Mushtaque B Barq

State of gloom

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Hope is a gateway to contentment

From the clouds who shall come

to life you up,

waiting for the shadow

better than breaking it.

Nothing was apt to create excitement, no innovative joke, no thrill to surprise, no gesture to lure, nothing at all was working to make my colleagues to laugh, even lifeless chairs and boring tables couldn’t help to cook any story, a tale, an episode or an excuse to make my colleagues to stretch their much squeezed jaws that were locked so tight as if a culprit being detained for crime, as if someone was on to be executed, viciously vanished for none of his crime. There was emptiness much bigger than absurdity.  Even wall hangings and famous quotes were looking dull and dusty. All the way a strange calmness was eating up the peace, most hard to find after a hectic day with no recreation ahead. Everyone around seemed engrossed into something mysterious. Not a muscle of their faces moved. Chilled looks, frozen wrinkles and stagnant expressions were all the way making their faces to look like a dull painting with so many unnecessary strokes depicting frustration of the artist and the mind at work. On the podium of the world they appeared a central part without script to perform, boring one and all.

In the trap of darkness

let ye find a way out,

even if ye fail to find

at least you have tried,

for the bars have your fingers

made hard.

The sky from those glass frames looked like a trapped bird in the woods with hardly anyone in the region to cut the tuft laid by hunter. A cold blood murder, tyranny at fore, dictate to crush, a tangible trick to attract but an ugly invitation to be plated, a gullible wish to be grabbed once for all. The cloud line was playing hide and seek like the iced up human faces in the room with occasional movements. Wish list seemed to be hanged but not oscillated once either by a gush of wind nor by a blow of air.  The entire world appeared as small through those windowpanes as one looks through the keyhole to see the proceedings in the room. A myopic look with no scope to bring out the much condensed lava of mind, making a human being just a machine to be run by capitalist who runs the wheel of fortune according to his own cycle of obsession. A frustrated follow up, nothing refreshing, disordered alphabets on disjoined cards, mockery at its worst.    Even the eyes stationed into those sockets were reflecting farce gleams for hope and happiness was chained and dragged from the valley to the deserts of destitution, making the flesh eating flying machines to protest for want of food.

Break thy chains

Cut the winds

And pull the veils

obstructions are many

for a solitary hope.

I started to think amidst complete disorder and soon the mist of imagination paralyzed my limps and I was forced to move out of my wits and vitalities, soon my mind’s eye opened a door and I felt the world much bigger with so many people walking without directions and dictates, laughing without cause, weeping without purpose, talking without topic, crying without civility and arguing without accord. In the valley of my imagination I was able to locate thousands like me roaming on the banks of Ganges to seek comfort.  A strange and mysterious race moving without motives, writing without ache, drawing without dreams, drafting without maturity, conveying without connotations and describing without discipline, voicing without volume, crying without credence and above all living without life .  And among those weird and wonderful creatures  a few knows faces were dancing and singing without strings and sweetness,  their songs were haphazard, no rhyme and rhythm, no pause and penetration, yet they were singing in merriment. An unusual smile was passing messages across and in response those disgraceful singers were sharing something awful, hard to bring down in words. They used to raise their voices all at once to make one to believe that underneath their song, a cry of unknown origin was itching them and as such they were in a sort of hurry to register their protest followed by a pause, a long pause with their necks drooped beyond their breast lines. And from nowhere as it appeared someone with a wave encouraging their postures to break their frozen faces and join the congregation of woes. They would start weeping but in different tunes for it seemed as their woes were different.

Conceal not your dreams

Hide not thy limbs

Let thy needs wreck the walls

That divides us.

I somehow called myself from the world of such weird imaginations into the world of worries for my colleagues were still and motionlessly gazing at the sky to search for something much bigger than their volumes, much intense than their intentions  . I came back after travelling millions of kilometers but my colleagues were still waiting for Godot to pull them from despondency and depression, their waiting seems endless for they were obdurate to make their limbs to stretch. To fetch a wish that in reciprocation might infuse warmth necessary for progress, they were still looking for a mysterious man from the clouds to lift them up from the state of gloom, but somehow I was the only pulsating shadow among them who at least had managed to pull out his broken cage from the swamps of sadness. I was happy, life seemed more fascinating and forceful but my colleagues were finding it hard to detach themselves from the chains of gloom.

A lamp in a cell is a glass bulb

What turns it into source?

The steps you take to hit the button

To let the current flow and glow the filament

The life can never be pleasant unless we wish to make it. Wishing is winning, the more one wishes to live, the more one gets a chance to change.

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