THE PRESENT IS HAPPENING NOW (A short story)

Seated by the dining table, Krishnan is chatting over a cup of coffee. The vapors from the tea cups were shying away for the incoming whiff of coconut chutney. Everyone is happy by the table, friends meeting a long time after… Idlies arrive, chutney arrives, fruit salad arrives, spoons clatter and then more coffee arrives. Laughter, grimaces, gawks and sighs intermittently come and go on their own making waves of life in constant throbs and rhythms.

The World is fine! Ah, how satisfying it is to chat with friends, to be in their company again. The oneness of a feeling comes within you for a seemingly endless phase of life.
The clock on the wall ticks by, the sun slides over the horizon, and darkness slowly creeps into the place. Engines kick start, and the purring sleek cars traverse in the wide compound and leave the big gate with a jolt to merge with the ever flowing traffic that honks and screeches in its endless beats on the roads.

Host Krishnan returns after bidding goodbye to his friends and reoccupies the chair, clasps hands behind his head and gazes vaguely at the roof. The ceiling fan is still in motion. The aluminum foils on table rustle in the wind. The messy smell of leftovers is becoming stronger and trespassing into every nook and corner of the place.

The present is over! It boomed and echoed in his mind. He closed his ears with both hands. Have I heard it? You say the present is over? Why? Let it continue forever.

Loneliness returns with the black night, and Krishnan can now only think of the beautiful moments of the get-together, that now you can say once were there. The chairs around the table are empty. No voices there. He lovingly tries to recreate those impregnated moments once again, again and again. Gone never returns. It was so nice, so entertaining. He sends out a long spasmodic sigh, and in his subconscious mind he thinks of the tricky way God has treated Time. Everything is changing, ever changing…

‘Oh Lord! Let the party go on forever. I beseech You Lord. I beseech You!’ He visualized God before him. God was hiding His Face. Krishnan was asking for the impossible.

God then said. “Hi man! Life is like that. Don't bewail. Don’t sob. Don’t curse. I’m helpless. The present must come under the lid of past. Past inevitably has no lock on it to unlock, so whatever had gone I can’t give you back.”

Krishnan submerged in deeper thoughts. ‘Yes. Yes. This is life. What is permanent is only the journey. We’re born into this eternal journey, we go with it and somewhere we are left behind and the journey still goes on. You can’t stop a just moment and think ,for you are in the endless journey. When you smoke a cigar the cigar has to be over. You can only light up another one. You forget people, events and places that once were so dear to you, the thoughts that slept with you and awakened with you. Some neighbors who you saw while at school, no more existed. And man, your dear family will cease to exist. Everyone will disappear. Your family shall not be repeated. Your lovely wife, your lovely children under the same roof, that you feel so permanent now. Your family will wither away. Trillions of years will pass but this family will not be recreated, permanently goes out of existence. "You won't ask your wife 'how is your foot that we treated at the doctor's?' It’s Maya, time’s loud flow...

Krishnan became suddenly crazy to remember his son’s baby face, who is now in his teens and staying with his mother in her workplace. His son’s facial image began to crystallize before him. His son’s baby face he couldn’t recall. He tried again and again to no avail. A young man appeared instead. Elevated nose, young droopy moustache, beard of piercing hair, spiked hair, broad forehead and big clear eyes shielded by broad droopy fair lids, yet innocence of a child still graced the little man’s face. My son! He has changed.

Next to recall was his wife. He strained to recover her young face that for the first time he saw to make her his young bride. He couldn’t recollect. Instead her saggy face came from somewhere in haste and began to rock in gasps.

“You called me Krishnan. You called me!”

“Oh, no! Gowrie, Its you?”

“Yes. Yes. Its me.”

The middle aged woman with layers of fat around started moving in haste. It is all time’s doing. His train of thoughts snapped…

A voice was trickling there. He tried to listen to it. It came from his inner self…

‘Why you want to remember your son’s baby face? Your wife’s young face? There is no need man. Look there!

Krishnan looked yonder.

‘Yes, yes, my finish point! I can see. I can see!”

Krishnan was talking to himself. ‘I’m past all those who are dear to me. What time finished, you won’t get back. Gone never returns. Sooner or later a mystic silence will hold me over. My footsteps will not be heard anymore, my voice will not be heard anymore...The journey of time still continues...

By: R Muraleedharan Pillai