The Beginnings

(From here on the story will proceed in first person, as seen from Loktak’s eyes)

The meeting with Fielder had affected me deeply. For three days before that I had wandered aimlessly with all kind of thoughts in my mind. I used to hang around the house and see people visiting and the religious rites being carried out. My mind was filled with questions of all kinds. I was not scared, but nervous I sure was. What was going to become of me? In my life I was never a patient man, and now I had a wait that could last for well over a century, if Fielder was to be believed. On top of that, there was nothing much I could do except observe the world moving around me. People taking birth, living their lives and dying while I would just look on – a silent observer.

I was gloomy for many days after my meeting with Fielder. How many days? I can’t say. Time had ceased to have any meaning for me. Yes I would lie down and close my eyes but I never slept. There was no sleep for me and it seemed I would have to pass the days and nights in this dreadful wait. It is not hard to imagine how hard it is to wait for something. Time stops, seconds become minutes, minutes become hours and hours feel like months. I decided to use the time to observe life. There were many things about life that intrigued me. Maybe this chance was given to me to find my answers. What good it would do me, I did not know. I was dead after all, and even if I understood everything about life, what could I do about it. But then a part of me told me that I was in the realms of unknown, where anything could happen and anyways there was nothing else to do so I decided to study one thing that surrounded me-humanity.

After wandering around for a few days, I decided to settle down and see what I could do with all the time I had. By now I was prepared to wait as long as it took. I mean, what could a man do but resign to his fate. Though, was man a term that described me, I wasn’t sure.

I decided to look around and see what was in store for me. There were a lot of questions still running through my mind and I had to find the answers to them. Did the laws of physics that governed everything else govern me or was I unique in every way: governed by nothing, answerable to no one and could do what ever I pleased. How fast I could go? How all could I travel?

The answers to all these questions, I knew, would come only with time. I could walk like an ordinary man. But I found that I could run faster than most things and sometimes I would leap into thin air and soar along the ground to a great distance. I was sure that I could fly; I only had to learn how. Surprisingly, despite all these changes, my mind seemed pretty much the same. I was still a young lad of nineteen at heart and mind, and most of my thoughts were based on my past experiences in life. Though a lot of them were useless now.

As I had decided before, I began to observe humanity more closely. I had all the time and patience in the world, now, to just sit and watch a man snore, or lover’s talk or a student read. I would try and find a reason to every little sleight of the hand, every movement of the eye. This would be my hobby, my favorite way to spend time.

Every night, as it got dark, I would try and get back home. Something about home gave me a feeling of safety and comfort, though I avoided going inside because that made me sad by reminding of what once was and what could still have been, if only I had not been stupid enough to do what I had done. One such night, as I was wandering around what was once my house, I saw lights still on at my neighbor’s house. These lights had always been a source of curiosity for me mixed with a little annoyance.

The neighbor had two sons; one was about my age and the other a bit younger. The lights in their rooms stayed on till the most unearthly hours in the night and then got switched back on at even more unearthly hours in the morning or break of dawn, I should say. I always wanted to know what was going on in there. It was almost impossible to believe that they were studying that much. For my part, I could hardly stay awake past ten PM in the night especially if there were anything to be studied. I loved to read but the rote learning always bored me.

So the neighbor’s sons were the envy of the parents in the entire area as it was automatically assumed that the meaning of the lights being on was that the boys were studying and working hard. Every parent quoted the example of the two kids when they asked their kids to study.

Burn some midnight oil. All this sleeping will get you no where”

The early bird catches the worm”

These were some of the things that my parents used to tell me. So, not surprisingly the two boys were people that I didn’t like a lot and though we used to play together every now and then, we never got to be very good friends. Anyways, it’s a strange fact of life that no one likes to be around people who have the “smarter that thou” attitude. I for one didn’t like to be around people who were smarter than me or acted as if they were.

The two sons were sitting on the bed with pillows behind their backs and their knees curled up, their books were lying on their knees. It looked like they were studying and their mind was absolutely on the books until a closer inspection revealed that their eyes were shut. They were fast asleep and it was evident from the regular breathing of the two boys that they had been sleeping for some time now. Their books were open. I was just observing t hem, with a smile on my face, feeling none of my earlier dislike towards them, when there was a sound in the house and in an instant, both the boys were sitting up, eyes wide open, totally alert. If I hadn’t seen them with their eyes shut and bodies relaxed only seconds ago, I would have never guessed that just a little while back they had been fast asleep.

Footsteps were heard and they came in the direction of the room. The brothers looked at each other, as if to make sure that both were awake, and the door to the room opened. The father of the two sons came out. Looking at his sons, he had a twinkle in his eye, which could not be mistaken for anything else but what it was: pride and joy.

Still up sons.” He said. It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, father” came in unison from the two sons.

“Good! If you need some coffee or tea, don’t think twice before waking me or your mom.” Saying that he left the room, and hardly was his back turned, when the sons were fast asleep again.

So, that was their secret. I, now, pitied them more than envied them and their parents even more so. Just to keep their parents happy, the two sons were deceiving them. When I left them, they were still fast asleep and the lights were still on.

It made me think how humans try to deceive people in order to avoid being blamed, but they don’t realize that one day the truth will be out and on that day the deception will hurt the deceived and the deceiver much more than, if truth had been told in the first place.