The Flow: a short story

Whilst overlooking a silent mountain through the portico of my prison, I used to see some very amazing and random little plays performed by the lights and the mountain. Twice every day-sunrise and sunset.

I used to look at the sun and the stars, and kept reminding myself of my reason to live through the captivity I was confined in.

My journey started as a naïve city dweller in search of a story to write and a hope to catch its glimpse in mountains or beaches. My commodities, or tools, so to say, were 'love and perspective'. I was hoping them to stand in my way greeting with a 'hello', but after a long struggle, a messed up sex-perverted and love-deprived personal life, I had no choice but to travel and search for them instead. I entered this small village in the Himalayas four months ago with some cash of twenty seven grands and practically no hope ahead.

After thriving in a room and a balcony for almost two weeks, I moved to a decent secluded resort. Fortunately I happened to love the place. It was at the edge of the nala, or a local tributary of the main river; surmounted by the hills on three of the four directions and between them was a vast stretch of agricultural land which was now barren post harvest. A calm serenity blew from the three sides with me sitting in the fourth trying to absorb as much as I could. I lived there for three months. I read a lot, I wrote a lot, I ate a lot and most importantly I observed a lot-something which was very hard to do in the city.

It was last month that some dispute had started on the diversion of water and the arrangement of the diversion, which was set away from us. So every alternative night we used to go to the diversion and extract water to our place until our stores were full. It was an easy approach to a bigger problem and I thought if I could keep up with the pace of my writing, I could leave in a week or two. But unfortunately we weren't the only one doing this. This created a massive dearth of water in the lowlands where lay the strongest tribe of the city, the ottia tribe.

Last month, I was out near a waterfall with some sandwiches, my book and my diary and I was observing every little thing that passed my eyes. I happened to forget about the fact that some people were following me since my last visit to the diversion. As I was treading back to the resort, I felt footsteps behind me which later got converted into a sharp pointy metal glazing my neck on my back. I was told to keep it shut.

After a gruesome road expedition, most of which I could not comprehend, we came to small cottage overlooking the valley. Even in the night I knew the view beholding this desolation would be astonishing. I walked past the silent and dirty pathway towards it with these men following me. We entered into a large apple grove which was of course dried up. The bridge crop was cut as well and studs of corn stood there as if their heads are severed and their prop roots supported their forgotten torso in an attempt to show how savage autumn can be.

But it was quite an irony to find that that cottage, with all its serenity and beauty was my captivity. These people were kind enough to offer me a kitchen and a warm bed. But it was for all practical purposes my prison.

The few days after this were quite easy. I could wake up at noon. Make chai and omelette, and read some old books and caricatures I found in the attic. It was a week later that time ceased to flow. Determination to convert this isolated prison to some hidden bliss came to my mind repeatedly but after two weeks it was rather impossible to even sit out in the sun. I felt enraged and helpless.

And then it happened.

It was a cold night and I could not sleep. I was reading a book on S&M and to be honest it wasn't a very attractive topic to go through at 2 am in the morning. I decided to go out. The chill was excruciating. So I turned to the kitchen to find something interesting. But then I heard a big howl. A pack of dogs were attacking someone and from the noises it was almost certain that the injured dog was crying for help. So I went out.

Scared as I was, as I couldn't see them all, but I was close enough to hear the fight. I took some stones and started throwing them into the darkness. Albeit knowing the fact that if the pack had attacked me, instead of their victim it would mean a lot of trouble, I continued throwing rocks.

There is something about hidden courage. It never holds my hands when I reach out to it. In the dire of scenarios, I have ran for it, chased it on tough days, yearned it in dark rains, never to receive even a jot of reply. And then today, when I didn't even ask for it, it was there, standing amidst my stupidity, asking me to go into the plunge, unafraid and at the end of your venture, promising me to reappear when I would least expect it.

Sounds like my crushes. But today was not to mope. Today was to act.

I was lucky that the pack decided to leave the scene instead of coming my way and all I heard now was a certain wailing which dissolved in the moonless darkness. Slowly the shadow moved and I saw a black Labrador coming towards me. He was wounded, bleeding and had a big bite mark on his right eye. He slowly crouched a few metres in front of me and passed out. I picked him up with all my might in that cold, and sort of dragged him towards the portico.

In a blatant desperation I searched for anything that could make a small comfortable bed for him. I even tore some softer prop roots to build a small boundary around him. Suddenly I forgot it was so cold that my hands had started tingling. So instead of a failed attempt to search for husk or the rather conventional bed for this wounded animal, I just packed him up in an old blanket I found in the attic and brought him inside my room.

