Manubrium

Time, she can make you look wise and otherwise. It is she who broke the mirror of my soul into a thousand pieces to admire the handiwork of her mind. It is she who taught me to accept that my loneliness is a preface to many long tales our short lives are made of in this world. My life was not her doing; she convinced me that it was my own undoing.

'Soul less burdened by fault rests not, occupied is her chamber within with love for us all, Of all this His hand laid on, they shall not rest those of his own kind. If there can be any mortgage in life, I would condemn myself eternally to her.'

“Don't mind him” she said and continued “Do not be scared by the lines on our faces. When you let your feet drag your life, they leave their memories everywhere.”

I did not know how many days had passed by. Every time, I woke up, I heard these two neighbours.

Lost in this madness, I found myself drifting to the few memories inside me. I could hear my father, “You cannot afford to be alone, Son.”

There were passages of time; I used to get lost in my own work. My wife would never understand that my mind pulled by a thousand strings exhausted itself in conceiving plots. A rebel's blood is too coarse to adhere to any advice and I was no exception.

Scared to stray from the road, I had made her life miserable. From where I stand now, it is clear that every man who is in the habit of creating lives, is a little boy seeking a mother's lap from a woman who herself is a seeking a man's shoulders.

Just as I started to drift further, she whispered, 'I had come here with my parents to visit my grandmother. When I came here, I searched for her everywhere. She had left this place by then.'

“I did not know that my voice had become the cesspool of my shrinking heart” she said sadly, “A good man's life is often not interesting but always worth telling. He was a terribly good man. The staleness that creeps into any repetitive goodness managed to infect ours too. I could not bear every day being reduced to another day. I followed my feet which dragged me far away from my marriage till the strings that held me to him could bear me no more.”

“Circumstances are the words of destiny in our lives, the last words are still left to you” remarked the voice.

“Those who have seen his face, say he looks pristine and has no lines on his face” she said. “He lacks our pungent smell of disdain for eternity. They say that he who speaks has grown young over the years.”

“I was born old with prejudices and grew young each day as I started to see the different shades of white and black, which until then, never did I believe could look together so beautiful.” I remembered my own scribbling.

“I have been waiting for you to respond. You sound like a philosopher I knew” she said happily. “You were sleeping when I arrived here.”

“A man is a sum of many things gravitated towards himself. I am no philosopher. Obsessed with my work, I forgot my duty towards my family. I was not there when she needed me. I never knew when she left me to myself.” I said lamely.

She demanded that I continue, “I refused to let go of my heart and accept the grace of her love. I became many labels. This obsession to be nothing but you is a strange working of the mind.” I continued to share whatever I could remember till that night started to gently merge with the following day.

“The strings of our own heart lie not in us,

Our own reins elude our hands,

What is undone is mostly our own doing.” the voice gently eased us into rest.

The next evening, she whispered, “I stayed at the mount nearby listening to a poet for four nights. He spoke of forgiveness and a life to come. Do you think so?”

I had always shied away from the idea of forgiveness. It seemed as if to mock the pain that was meticulously designed by someone. “If someone did really care for you, why would they put themselves in a state where they require to be forgiven?” I retorted.

“Will you go out with me tonight?” she seemed to caress me away from the impending argument.

I never ventured out fearing that I would be ridiculed. I was a good man. How could I have so many deep lines on my face? Something must be surely wrong. The healers stationed here must have mistaken me for someone else.

“How do you know about the lines on my face?” I asked in a lowered voice fearing that others might come to know.

“I have some deep lines etched on mine too. Some, bent; others, parallel” she answered calmly.

I moaned “I would like to visit the mount. I can feel the deep lines on my face and it stops me from going there.”

“Close your eyes when you come out” she advised and I followed tamely as my ribs ached for fresh air.

As we walked away from the dim light of the candles into the moon light, I could feel how my visual orientation to this world had restricted my other senses.

