My Own Baloney

I hear music. A delicate undertone of a piano, maybe. I feel like I’m moving in a slow motion. “Does it feel like that for you?”

“Does it?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say. Maybe it’s the mind”

Silence is not the word I must be using here. Is there something more deafening than silence? Yeah, I’ve been to the loudest concerts before. But, this one’s just…just silence.

“There’s so much going on around, what’re you saying, man?”

It’s a monotonous up-and-down, day-and-night, eat-work-sleep drill every day. I see people. People, a variety of them. “You don’t see them every day, right?”

“That’s what makes them interesting. Do you think you can elude this mind-numbing routine? That will be a daring escapade, my friend.”

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” 

Fun. Let me see. No way. I have responsibilities. So many of them.

“Maybe not. You are no Prime Minister. You have no onus on anything.”

She just passed by me. Think she’s going to a party.

“Yeah, the perfume’s too strong.” “Ha, yup.”

It’s the turn of the violin now. The pace is easy, taking its time. I think I want to hear more of this, hoping for a wave of overtures as I descend in deep thought about something. Heartbeat sounds louder now. Its rhythmic beats feel like gentle fistbumps on my chest. Serene, devoid of rush, anger, just, as though lazily peering upon the thin line, sort of like a horizon you see at the end of the ocean standing on the beach, enjoying the canvas, the marvel of nature, defying every sort of judgement, juries of beauty pageants think about beauty. 

I reached out my hand to feel the leaf, flowing down, creating troughs and crests in thin air, as if someone’s pulling the strings for it. What if someone’s pulling strings for all of us? The leaf feels soft in my hand. In the midst of all these hullabaloo, it feels like the only thing which was undisturbed, but alive. Like a monk meditating amidst a rave party. 

I stood up, ready to become a part of the commotion in front of me, to let myself immerse in this sea of humanity, fettered by its own thoughts, just going on with the flow like the world goes. 

Now, I had a question. 

“What if I could just snap my finger and let the world be in a standstill?”

I waited for a reply. 

Maybe we both agree on this one thought, I guess.