Monster Ink..

She sat in the corner of a room filled with books; while some weaved beautiful dreams, some monsters with empty pages and blank minds haunted her reveries…

Clickety-clack, snippety-snap!! And the flatlined lull of a calm, serene penthouse with nothing to do, no one to speak to was the worst thing she could ask for on a scorching afternoon.All she needed was that one sound, a chime on her phone, a buzz on the door, or the cry from her long shut closet..waiting to be unleashed!

And so it happened, the cell phone rang with reverberations to a melodious symphony! She expectantly picks it up and almost drops it, Ms.Butterfingers  she could hear someone yell resounding through the empty, frigid walls on that sultry summer day! She could feel the voice thumping against the wall, so strong that she thought it would eventually effectuate the destruction of her 10k phone.

‘Hello Madam, kya aap hamare insurance policy mein..’ rambles on a coy female’s voice from the other side of the phone and beep!  she cuts the call. All hopes lost, she resorts to the last option; door ajar, whitewashed walls, the cool zephyr of the AC and a linen so calm and inviting, she gets under the blanket and seamlessly transitions from a bored, depressed soul to an extremely satisfied and sound sleeper!

It is sad how when you are in your sound sleep, you are haunted by tremulous nightmares, only that these nightmares are real! The monsters have a brain, a body, a heart..a really cold heart and sometimes, that monster is you!

Clickety-clack,snippety-snap!  She was fast asleep, unfazed by the circumstances she was previously brooding upon and somehow she could feel a gust of hot air blown across her face,she is hyperventilating, drenched and soaking wet, she feels beads of cold water roll across her chin and down the neck, grabbing her like a wreath designed to kill, and then she wakes up. The AC is off and the window is open, and she is sweating! Grabbing a scrunchie, she ties her hair up and heads towards the bathroom, to splash her face with some cold water. Just then, she hears something, an eerie, snippy sound echoing from the cupboard. Being well aware of her hazy, sleepy state she ignores and walks towards the bathroom.

Click,click,clickety-clack, clack…

The incessant noise continues to resound with increasing volume. A little apprehensive yet practical, she deduces that it must be an insect or perhaps a rodent of some sort which might have entered the cupboard. With a cudgel in her hand she flings open the door, only to find that the wardrobe is empty, just a few hangers..perhaps it was the hangers that were making the sound, she convinces herself of this baseless argument and decides to head out!

But the noise doesn’t cease, she looks all around the room, but then the voice seems to be coming from elsewhere.Walking out, she checks the hall, the kitchen, the living room..nada! Then she looks at that one room she hadn’t entered in months, ever since she had new commitments, a new life, a new beginning, she had conveniently forgotten her past, her genesis, her roots..unable to efface all those memories, the happiness she had forged, the dreams she had spun for a future and the hopes she had crushed with just a tip of a pen, she had to put an end to this madness, it was driving her crazy and she had to take care of it..once and for all!

Clack,zip,clack,clack..

All their memories, the moments they had spent hand in hand, the tens of hundreds of books whose pages she had scrapped and whose sheafs she had preserved with bittersweet, fragile, intimate, memorable and thought- provoking words came rushing back to her and the noise grew louder...she turned the doorknob and entered the rusty old room. Tears in her eyes and a scar in her mind, she laid her hand on that monster that was lying on the floor, in a corner, her dusty and rusty old man, lay incapacitated.Held in her arms, she felt the voices din down, drown and doze!

Click,clack,clack,click

She snapped and tapped on the keys of her old typewriter! She glanced at all those sheafs of paper which were filled with her stories, real or imaginary! All those odes and ballads she had composed that made her mind dance and her heart skip a beat, now lay shackled and bitten by the bug of ignorance! Her eyes welled up, she looked into the mirror hung on the wall and wondered whether it was her dream or the glass that was shattered. All her writing that had made her who she was, that gave her a reason to smile and laugh even during the hardest of situations were now locked up in her past!

She took a leaf out of her old book and wrote to herself…

You were, are and always will be the best of my friends, worst of my enemies and the dearest of my family. You are my little monster, my ravenous nightmare, the only one who is welcome in my dreams!

Put your restlessness to sleep, keep your passion awake and never let go, for that is what defines you, distinguishes you and keeps you alive! This small piece is a request to all those people who have locked up their hobbies, their interests in rooms of past and in the eyes of their future. Never wait for anyone to nurture your interests, for then it is too late and the key to those doors are lost!