A Dream of Horses & Other Stories by Aashish Kaul

Author:Aashish Kaul [Kaul, Aashish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78279-535-3
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2014-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

V

Of the time I speak, the city was not as one sees it today. Like any other old city, it was a metropolis of reserve and character. Modern capital had not yet punctured its melancholy; life was more or less peaceful and without pretence. Under the veil of political and bureaucratic torpor, there was a certain playfulness in its spirit.

Winter was coming, that time of the year which always made the sky clear and blue. With a hint of chill in the noon wind, the sun’s warmth gave comfort. We had been to the cinema, and were now sitting on a bench beside an ice-cream parlour digging our spoons in a sundae. Close to the bench was a fig tree from where a myna whistled to us from time to time. Asya had been uncommonly reticent, and I had asked her about it a few times. She had denied this, yet I knew there was something to it. Nothing though that I couldn’t have dispelled as pointless.

But how wrong you are, how foolish. How you think light and bliss will last forever when the void is opening at your feet. And to fall into it is your only destiny. Oh, but why deviate? Come forth without further circumlocutions, and speak of how when night fell over that day and anytime thereafter you have known little peace. Tell how when you saw the void only too late you felt vertigo from which you could never recover. Like a ghost you wandered, consuming days aimlessly with a wish to reach the end of time and see beyond, to embrace it and at long last begin anew.

Her house wasn’t far away and we began walking towards it. She lived in one of those pretty places in the south of the city, close to the institute of technology, where it is so enjoyable to walk in the evenings. She was talking to me, but I was lost in strange images of the days ahead. Lamps that lit up the street threw faint shadows on the ground, a sickle of a moon was slowly climbing up in the sky. Suddenly there swelled in me an irresistible urge to embrace her, to make one final effort. First I held myself back, but then, unable to hold my reserve, I put my arms around her. She did not resist, but her body felt slightly stiff. I wasn’t discouraged: where the bond is strong, discouragement doesn’t come easily. I moved to kiss her, but she bent her head a little and my lips ended up brushing her cheek. Tears welled up in my eyes and, turning away without a word, I walked into the growing darkness.

I did not see her again. But my mind, rather obstinately, kept reliving the past – a past which had already started to look obscure and meaningless. A past you have to fight, a duel from which you don’t emerge free of scars.

In time time went astray. I couldn’t keep up with it.

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