We spent the first half of the night listening to the poet. The poet said “Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, banished from above, cast below, continue to blame each other, our inheritance it is to blame, to be lame.”

“I was no different” I said.

“We are all no different. Come, let us go to the river.” she said dragging me away from any self pity that threatened to engulf me.

When we returned to our wooden jackets, she suggested “Why don't you pray to our Lady? She may intercede for you”

“I do not pray.” I cut her short as prayer was for those who were faithful to the idea of the creator and not for adaptations like me. My fear oscillated from how to pray, to can I pray. Moreover, after years of being true to my faith, here I was with so many lines on my face. We spoke of many things before dawn but I was afraid to thank her for it would be too small a word.

I preferred to smile as I receded back. The voice had chosen to punctuate itself with silence. It seemed so, till the sound of rain trampling the grass forced me to take refuge beneath the wooden plank.

I longed to hear her whisper and drag me out of this place, follow her blindly and see the world through her. Every night we visited places she had longed to see. She always wanted to hear my stories. I do not know what she saw in them.

“In my youth, I tried hard to believe in the idea of happiness. I desperately searched for it in the niche of my actions. The happiness I found was not eternal and satisfying in itself. Later I realized, they had discovered another idea called joy which was to be more endearing than happiness. When my uncle took his life, I failed to understand the geometry of fate. Too many intersecting circles made it look like an abstract piece of art.” I wondered with her.

“Why do you question everything? Perhaps, life would be livable if you could merely believe, be and become” she said.

That night, she took me to the chapel nearby. Closed doors behind us and the altar in front of us, I sat silently listening to her read, “Love bears all things.”

Those lines dragged me across the corridors of time. I saw myself kneeling beside my father reciting the prayers and going to bed with these lines on my lips, “Lord, if sleep, you do wish for me, let me sleep; if otherwise, let me come to thee.”

Tossed from there, I stood before my relatives who in their usual glory were mocking my parents. My father was an ideal father but a successful man, they laughed. I wanted to retort as always but then I remembered the poet.

Why not forgive them? I wondered. It may not undo my pain but I have nothing more to lose. No sooner, I murmured my forgiveness, cast I was in the midst of everyone who disliked me.

I was not going to forgive them all so soon. It was for them to also try to cultivate a liking for me. Forgiveness cannot come so easy, I thought. A line deepened itself across my cheek.

It seemed like eternity as I waited to be carried away from there. As I waited, I also noticed that they did not hate me but merely what I did. It is in my foolishness that I had borrowed the criticism my actions faced onto myself. I did not have the patience to listen to it earlier, now I had no choice. I wish I had no choice then too.

Some pointed out that my flaws were not merely my own doing and were to be studied in the circumstances around them. Others did not hold on to the grudge. They did accuse me but did not carry it on their shoulders. Now I know why I alone felt heavy.

Having heard it all, I knew they were not the ones who required my forgiveness. I felt light but now I could not drag myself out of here.

“Within her, beside her, every man is but her label. How does this sound?” she asked.

She could not understand why I was so joyful on hearing her voice. “Are you alright?” she enquired.

“Yes, where are we going tonight?” I asked eagerly.

We went to the mount. People were leaving as he was not there.

“Can we stay here?” her hands held me back.

She described the night as she saw it in her own little way, the stars stringed to our lives and the moon which held our mood.

Suddenly, she asked “Would you forgive your wife?”

“I am learning to forgive myself” I said sincerely.

She did not speak any further that night.

As the dawn neared, I must have fallen asleep waiting to hear the voice.

That night she did not speak anything. “Are you there” I asked desperately.

Desperation can drive a man a foot further than his will. When I could wait no longer, I decided to crawl out.

I could feel the light strike her stone. I saw my name there and tears did undo the colours she had painted on my face.

As I pulled the wooden jacket over me, I heard the voice, “Tomb cannot hold what belongs to her womb.”

I felt the lines on my face heal and hoped, some morning, the light would come for me too.