Noshin Nisa

People, humans, the creatures with high consciousness, they strive to improve, they strive to move on, they strive for a change from stagnant nightmare to a different fresh place of free air. Then, some other group of some similar people or humans with some different or strange type of consciousness, they barge in with an unfathomable pride. This second group found the first group weird and risky. The first group found the second group hypocritical, dangerous, life-threatening and monstrously sly and deceptive. The first group only wanted to be free from restraint without hurting anyone.The vulnerable creature of the first group had gone through the storms of dirt and ugliness, had never said a word against it. The hypocrites of the second group, with their wise words of sensibility, labelled the dirt and filth with appropriacy and perfection. The creatures of the first group tried their best to stay perfect and appropriate. When they fumbled, the second group frowned and growled or persuaded sweetly, coated a hazy blazing deception. Soon enough, the stink of the dirt suffocated the first group’s creatures. The stagnant stinking pond of filth paralyzed their soul and breath. And they gave up tolerating. The first group’s poor creatures begged to the polite proper well-mannered monsters to let them go and breathe the fresh air that their hearts were dying for. They were so tired, they wanted to get rid of the poisonous propriety and live the rest of their lives the way living should be, the way their only given lives should be spent. This time, the second group frowned and groaned slightly louder. They were not to allow the fragile creatures to move away from the glorious rotten ideals and embrace the precious freedom of life. That would destroy their static metal chain of toxic territory. But the first group’s humans were too weak to handle any more of the odorous storm. So, the rest of them gave up their breath for good, and died in a snap, except for two desperate young souls, raw, craving to taste life, who escaped form the silent murder and ran far away.

One boy and one girl; yes, they were lovers, best friends, companions, they meant the world to each other.  They were not Adam and Eve. Though they were young and had seen much less of life, they were already so drained that they did not have the strength to survive the fight between the right and the wrong and the truth and the lie; no strength left for them to create a righteous society with brilliant revolution. They did not want anything at all. They were just some caste away wrecked weary humans who wanted to know how it feels like to live again. So, they arrived somewhere, simply wandering. They were walking through a valley stretched towards the blurry grey line of the horizon. The valley was covered in thick layer of snow, as if, all the snow from the sky ran out. They were dragging themselves through the snow. It was dawn. The raw dimmed daylight was reflecting on the white ice. The harsh dry wind was stirring through the heavy drapes of floating fog. Inside them, the boy and the girl had a subdued storm of the unknown. They could not utter any sound out of the dreadful fatigue. But still they looked vacantly at the silver ashy sky, and they imagined to scream. They screamed quietly to ask for the thing that was lost from their entity. A faint painful grunt slipped from their hearts. And a pile of anguish that had crushed them just fell down scrambling. They kept walking. There were patches of wintery lite purple mists, a layer of off-white haze veiling the pinkish grey sky. The dense cold wind was turning magnificent brown with a fragrance, the glinting faint raw rays of golden sunshine were illuminating the smoky blobs of mist. Then they saw a dry jungle of fallen leaves and cracked branches. A silver swirling haze was hovering over the woods. The gentle bronzy sunshine was piercing through the haze. The blue blurry breeze, mildly waving, lifted a fade red leaf, made it fly around and land on the gleaming white fresh soft snow. Apparently, nothing was there. Yet they kept plunging themselves into the woods, indulging into something that they waited for so long. They quietly sat down. A magic seemed to cast onto their weary souls. They gently held each other, as if, smoothly sliding into the soft warmth of an overwhelmingly blessed shelter. She murmured inside her breath, “I want to stay in here forever.” He whispered silently inside his cold calm sniff, “I’m never letting you go from here even if you want to.” And she passed a quiet echoing thought almost like an unconscious response, “Nothing else could be any better.” They both smiled slightly, tired, clasping tightly, closing their moist warm eyes.

