Somehow, after going through my work for an edit, I found that i had forgotten what I had written myself.
I found that I had subconsciously followed a pattern in the tale where i had given certain structure to certain people and for some, i just let them to be eternally present.
But since I had forgotten what I had actually written, it feels awesome to read something and somebody I am proud of creating. It is almost like reading somebody else's work.
Gave these snippets to friends and not a soul could actually figure it out. These could define everything.
Sagar and Raga.
Eternally the same.
Sagar walked to her, with a sad smile on his face. “You don’t have to do anything or be anything”, he assured as he placed a palm on her shoulder.
She looked up in between her tears as she whispered in a shaky voice. “You have the calm of the sea in you, Sagar”.
He squeezed her shoulder as he grinned at her. “Well, you see, I was named after it”
“I was named after music and that doesn’t mean I am like music”, she joked through her tears, smiling a little.
Roza and Dante.
somewhere along.
“Dante, come in”. Roza was stumbling through a box of concoctions in her cupboard.
“I am sorry, Roza. For all of this”. Dante looked at the floor as he spoke quietly.
“I fully expected you to come here, apologizing. And here you are”. She looked up from her cupboard, her voice held a bitter note.
“How?”. Dante looked down at her with puzzled eyes.
“Raga told me, seven years ago, when I joined here, that a day would come when you would look guilty and shameful. She told me you would come to people with no pride in your eyes, asking them for forgivance”. Roza gave a small smile, that touched her eyes.
“And then?”. Dante managed to choke out, his voice dying half in his throat.
“She asked me to remind you of something she had told you just before your first battle”. She picked up a few bottles and a stab of cotton as she walked to him. “I don’t know what”. She gave a small shrug.
“Remember you are just a man”. A brief laugh broke from him, realizing that the woman he hadn’t seen or spoken to in seven years has given exactly what he needed now. Remember you are just a man. He had thought she meant it in a way, to tell him not to feel like God or let his ego boost him over to a place where he felt he was more than just a man. But now, he could see that she meant it for the day when he would feel less human and almost a beast. It was meant to be an assurance, that he was just a man and it was okay. Dante held up a hand as Roza moved into dab the gash across his face with an anti-infectant.
“No, I’ll do it myself. You go treat my men”.
Dante and Raga.
The beginning.
“I think, I would just like to end up in a farm somewhere soon. Imagine telling people that this, is something of an aspiration to me?”. A brief laugh broke through her as she imagined the face of her family and friends when this talented woman who could do anything she wants chose to live a life in the farms, happy.
He looked up at her and gave a wry smile. “I know I would end up here int he farm, but not soon. After a long time maybe.”
“Why? It was you who said that the greatest man was the one who tried to accomplish nothing”. She threw the eaten apple into the creek before turning to him with a question in her eyes.
He watched the strong currents of the creek washing it away. There wasn’t a single rock visible below the creek’s muddy waters just after a rain. “Maybe I am not ready to be a great man. Maybe I need to exhaust myself with the horrors of the world and unnecessary toils before choosing the life that I know will make me happy”
“You know it won’t be called a failure if you just came straight here after school. You don’t have to do anything else”. She spoke in a reproving voice, expecting more from this man.
“No. I need to be exhausted from life before I settle for the beauty that is already mine. Imagine me sitting here after a decade, wishing I had stayed here. Finally realizing this is the only thing I’ve needed all life and all else was dust. That feeling, I want that”. He held a sombre expression on his face as he looked at the strong currents, feeling pulled to it.
“You would spend a decade in pain, in a single lesson to feel it?”. She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. This man was worse than she thought, which was already a high bar of worseness that she had set.
“It will all be worth it. My story would be beautiful”. He turned to look into her eyes, holding the gaze for a long time, unmoving from himself.
“But your life won’t be beautiful”. She said quietly, a fierce look in her face and left after throwing him a worried glance.
The midpoint.
She picked up a bottle of ink that stood next to a pile of written papers that stood on the huge bench behind her. She hurled the bottle at his head, as she screamed, her lips curling in anger, “Why did I have to suffer for your art?”. She turned around, leaving the room, breathing low in her throat. He could have asked her the same question too.
The end.
Raga gave a firm nod. “So what do we do till the morning comes?”.
“May we dream until the dawn comes”. Dante murmured, his eyes downcast. “May we dream of going home”, he added with a brief laugh. He had to figure out where he would belong in the aftermath, where his home would be.
Raga’s gaze fell upon Wisteria, the pale lavender drowsed in snow and the occasional flicker of fire on it. The pale violet of her dreams. She turned to Dante with brightening eyes, before the words died on her lips. There was no reason to share what she had found.
“Wisteria”. Dante’s face had a distant look. “It is beautiful now. It would still be beautiful after the war”.
Raga’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He had remembered, perfectly. “Do you remember Sagar’s class? Now, who do you think will win the war? Who will pass the judgement and who will write history?”.
“No one won the last war. No one will win the next”. Dante looked at her with a sombre smile. All the serene mutinies, both rage and silence were within him. It was all him.
Raga turned away, with a triumph gleaming in her eyes. “Uncle Wolfe taught us to try to know our enemy if we want to defeat them. We only seem to know them too well now”, she said with a sudden note of hardness in her voice.
“Do you know the meaning of your name?”. Dante asked after looking at her for a long time, wondering when they would both let go, in this battlefield, where only a man who had let go could survive and do what was right.
“Music”, Raga said with a shrug. She turned to him with curious eyes, at the sudden question.
“It has another meaning”. Dante ran his hand through his hair, as he shook his head. “Attachment”.
Sagar and Raga.
Might seem like a sense of ending.
“How long has it been since he slept?”, Raga asked Sagar. Her throat was too dry and no water she drank seemed to help. They were standing at the edge of the Northern entrance as they watched all the fallen men burn. The sky was the colour of fire. Dante Kruse stood close to the pyres, looking into them with an air of finality and a sense of an ending.
“The war is not his war. It is his penance”, Sagar said with a sad smile.
“Will he be okay?”, Raga muttered, almost to herself.
“It might take a lifetime to be alright, but he will be. You will be, we all will be”, Sagar said. He turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “What about you Raga?”
They don't want the whole story, they love small doses of drugs, these audience. They love deeply written scenes that hold a meaning they can't understand and they know it too. they just want the pleasure of reading and understanding something not everybody can. That is what I see, all for a sense of empty superiority.
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