The Conjured Poet

g{x VÉÇ}âÜxw cÉxà The proverbial poet may soon be dead. He used to shape the time he got, but these days he is being shaped up by the time. He is in a kind of business he hated to be in. These days time has nothing to relent to him to figurate the clouds and paint the skies. skies. There is a very loud cacophony surrounding him bewildering him day in day out. Another aspect turning dominant off late is the way he felt every passing second as a life time, has changed to months going whipping past his mind. He has started to fathom deep into ocean, gasping hard for breath with his nostrils full with black water. He is in some peculiar kind of unconsciousness, waked up with bloodshot eyes wide open, dreaming of savannah freedom and shattered chains. Each passing moment is making him even even gloomier. His consciousness is off to a slow death, and he does not even know if he is feeling the death or not. At times it is like a spinning top and a moment later a lifeless egg shell after the life has left it. He could have long been dead by now but for this one feeling the tug of war is still alive. The phoenix is there under its ashes breathing and weaving the ashes into a new pair of wings, which will make it fly farther this time higher in to the sky. For some time he kept on behaving as if he was more subconscious than he actually was, as if the flower budded with wilt to wilt more. The sun seemed like settling both in east and west. He dragged himself to a corner which was so dark, hot and swampy that even the most blood thirstiest buffalo mosquito relented him. The outside could never know of what he was going through. Such was this poet of ours that he never let anybody know about his discontented psychedelics. Making others laugh and laugh yourself as well, as heartily is as difficult as is too make 1|Page

others weep and weep yourself that heartily. Still he did manage to look 'alright' and 'OK 'OK' OK' to people who seemed to care rather pamper him.

There is bound to come some change change to everything on this earth, be it human or be it a dead stone. Something can never continue to be the same till time lasts. The change needs an excuse to sprout up, and then the change takes over as if there nothing was anything even near to being in in the earlier shape. You start observing a bud of rose to bloom, watching it every day in the morning to find it the same until the petals spill to show as there never was any bud. He was walking his usual aisle this afternoon unaware of the position of the sun and he found it too scorching, looked up towards the sizzling firmament. His vibes told that he hated the sun like if there would have been enough capability in him he would have cut it into two and dip them both in the sea of tranquility forever. forever. In retaliation he never moved his eyes from the scorcher He then saw it, a small patch of cloud sailing through the vast expanse. It was sailing so slowly that the process took over eternity to make the shadow reach the face. Then the eyes blinked, took long long to open as if gone to a long sleep. The opening eyes were again greeted by the sun but this time did not get the curse. The thought flashed across his mind that it is the individual himself who elongates the cursed time and shortens the blissful moments. moments. He went on with his walk and was feeling little reconciliated.

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This day which he intentionally created for himself was busy being written on a cool morning on a deserted beach rock. All he could see was vast expanse of bluishbluish-green or greenishgreenish-blue water, unsure where it was meeting the sky first, he thought 'far east or far west? No! Neither, Neither, it should should be down south, where it has got slight curve.' He saw morning fishermen starting off and getting lost from what he could see last and watched the night fishermen slowly emerging from the skyline on the prosodic deluge. He saw kids in their birthday suit suit playing in and out of water and finely dressed lot dressing up the beach now and then. He fell asleep on the rock and his paper moved from beneath as the pen he kept on it rolled down the rock and the breeze floated it far, until somebody started chasing chasing it. Finally the paper was in her hand and she was wondering over the content as she went through it. It started like.....................

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The Adventure of a Winter Rose .

Scarlet and crimsons enshrined in green As felt unusually jostled in the crazy endeavor A winter rose took up some adventure And never knew the summer was not serene .. Hugs with the fellow buds felt dry and new And the in womb petals shook with terror With leave and twigs blowing in hot air Even the morning breeze carried no dew ... Bloomed and spilled the colors some day The sun showed valor and sans any mercy Found everything dull and not so perky Even the search for fellows brought dismay …. The days to come were even harsher got As the little flower g ot bruised all over Jollity vanished and died the adventure Dried in youth to wait till winter …..

She went through it again and again, for once she would gaze at the paper then would look up to look far, God knows what, probably making some face to identify identify with the writer. Then she folded it countless times, squeezed in her palm and took her stroll back to where she belonged. The gait was different as if the paper had something contagious passed on to the girl. She was a part of a prosperous and distinguished family once, when her father captained a ship called ‘The Northern Mermaid’. Her younger brother, in a chivalrous profession of coin diving was the only member accompanying her on the beach after ‘the mermaid’ mermaid’ got wrecked on a protruding and invisible in dark rock a couple of miles off the coast. There started the penury of these two siblings. Diving earned the lad some coins and sun tan. 4|Page

The girl’s once nice voice gradually coarsened as she rang up every bar bar on the beach with some old sea songs, like the one in her father’s narration of ‘The Treasure Island’Island’- ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, chest, yo yo-hoho-ho and a bottle of rum!’, rum!’, as she tried raising her petite voice among the burly sea faring men yelling over over their nauseating drinks. The two lived near the beach in a self erected shack as most of their neighbors did. The slum dwellers had among them Mr. Finn, the poor poet. He was one of the few resources of entertainment for the beach children, they mocked, mimed and when at their worst they even pelted him with sea shells and pebbles for his shabby looks and gaudy talks. The siblings, Mary and Tim being the immediate neighbors neighbors to Finn also enjoyed the show.

There was a change the bars saw after Mary got Finn’s poem. Somewhere she identified herself with the winter rose. She would sing ‘The Adventure of a Winter Rose’ whenever she felt like mixed up between sanguinity and glumness. Her employers did not like the change as the atmosphere created by the song and the desire in the bars had a wide rift between them. She was allowed to sing that ‘the rose song’ in the mornings as then the bars used to be scantly occupied.

