Wednesday 15 April 2009

At World's End




When I am old enough to lose my way, this is how I would like to go. Slip away in the heat of the afternoon through the sal bon, past the jheel, taking the dusty red road with me.

Kothay jachhish? Ekhane. Okhane. Jani na. Ashi?

I'll remember to lock the door behind me. Don't worry. I won't need to dress warm.

Tiny gray boat, rough wood under my fingers. No mast, no rudder, just enough space for one. Enough room to lie down comfortably, feet curled up inside the prow, drawing the sky down over you like a frayed white sheet. That's all I'll need. Little waves lap around the vessel, pulling gently. You push off and earth moves away. Coarse, heavy earth with sorrowful gashes across its face. Ravaged grasses nodding goodbye.

A pale ocean, so quiet, unmoved by thunder or storms, my little boat hardly making a furrow on it. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don't. Look at clouds, drifting above me, beside me, falling apart at a touch. Little by little, I will learn to forget. Forget how to count, the multiplication tables, the immutable laws which govern This, That, and the Other. Forget many words, forget the sour taste of thought. I will forget names and it will not matter. I will forget faces and find relief in the anonymity. I will discard it thankfully, throw ballast overboard. Tiny islands bobbing in the wake, sinking and not leaving a mark.

Mostly I will sleep. My little boat without a sail will float along, somewhere along the Tropic of Cancer, between the end of the world and the gray havens. The sun will fade away and the water will be cool. There is no evening and no night, but I will sleep. If I'm lucky, I might dream about the sunflowers. I can dream, and maybe somewhere on the ocean there will be fields of gold.



13 comments:

joey said...

This is like the romantic deathwish.

'easeful death' as Keats would say.
but you shall see enough of him for the next 2 days.

joey said...

years i meant.

Priyanka said...

sounds wonderful, i've always wanted to sail across the world :)

rhea said...

beautiful. ilike.

SPIRITed! said...

Erm. What about the food? And music?

This is what Johnny Depp would've written, apart from his trysts with lack of liquor, that is. When is Pirates 4 coming out, any idea?

Shalmi said...

@ Joey:
That's the trouble. It becomes to romantic to be taken seriously.

@ Priyanka:
It's not so much a pleasure cruise, if you know what I mean =)

@ Rhea:
Thanks. Honestly, I wasn't really too sure.

@ Shreya:
No food. Definitely no music. And it would be best if there were no pirates involved.

Photograph entitled 'End of the Land', courtesy Soumitra Datta, taken from his album 'Landscapes'.

Brainfreeze Blues said...

It isn't a pleasurable crisis.

But one could take pleasure in it, nonetheless.

Pain is absurd because it exists. Nothing more.

While the crisis isn't pleasurable, the sailing just might be! :)

J'aime et j'espere, for your sake kid!

Anushka said...

Romantic can be believeable. When you feel something in your guts, so intensely, how can the Romantic tag make it any less real?

Unknown said...

Wonderful! I want a boat.Sponsor na!

Anushka said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYKaIWWeulI&feature=related

he cries at the end :(

Lalaland said...

:)

Morbidity made beautiful.

Would you mind Jack Sparrow though, if you were to cross him in the ocean sometime? :P

buckingfastard said...

nice!!! cast away-ish but in a romantic sense....yea its a relief to die lonely in a boat...nirvana maybe!!!

Rara Avis said...

Wow!