Thursday, October 1, 2009

Words,Veins, Life

The lamp glowed in the darkness. A drop from his eye shone as it made its way down his cheek. But he typed on in denial. Striking every key with the same vengence as the one before, so deliberately. His words flowed, beautiful yet eccentric. The drop splashed on the letters. His fingers slipped. Yet, he wrote. The wrinkles on his forehead grew even more prominent. His spectacles fogged up. Yet he continued, unperturbed and numb. With every letter he typed, a thousand battles were won. His words forced the pain out. His head in a turmoil, yet his fingers calm and agile enough to do the needful. Words turned into lines and lines into paragraphs. He went on, endlessly.

The sounds of the keys beat like his heart. Reveberating with the same wrath. As if his fingers were pumping life into his body. If he stopped now, his life, as he knew it, would be over. He knew he was delaying the inevitable. A drop fell from his brow. A drop fell from his eye.

And then, it was as if the words ceased to be. His hands froze, his eyes shut. These papers, his veins, were strewn all over the floor. He drew a deep breath, hoping it was his last. He pushed the chair back as he got up and walked over those papers, barefoot, towards the bay window. He had an unusual pride in his walk. His chin up and his shoulders broad. And then, without summon, he collapsed on those sheets. Those white parchments, which gave him life and then took it with equal virulence. He smiled as he nodded his head and thought to himself "A life well spent."