The villagers showed up a few minutes later, alarmed by me tearing off corn roots. I showed them the dog and surprisingly they just talked to each other in their native language and told me that I was supposed to let him die and that I won't be provided any extra resources to feed him. They warned me if I let him live it will anger the god's will.

I didn't sleep that night. While making chai for myself when the sun reappeared, I heard footsteps in the kitchen. It was him. Although badly beaten up, he looked up at me. I provided him with a bowl of water which he drank up and went to lay down on the grass in the sun. As hungry as I was, I started cooking up some carrots I had pulled up from the nearby farm. I didn't find any meat, so all I could conjure up was a concoction of milk, carrots and bread. To my surprise, he didn't eat it. He spilled it the first time I served and the next time he gave me a look of what I could make out was a humble thanks.

I was a little confused by this disregard to my hospitality. It occurred to me that the entire frame of beauty and serenity was completely eaten up by the fact that he was in pain, and maybe modest enough to not accept what I was providing for him.

They used to serve me a daily ration of chai, bread, milk and a vegetable. I wasn't even told the exact reason why I was kept in such a beautiful exile, but my course of interest was this thoughtful, intelligent and modest being whom I wasn't able to feed or impress. For the next few days, he bounced back and forth in being very active and healthy-looking to morbid and seriously ill. He had started eating what I was serving him, but not when I was around. It was as if he didn't want me to know that he was as helpless as he was.

This made me think.

Animals are so much like us, yet so much more complicated. Maybe they can't tell us what they feel, maybe they can't propagate their sense of being to us, but they do give some very subtle innuendos. To catch them is a very tricky business. But in the general world, nobody gives a damn about these hints. I think this is not because we are more evolved. I think this is because these hints cannot be picked up by everyone. They need a special skill of human modesty and understanding. If at once you're an expert in understanding human hints, the next level would be animal hints. But as every non-exact science, this logic is not a step by step protocol. There are a lot of tangents and diversions.

In the night that followed, a lot of stars streaked across the sky, clouds appeared and it started to pour down. I heard someone knocking at the kitchen. I opened the door and there stood a 3 year old boy. He asked me about something I couldn't understand. I was surprised to see such a small child at such a late hour. I asked him about everything in my nativity-about the reason of his arrival. However the answer was not in any of my understandable languages and two, not in any understandable tongue. He signed me off with a barking noise giving me a certain conclusion that he might be the owner of the dog. So I grabbed his hand and took him to the dog, which by the way I had named lucky. The dog woke up suddenly and started adoring the little boy. A little while later he pointed towards lucky and said the first word which I could understand. He said 'Veeru' and in a childish manner repeated the name again and again.

Surprised as I was to this turn of events, I didn't want the dog to leave. As they were playing with each other, it dawned onto me that the dog would soon be no longer around me. Although he was wounded and indifferent to my hospitality, a certain amount of companionship in my prison was a bliss in itself. But on the other I saw this extreme and abrupt upheaval of affection between these two. It was almost that I was trying to create the same beautiful prison for him, which was somehow created for me.

Then I saw how preposterous my idea of lingering on is. This creature showed no emotion of thanks towards me, but I on the other hand wanted his companionship mostly because the mountains and the skies weren't talking to me anymore and besides the fact my sophisticated prison was in itself a luxury, the very thought of losing a company was hurtful. But it had to be done, like so many milestones in life which you have to pass no matter what!

You can't evade them, you can curse them, but these feelings have to be felt.

The little kid brought his dog near to me, one hand on his back, and said "thank you. Ask what you want".

My unawareness and disbelief took the best of me and I wondered what could such a small child possibly offer. So I asked if in any way I could get back my freedom.

Then something extraordinary happened.

He pointed his hand in the sky and looked up. I saw shooting stars. In disbelief, I looked weirdly at him.

"What about them?"

"Keep looking," He said.

So I looked up again. The sky was filled with streaks of white stars. And then a blinding white light hit us from nowhere. I was frozen. I heard these words "YOU HAVE BROKEN A SPELL. YOU HAVE HELPED A

GOD. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FREE. NEVER TO BE HELD BY MANKIND'S FEEBLE PRISONS. THANK YOU"

That was it. A second later I saw the sun rising on the horizon and I heard a familiar voice. It was the resort manager calling my name.

I returned to my resort and he explained me that the ottia tribe captured me by mistake considering me as a potential water thief. So they kept me as captive until they were sure to abdicate me. Meanwhile the water crisis was also solved miraculously as the local river brimmed up with multiple streaks towards the ottia area hence diverging entire load towards the city.

I returned back to my old life reminiscing about this experience. But it always makes me wonder what if I would have not let Veeru go, Or not helped him at all, or let him die. Maybe letting go isn't that bad after all.

Didn't find love in this, but I got my perspective.

Khansa