had we all forgotten what joy means? Maybe it meant the same all along. Is joy satisfaction, being content with who or what you are, what you have? Life without the complaint box and the "Articles once bought need not be returned/exchanged" tag. Or does it mean anything further... is it that long forgotten sense of euphoria, that half-drugged break from reality when the stained glass ceiling seems all so brighter and soaked deeper and thicker in colour than it actually is? But then, can the ceiling get any more brighter. Its already washed in the mid-morning sunshine. Can joy actually exist in the City of Joy, where things cant get any better?!

Forgive. Forsake. Forget.

The Wholly Trinity.

The three incinerating truths etched on the scratch-proof grazed steel walls of every alley, penthouse and ghetto in Allegropolis.

Forgive for you wish to be forgotten.

Forsake 'cause thyself is all that is real.

Forget... well... forget 'cause the past never exists, nor existed.

We are all unfettered creatures soaking in the warm sunshine and strained colours of unalleviating joy, caught in a limbo of satisfied imperfection. Here lies the precursor to perfection, taking pride in being what you are. Perfect becomes what you are. And it cant cant get better than this.

The park bench is warm now. I lift myself up. My face is stained in myriad of streaming colours as i smile. Allegropolis, there is something about the city that makes me smile. And i am the last cynic left in the world.

Allegropolis. Episode One.

The city of joy.

Allegropolis is not Calcutta, please.

It just translates to "the city of joy".

I step out on the platform.

The train is delightfully late.

But from when did time ever matter.

There are no clocks here.

Those relics of wooden cuckoo clocks do survive.

So does the clock tower.

The dials do remain.

The needles which ran around, skipping from number to number,

Pointlessly,

Merely to reach back where they started.

They are no longer there.

Pointlessness can be joy,

But not when you are pointlessly in a hurry.

Contradiction One.

The Clock tower chimes.

It chimes for joy.

It chimes whenever it feels like it.

There are no birds any longer

To chime for joy any more.

The metallic song of the clock tower will have to do.

Have to do?!

So can there be happiness in compromise?

Has to do.

Contradiction Two.