This is not over yet. There is another story from the other side, from the second group, the group of monster-humans. Inside that second group, there was a girl who was an angel. No one, not even herself ever knew that she was an unconsciously disguised angel. Everyone deemed her to be a usual ordinary person just existing for nothing. But she was a magical being. She was in the group of those dangerous creatures who created the filth. But still, none of the filth touched her. She never saw what was happening inside the group of the poor vulnerable creature, the first group. She knew nothing, she did nothing, because she was told to be supposed to be a lifeless statue who could only move around a bit. She thought of asking why, but never did. She, somewhat herself, thought it better to keep mum and still like a statue, she believed herself to be a statue who had nothing but a cold surface and a cold core. But it all changed. She wasn’t a statue though. She was an angel as a human, a human who was made a lifeless statue to remain appropriate and perfect. However, life was always inside her. Every now and then, the intense flow of vibrant life inside her stirred like a giant wave of ocean. In the void blue nights, alone in her lofty surreal room, she used to glance at the deep hollow sky from the glass window. She used to see the red half moon dimmed under the scarlet glimmer of the bronze dark sky, the crimson dense wind hovering with a scent of a mystery used to roam restlessly, and entered her room through the tiny ventilators touching her with a cool chilling tickle. The wind lit in the dimmed red moonlight kept her awake amidst the chaotic silent nights. Hiding behind the window, into the red gleam of the hazy windy night, she used to see him standing out there glinting in the blur, the person who stirred the soul of her life. She found that person heavenly. She never talked to him. He never even saw her. But she felt for him in such a way that turned her into something that she yearned to be, not even knowing what anything was. That person was oblivious, contributing absolutely nothing. But her strange emotions indescribably flowing towards him with immense anxiety and longing, it all made her change her own life. In the evenings, sitting beside the same window, she used to stare at the ashy cottony patches of clouds passing each other on the surface of the faded blue sky; she used to dip her gazes into the off-white melting sunshine peeking from the silver glimmer of the clouds pouring out the flow of light splashing on the flares of grey wind. There, she used to dream herself sitting at the huge golden staircase under the faint blue sky with red tinges, in a hazy but also glowing clear pinkish golden ambiance. The scattered pink hue of mild breeze shinning in the blue sparkles of the vast adorned sky, would be descending towards her to wrap her like the gradual warm exposure of her room’s only window. Right there, in the dream, she used to see him appear beside her, staring at her with a soft purple glow of his gentle enchanting smile. The innocent excitement overwhelming her would make it all feel unreal, but still, she would believe it to be real. Then, still smiling, he would stand up slowly to leave taking the blurry stairs; and toward the end of the stairs, he would stop to turn to show her his one last glimpse. Like this, every time, her dream used to end, like an abrupt halt on an allusive wonderful journey, like an unceremonious snap to shatter the palace of hopes, a thin cloth of dreamy hope slipping away from the grip.

She always knew that she had to be stuck in the dark damp confinement. The brief imaginary encounter shortly plunged her back into her cage. The mere existence of the person was so calmingly freeing for her. She knew she always had to be far away from him, and still, she never wanted to let go of his thoughts. That person, that vague entity, injected a wonderous spark into her soul. *The spark of madness was all she had for herself; if she lost it, she would be nothing but a statue again. She had to try, with every ounce of herself, never to let go of the spark of madness that gave her a drive to keep breathing and dreaming and living and wishing for an essence of the universe. So, one night, finally, she stepped out of the lofty dark rotten confinement with stumbling fragile but determined steps, hiding from everyone, to stand on the exact place where she used to see that person, this time, to see him for real. In the foggy winter night, the scarlet moon was still spurting some dull red sparkles into the silver fog. She was standing there on the rail-station, with her heart pounding out of her chest. And finally, she saw him. The enchanting moment appeared. He was in front of her, with no barrier of glasses this time. He was so close that she could touch him. She was beholding that enigmatic person with overflowing painful bliss in her eyes. And there was that person with his own set of a story, with the girl from the first group of poor vulnerable humans; he was the boy who escaped the mass death of the first group’s people, with the girl who was his love and life and world. Slowly, they were disappearing into the fog across the rail-line stretching towards the eternity. And the angel-girl, hiding, sinking in her secretive longing gaze, with unanswered crushing hopes and a baggage of the enigma of an undeniable distance, she kept standing there in the dry harsh wind and ashy brown fog, still feeling his presence, trying to touch the vanished shape of the boy and the girl gone into the smoke of cold moonlit crimson winter.

*“You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams.