The wonderful citizens of Acirema

Aciremanians are such wonderful people that you cannot help repeating it again and again, most of the times as assurance because you cannot be sure all the time. They live in big families, who mostly avoid each other, in bigger houses, they meet for big dinner and rituals of holding hands to thank the almighty. They keep bigger guns to protect their family and their property –which they proudly proclaim as private and wouldn’t think much before shooting anyone who cross the line. Otherwise they are such wonderful people. Posting videos of hunting and barbecue that is shared, commented and mostly go viral. Hunting wild animals is how they bond with each other. They smear the blood of dead animal on their faces and get themselves photographed for posterity. This becomes happy memories. These memories are further strengthened by gathering around barbecue pouring the elixir called barbecue sauce onto the searing flesh. They wear red caps when they go shopping. They always go shopping. They find meanings in their life through shopping. Life matter to them particularly the unborn. They show utmost concern to fetus. The lump of mass is where they see miracles of living happening. The sight brings in all their emotions. The concern though vanishes the moment the child is born. From here on it is the survival the fittest. Let me remind that they also happen to be one of the most unfit bunch of people inhibiting planet Agam. They are obese easily prone to lifestyle disease as they avoid walking helplessly reliant are they on fossil fuel guzzlers. They arrange mock combat sitting comfortably on big wheels, crushing metals with soft pedal, these are cheered by crowd who witness these inane spectacles with family and friends sharing beer and hotdog. It’s a family outing on weekend. They also go for political rallies. It’s time to protect their religion they say, the leader is their god incarnate, and shout against people with different skin color. They clap and whistle for their leader –a semi-literate charlatan who feeds on their insecurities and offer them their worst memories.        

They extend their enormous adipose clogged hands for the takeaway. They quench their thirst with carbonated sweetened syrup and their hunger with fat dripping servings. They spent more than anyone on planet Agam. They eat more than anyone on planet Agam. They waste more than anyone on planet Agam. In short they are burden to others. But you cannot deny that they are wonderful people. They give such wonderful impressions of wonderful beings that they are when they keep their guns away to discuss in TV channels. They use such persuasive skills with opportune use of words that some calls these high form of art. They are therefore artists. They coordinate their tone with wonderful expressions. Their eyes can sometimes move out and create its own context while they speak. They hold the view that everything that exist in planet Agam exist for their pleasure. The mountain, the forest, the river, the trees, are all god’s gift that is presented to them to be exploited. Greed and wanton consumption is a system that god created for their comfort. Anything that contradicts their lifestyle is a conspiracy, a hoax, fake news. They are incapable to understand logic and have long since lost the ability for critical thinking, surprisingly these were never impediment to material acquisitions. They concluded this to be blessing, and that they were specially chosen to rule over the world. Their liberty and freedom extended to all countries across the planet. Aciremanians use them for target practice, new methods of warfare like nuclear bombs, agent orange, drone attacks so on are tried and tested. To be fair countries across the planet Agam are smaller versions of Acirema and given a chance would enthusiastically emulate. Wonderful citizens of Acirema are role models.      

 

The Scream of Nature

It happened gradually. He had sensed it was happening. The images were shifting. In the beginning it was a slight shift like some aberration, probably he wasn’t looking carefully or his eyes have weakened, later it gave impression as though he was watching the world through some dense partition. There was a distinct refraction he felt as if the images were at an angle, the reality was being wrenched out of place. The more he became aware of it the more it started to trouble him. Then came the images of disasters, the fire, the flood, the cyclones, the increasing regularity and intensity. He knew the shift was real. He could feel his heartbeat rise before he calmed himself down. He distracted himself in his daily chores. The world went on in its deceptive phase. There was sunrise, the morning, noon and sunset, the night. On bright sunny days he could see vultures circling in thermals at great height. They looked like darts controlled by some unseen forces pendulating in a set pace. His eyes throbbed and eyelids fluttered rapidly, images of vast fields of dead rotting vultures filled his sight. They hang their neck deliriously and roll down dead. The darts became large as it drop onto earth with dull thuds. It was raining dead vultures. Exhausted he leaned on to the railings of the bridge. The warm sturdy metal assured him. It dispelled his fear. He clutched it. The bridge was real and held in place by simple mechanisms that could be trusted. It held its truth. On gravity. He felt it. He knew nothing was real. There was no wrong or right. He didn’t know what to trust and what not to. There was no anchor to nurture his thoughts. He must therefore focus on the immediate. The distant was absurd or else it would kill him. There was no reason, no purpose. He need to conceive a reason, device a purpose, to keep the absurd away. Though there wasn’t anything to understand he need to understand. Understand the absurdness of his reality. He must assume himself to be happy. That is the only way he could survive.

There is a giraffe ambling in the savanna, careless to her fate she seeks the acacia leaves. Her striking eyelashes in wonder of beautiful life. They shoot her for fun. She falls in pain and in muted screams beats her long legs in air. They smile and desecrate her body while they take pictures to share with friends and family, and stuff her as trophy to be shipped in faraway drawing room to be lit in luxury and comfort. He hears the giraffe’s scream. He feels the pain. He cannot assume to be happy. He can no longer pretend. He hears the bleeding sky. He hears the horrors of exploding bombs. He hears the utter anguish of human existence. He hears the restless river. He hears the falling trees. He hears the machine dredge the deep forest. He trembles. He hears the visceral scream passing through the nature. They swirl in tremendous energy towards him. He hears the scream of kuala trapped in the eucalyptus tree as the forest fire engulf. The tongue of the flame leaping ferociously to singe his skin. The screams of fishes as the acid ocean wrangle the life out of corals. The bleached corals sway in terrifying desolation. The screams of shocked deer swept away in surging flood. The screams of hapless cormorant covered in oil slick. The screams of polar bear marooned on melting ice. Her life dangling in the precipice of no return. He is reduced to bones. He knew he wouldn’t survive. He reconcile to death. But there is something terrible that awaits him before death. Something he must face. More and more screams arise from all corners and suffuse into primal horror. These bloodcurdling shrieks consolidates to disintegrate his humanity and obliterates his soul. His brain burst, he bleeds through the eyes, ears and mouth, and is reduced to skeletal androgyny floating in timeless agony. He feels that he is falling into the abyss of untold misery.  He seeps and is distorted, appropriated by the great force of destruction. He must atone the sins of humanity. He has a longing to disappear and become one with the world. There are no gods, no words, no ideas, no facts, no nothing, just this deep emptiness that needs to be filled. Like in the color book. The green. The red. The blue. The humpback whale take in all to spout immaculate rainbow.    

(This is a short fiction alright but has deeper insights of Munch’s painting, Nietzsche, Camus…but finally it has to be Spinoza!)

The Man In The Crowd

Do you see that man in the crowd? The man in striped white shirt and black trouser. No, you don’t? Maybe he is too indistinct. He is like every other man in the crowd. They maybe going to their workplace, and it’s the morning rush hour, or maybe they are out to find some work. He needs to be on time. The public transport are crowded as always. He vacillates, talks to himself and push people to make space. They push him back. They shout and abuse. He is too tired to react. He clamps himself and clutches to a spot to stand. He is lost in the jostling crowd. There is nothing about him that stands out. Maybe it’s the crowd. There is nothing remarkable about the crowd. You may not recognize him but you will almost always see him in crowd. Not that he wants to just that wherever he is its always crowded. You will see him standing awkwardly in the long queue while others crowd to catch hold of man trying to break the queue. There is always commotion. People want to be ahead. They are afraid to be left behind. Since they know if they are left behind there is nothing to wait for. There are empty shelves, dripping water, depleting food, and then if anyone is concerned, hollow words and petty excuses. They must therefore push, shove and shout to get ahead. It’s a never ending endeavor that defines his life; each life in the crowd. He is told to endow himself with skills to stay ahead or gain experience in the matter of staying ahead. The skills are designed and set to be just beyond him so that he is tantalized to work hard. Some in the crowd are offered depending on design and requirement, and they thank their blessing. They though remain a step away to be back in the stampeding crowd to eke a living. A slip is a slide, a mistake catastrophe, stray carelessness life threatening. It’s like jungle, maybe it’s not like a jungle since jungle has some rules to play by. Here it’s more of fate, the rules of bewildering happenings, of miracles and soothsayers. It’s a snake and ladder game where the rules are applicable to only the crowd; you are back in the crowd if you play bad or are not blessed enough. They therefore have to be constantly worry about their fate. They will be tutored to be extra humble to authority and memorize to fawn the power. Quietly learn to be exploited and abused, and if given an occasion ready to exploit and abuse. They crowd to earn fast to stay ahead of the hungry crowd. They learn new tricks, conceive new ways to cheat, steal and lie to amass money, property and riches. Still they will not feel secure. It is as if they are being constantly chased by the crowd. Sometimes they think the crowd is jealous of their riches hence want to bring them down they therefore erect taller barricades and put in more security.  

If you care to look you will see him in protests that spread across the street shouting slogans against price rise, sometimes throwing stones against corrupt, fearlessly accosting the armed police against state atrocities, or maybe he is a silent participant not sure of himself or anything that happens around him just that he needs to protest. And that he likes to be in the crowd. He learned to be in the crowd. He has come to accept his identity in the crowd, he cannot distinguish himself from the crowd, or maybe he has accepted it as his fate; he realized there is no escape from his reality. When he pass the reflection on the mirror he rarely recognize himself. He thinks and acts like crowd, and aligns his feeling for the crowd. Sometimes on rainy day he takes his head out of the crowded vehicle to feel the rain and breathe in the fresh air.