Early Morning Musings Part 5

 

Four Drunken Trains of Thoughts

 

I: Dream is Collapsing

A stoic cliff. That’s what one strives to be. Or one is told to be. The waves will keep on crashing into you. Eroding. Chipping away. Ceaseless. Continuous. One after another. Roaring. Breaking. Slamming with force. Silently lapping, nibbling. You, the cliff will remain.

First one layer will crumble. Then another. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk, the sea of circumstance will a carve a new cliff. It will still be you, just that you will have lost something. You will be smaller. Steeper.

One day the waves will take away your soul.

One day your sanity.

One day: You.

Then the cliff would have been you. It will become empty stone. A shell. Weathered. Wrinkled. Then people will say he WAS a cliff. A stoic. But he allowed the waves to get to him. How noble. How foolish. And they will walk all over the shingled beach.

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II: Broken Contracts: it’s not you, it’s always me.

Insidious. That is how I would describe her. She creeps in, her threads and tendrils- like fungi, seeking out my breath, my blood, my sight, my brain. Her mere thought, ready to overwhelm me every time my mind strays for a moment. I am forced to smell her, taste her, tough her, feel her, chant her name, until I force myself out of her fugue. But I remain scared. For I know I want her. She knows it too. Waiting behind some forced screen. Ready to claw at my consciousness, ready to drown me in the false ecstasy of possible union of hearts. Ready to replace all aims, aspirations, desires with just one: to confess my passion and love with glee abandon. Then I will be free to die once again as the glee abandon shatters me into ten thousand pieces.

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III: Indofuturism?

Shri walked in front of the hologram screen. The hall doors were shut and a faint blue electric hum barely lit the chamber. A flickering heralded the arrival of the Trimurti. The faint blue turned to a bright yellow as the six eyes and three mouths filled the chamber with their sickening holiness. Shree felt his knees being pulled down by force as if the hologram created its on gravity. He kneeled.

“Do you admit to your transgressions?” the Trimurti bellowed.

“Yes.”

This was the moment that the Mahacharya’s expressionless face curved downwards.

The Trimurti felt silent, as if in deep contemplation. Shri could hear the circuits whizzing. The Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer had never had anybody who admitted to a Dharma-degree crime before. The hologram flickered again.

Shri had memorized the code that ran the Ultimate Appeal Program. The Mahacharya’s design of the code and the entire vastu of the Chancellery ensured that any person who appeared felt fear and admitted guilt. But Shri was trained specifically for this mission. As the Program, and the Trimurti unit recalibrated itself, the alarm began ringing.

The Mahacharya just looked at the lines as his code began failing. His code was evolving over itself. Writing itself. This rewriting triggered by the anomaly. He had read about this code but all the Mahacharyas before him had also deemed it fantasy and impossible. But it was not. They called it the Vrindavan Values. Only one hacker, the legendary Arjun had managed to trigger it and survive.

The hologram was evolving. Shri could feel the intense heat emanating from its AI. As the Chamber doors opened and the cyber-kshatriyas marched in, they broke down due to the heat. Shri began crawling out. Then there was blackness of the overloaded mainframe. He could hear himself breathe. He resumed crawling, still sensing the Trimurtis eyes following him, but not judging him anymore. He wanted to look back. Read the code. He knew the Values had been triggered. He knew the world’s fate hung in balance. But he was on a mission.

As he crossed the threshold of the Chamber, he felt strength return to his knees. He jumped up and ran up to the control room, to confront the man who had caused him and his people so much pain. But when he saw the Mahacharya’s smoking eyes, Shri knew he had won.

He pulled up a chair and helped him sit. Searching for the hidden trishul drive, he began uploading the Vishanu. As his customized flips began shutting down the Values, the alarm ceased. Only then did the Mahacharya utter his first words.

“Is it over? Has the world ended? Did the Values kill us all?”

“No, Mahacharya, I shut them down. I shut down the Trimurti too.”

“Come here.”

The blind old man felt his face, his lips, his ears, and then he froze.

“Where did you get these earrings?”

Before Shri could answer, the wrinkled hands began feeling his chest.

“I know these designs. I know this breastplate. Shri is not your real name.”

Shri just smiled. And he knew the Mahacharya could feel him smiling.

“Don’t mock me!” his raspy voice tried to shout. “I tried to prepare for this. I had hoped the prophecy was not true. That it was a lifetime after. Or it had happened before. But no…”

“Why did you even fight it, Mahacharya?” Shri questioned.

“Why shouldn’t I have? After the new Constitution allowed your people access to tech as a right, I knew that the Artificial Examinations could protect Our privilege only so much. And if this prophecy was fulfilled, what would happen to Us all? Here, come here again. Let me feel that design again.”

But this time Shri left the Mahacharya bereft, allowing him to pitifully wither away to his moksha.

“I did my best. I am liberated.” Last words. Unworthy of note. Uttered in presence of his chauffer’s son.

As the rebel forces swarmed the Chancellery, Shri proceeded to reprogram the mainframe. Next step: open the jails. Free his people.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulders. “That’s enough!”

“Ha ha ha, Boss what are you doing? I am just following the plan.”

“No. The prisoners will remain in jail. We are taking over. The D-Company is in charge now.”

“Wait. What no. Boss, I did not sign up for this…You used me.”

“Oh grow up. And it is not Boss anymore. Dushi is tearing up the original copy of the Constitution as we speak. Address me as Queen Draupadi.”

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IV: How to Write a Suicide Note.

TW: Suicide

What should an ideal suicide note contain? Ideally, a “why?” But that poses an interesting question. Let’s explore the most vicious: to implicate someone.

Case Study:

Suppose upon entering a professional dispute, you wager to get someone kicked out of the workplace. Committing suicide, I believe is a very efficient, perhaps the fastest to get that done, with a high probability of success. The note should then charge the workplace to fire that person to

a. Show it takes action against people who commit psychological malfeasance

b. Enshrine its commitment to the psychological needs of its workers

c. Give your soul rest.

Further you should name your friends and family to undertake litigation to ensure the workplace follows up. They’ll manage. In any case, provided your death gets enough publicity, I’m sure internal employee pressure and external social pressure would get that person fired.

*

Death causes pain and suffering and sadness to people surrounding the deceased. So there is no point is using lines such as “don’t feel sad” etc. Instead I would suggest go with “don’t be too sad because you wanted me to be happy and now I am.” Though of course, that’ll get lost in the self-blame the mourners undertake. In such a case, a reasoned cogent argument as to why you committed suicide would be overdelivering as the “why I committed suicide” is a question that’ll not want to be answered rationally, as a blame-game will ensue. In such a case, you can solve the issue in two ways

(i) Save ink and NOT write one
(ii) Just write “असच”

In either case a will and a request to donate my body would be necessary.

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