Finn passed by that inn one sunny morning and he got held around the entrance to catch something on air. The song caught hold of his attention and imagination like a wandering traveler lost while through some jungle starts following the aroma emanating from a musk deer, unconscious and that moment lets him not think of anything else. The atmosphere atmosphere inside was heavy with the melancholy of the ‘rose song’. Suddenly it struck him, many 5|Page

thoughts flashed across his mind in a moment. He grew impatient to explore the face behind the voice. Mr. Finn advanced slowly in the direction where the voice came came from. His gait became startled when he recognized the face. The somber beauty of Mary’s turned into an image of a girl whom he has always seen mocking him. He went up close and Mary’s violin almost touched him. The song lost its charm as Mary got petrified petrified by the presence of the weirdo. Finn’s eyes had thousands of questions for her in that moment which took ages to pass by for Mary. Next moment he rushed out of the rickety place. He was not able to decide in what form he should react, once he feared wild wild mock that was always in waiting if he prompts the incidence to anybody, at the same time he felt like burgled. Even after his return to his shack the disturbance deceived the sleep out of him and he strolled out to the beach, half asleep.

Finn returned to the senses when his mind could not camouflage the hoots coming from his back. They were young lads who were laughing over Finn’s unmindful walk into the water unaware of the wetness of his ambience. He glanced back to have a look and his eyes got into tetetete-a-tete with Mary witnessing all from far in her return. It felt to him as if she was saying ‘you deserve this.’ Actually it was only Finn’s idea to apprehend her sight like that.

Mary too got disturbed with different feelings at different times. The thoughts roaming around her mind after her return were different from her reactions in the bar. She was quizzed over the very thought of the descent of Finn to such a place where his whereabouts were till now unheard of, that too in the morning. His 6|Page

entry, entry, stay and exit, all had different essences of mysteries for her. His vibes expressed though his face came back to her again and again, until she had to attend to Tim’s bruises of the coin diving day. Events slowly caught the usual route as time started started flying by. Finn forgot the inn incidence and Mary had countless things to take care of especially concerning Tim. The slum children had eyes hovering around Tim for some time now as his shorts always tinkled with coins when he ran around with them on the beach. Some ambitious and relatively older lads followed him with cruel penchant. Now and then Tim would return empty with marks of struggle. Chiding him Mary asked him to fear not for some time and told him to face the sand laden wind across his face. Then Then she came up with some of her feminine strategies, of evading the scene by showing up too early and advised the same for his exits. They worked little and Tim’s appearances around tourist ships and watched ched boats were diminished to being a tourist himself. He wat those boys dive from a distance with an eye of a spectator watching a ball game being a player himself.

Soon Tim was seen collecting tiny sea shells for her sister’s meticulous job of beading them into cheap saleable shapes. He found selling those articles articles tougher than taking deep breaths and diving into water for coins. He still fancied standing upon the deck scaffolding and making his sun tanned slender body erect into a splash into water. Now he would topple his own coins and watch them disappear, then dived for them often losing them. Still his sister was very happily contended as they were safer now.

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Finn and his situation did not change much. He cursed himself for having nothing to earn his living from but the labor of emptying and filling goods goods boats with heavy logs, coal, salt and more such stuff. Though he kept scripting his dull vibes, idle waiting for good winds to turn up his way.

One evening he was sitting by a beach rock, his knees curled up against his chest and his hands wrapping them them holding a paper in front of his eyes. He had just finished writing something on it and was going through it. Then he looked towards the horizon as if listening to the hiss coming from the sun dipping into water where it met the sea. The same time around around Tim and Mary were returning to their shack walking on the wet sand with sea water splashing against their feet from time to time. Both were pretty elated going to feast up their whole basket sold that day.

They crossed Finn casting their dark shadows on him and he casually looked towards them. Even Tim and Mary saw him but failed to recognize him from the distance as it was already turning dark and with their own shadows on his face. Mary saw a paper fluttering in air in his hand and suddenly it struck her. “It was the same place around she caught ‘the rose song’ floating like a litter in air, and is this the person who wrote it?” She thought. Mary could not help self approaching him. A little more than five yards and she recognized the face from the inn inn as well as the nerd of the slum. This slowed her down, but she had come too far to return. When Finn saw her coming and grew suspicious that she was coming to him he stood up and Mary ended up standing in 8|Page

front of him. For a moment she gazed at him and then sheepishly asked, “Did you write that rose song?” Finn had never fancied some situation to be like this. He tried to speak, cleared his throat but could muster anything as there was not much for him to say. All he could manage was to give her her an affirmative affirmative nod in reply. That night Fin was sitting with May and Tim in their hut around a kerosene lamp. While eating they talked about how they felt seeing each other when unacquainted. Finn asked Mary about Tim’s disappearance from the port and how do they they manage their chorus after that.

They talked for hours together and Finn got stuck when Mary narrated him the way they landed on the island. She saw in his eyes when he heard this with amazed ready to spill eyes. Mary felt much quizzed about this and could could not stop before asking him, what in the whole episode of ship wreck made him so troubled.

Finn could not control himself over her inquisition and told her about his son who was on the ship that night among the crew. His son was the ship cook who also went down with the ship. Mary could remember now the cheerful and obedient cook who gave candies and honey from the kitchen store. Being reminded of those days they both wept that night.

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The next morning slum people saw Finn in the middle of Mary and Tim holding their hands and walk up the shore. After some days Finn left his painful job and opened a small shop selling shell souvenirs made by the children. Mary and Tim got a guardian in Finn and he got his family back. Mary stopped singing in the bars and Finn never wrote again.

A. N.

Saquib

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