What if you wake up some day and find out that the thing you
call life is not your life at all. All of it was just a well extended dream,
with minute detail.
You open your eyes and for a moment you stare at the
ceiling, you find it to be an odd color, not the usual white you are used to
seeing every day and night with the hint of blue by the night lamp. You force
the fact upon yourself that it was mistake of your eyes due to the heavy sleep
you have just woke up from. You close and rub your eyes. Get half of yourself
up and rest on your palms. Somehow you fell incredibly light, but you again
demolish that thought and take it as an after effect of your sleep. Then slowly
slide your legs in an angle to reach the end of your bed, let your legs on the
ground,
“Weird I never leave slippers beside my bed, maybe it was someone
else’s...”
You, being the meek person you have always been, don’t get
into those shoes though they look snug. You draw out your arms and walk down to
your big mirror, but you just find a blank wall facing you.
“Hey where did the mirror go!!” you eye though the room,
which somehow seem more spacious.
“Ah! There’s it is!” lying in the corner. You walk to it.
Stare at your body at full length.
You are taken aback by the sight .You are amused. Your
fingers reach your face, pressing the skin slightly only to find that it has
gone a little harder.
“That is a pimple.”
Your hair is short
and kinda good looking. You discover your facial hair has grown bigger and is
all over your face.
The details of your life with big facial hair don’t need
remembering as you know what you are doing. Suddenly the new unknown life
becomes known.
You are born with a
silver spoon. Your dad is a millionaire. You are in New York. The last thing you
care about is Somalia and yet you shared a picture in face book once, which
said: “Share if you have a heart!!”
You don’t care about
bills. You don’t check the menu’s right hand side first before you order when
you walk in a restaurant. You are a Casanova among girls. You have got friends,
all swanks.
The memory of your face gets weaker as a memory of a dream.
You soon forget minor details of your previous life of fifteen. The faint
memories of that life would be there just to crack jokes and taking part in a
conversation tonight at the party like: “You know last night I dreamed that I
was a different person!!!” and your know-it-all-friends would put in the
picture, “You, they call it something like déjà-vu or something?” and the
conversation would end with the coming of the next round of vodka.
You are on the verge to getting drunk, and you remember you
have to drive. You move close to your beautiful girlfriend and plant a small
kiss on her cheek, “Shall we?”
She turns her face to you and smiles, stretching your lips
simultaneously in a smile. You get up with her in arm.
“Have a good night amigos!” and everybody (at least who are
conscious), raise their bottles, glasses, half finished cocktails or whatever
they have in their hands in a gesture to bid good-bye, but unable to speak out
the two words.
You turn out of the bar, and as you go you side your arm out
of her’s and slide it over to her shoulder and dragging her close to you. She
lets her head on your shoulder with a smile.
Thirty minutes pass then; she’s staring at the New York’s
well lit buildings that pass her on the way from the side-front seat of your
car.
You glance at her; she’s fogged the close window and drew
something on it with her slender finger. She turns to you and smiles, and you
smile back.
You park the car and get into the elevator to get into your
apartment. Your girlfriend is laying her side to the elevator wall. You press
the round button with the number 5 written on it. The elevator starts up and
the ever annoying elevator music starts with it.
“I would like to know who composed that music, someday!”
She just tilted her head to one side and just smiled
understanding your joke but too tired to make a comment. After a few moments the
elevator will make a sound somewhat similar to the small old bells attached to
the top of the doors of old London antiques shops alarming the incoming of a
customer; and the stainless steel doors of the elevator will part. You would
come in front of your apartment door, fish out the keys from your pocket.
Unlock the door, let the keys rest on the rack and get out of your shoes and
rush to the bed. Your girlfriend, being a journalist, remembers that she has
work tomorrow, takes an aspirin and then jumps on to you as a kid will and then
slides to your side. You stare in each other eyes. You fall in love with her
all over again; then die in sleep in each other’s arms.
“Papu can’t
dance…sala..” a voice came from under your pillow. You take an instance to
remember that’s your alarm tone. You blink your eyes and slightly stare at the
bare white ceiling, with the hint of blue by the night lamp. “papu nach nahi sakta…” the
alarm goes into snooze.
“Was I dreaming all that??!!”
Prithiwish Patra.
Blogger’s note: This
is a work of friction and as usual an intriguing topic to talk or write on.
This has been my childhood fantasy rather a question, “What would happen if you wake up in a different world?” And “Is
it even possible?” Well I don’t know maybe you are dreaming
right now.
