Nevertheless that day, the new rising sun looked the same and quiet similar to all other mornings, the birds chirped to wake up from their nests and started to fly in the same direction, like taking an express highway to traverse and fly on a daily basis. But, Kaaya after a tiring night shift at office was returning way back to his home in Bangalore with his new dreams in his placid eyes and self-development plans for the coming new year. It was 10th of December and it was Kaaya’s birthday today. Every year he would either celebrate or lament on his birthday. And today, he had no idea how his birthday was going to be. After slogging the entire night at the office, he unlatched to open the door of his house at around 6 am on a bright Sunday morning like a daily ritual because Kaaya always worked in night shifts.
With the slightest noise by him, Zippo always came running to the door . As he unlatched the door Zippo pounced on him and started licking his trousers and cuddled in his legs. Zippo was Kaaya and Rocco’s 10 month old Lab, although Kaaya was not very fond of pet dogs but lately staying along with Rocco, he had learnt to read Zippo’s emotions and started to love him and adore him as his beloved friend/pet.
Kaaya gently caressed Zippo with love and politely said, ‘Zips, do you know it is my Birthday today…? C’mmon, wish me Dude…’ The unaware Zippo with a nascent look in his eyes was innocently fondling against Kaaya’s legs.
He gently moved Zippo a little aside and made some way for him to get inside the house. He opened his shoes and kept in in the shoe stand, he stood their near the door for around 10 minutes. He suddenly started to observe all the paintings of his own, which were hung on the trippy lemon yellow and tangy orange colored wall. At first, his eyes fell on an abstract painting, which contained few waxed silhouette legs in stockings. It looked like a view captured from the ground angle of a kitty party , as it only had a dark blue ambiance shading few ladies’ legs in high heels. The second one was a trippy bright orange psychedelic tunnel and a twisted tunnel, which had a source of casting a dim light when a viewer gets inside the tunnel. The third painting on the wall was broken display of emotions. The painting had a naked boy and a girl, a passed out boy holding a half burnt cigarette sleeping with his face turned to the other side of the bed. While, the girl is simply lost staring outside her room’s window. Only Kaaya and his God would know, what he was going on in his mind while observing those paintings for 10 odd minutes. Gently, Kaaya moved ahead to his room with a smile on his face which reflected an artistic ego.
He changed his clothes and got ready for his lonesome birthday party with his personal solitude. He already had some plans in his mind , he was expecting his friend Rocco to be sleeping by the time he returns from his office. He had bought a bottle of Old Monk rum before he went to office the previous day. He plugged in the audio system and turned the volume to low level and played ‘Whisky Lullaby by Brad Paisley’ and the song reminded him of his mood and thoughts the way they were a day before on the way to his work. After hanging his clothes in the wardrobe, he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get a bottle of soda and a piece of butterscotch pastry, which he had hidden in the Refrigerator, the day before for his birthday. He returned back to his room with a glass to have a drink, a soda bottle and the small piece of pastry.
He placed the pastry on the table and picked up a magic candle from his bookshelf and placed it on the pastry.. He lite the candle and opened the bottle of rum and poured the rum in his glass. He raised a toast to himself and said ‘Cheers to my lonesome Birthday…’ He lighted a smoke and started crushing stuff for a joint. He lite the joint to get lost in his thoughts with a glass in his right hand and the burning bliss in his left. He was constantly staring at the candle and he started to think and wonder that even the candle cries and it shows its tear in the form of melting wax while it burns itself to evacuate darkness. Within no time, he went back in his memory lane and found himself in his school days when his Mom used to make the best cake for Kaaya’s classmates and the way he would proudly distribute the cake in his School. Kaaya finished the first peg and rose up to get his Diary and fetched a black ink pen. Kaaya had an unconscious hangover of penning down his thoughts only in black Ink. Moreover, he used to scribble on his writing pad over and over again as if what he wrote was not confidently visible. Further, he wrote his short stroy , ‘To buy her Soul a happy World…’ and got lost in his turbulent thoughts. He lite the second joint and made his second peg and gulped down the peg at one shot and went closer to the lit candle on the cake. Hee got up ,picked up his Guitar and started strumming few chords and eccentrically sung Happy Birthday to myself.
Read more : To Buy her Soul A Happy World
He cut the pastry into half , and walked outside the room and lovingly called; ‘Come Zippo, take your share…’ and fed the 10 months old lab with the half piece of butterscotch cake-piece. Kaaya unlatched the main door and went outside his room and entered the balcony with the other half piece of pastry in his hand. He headed to a corner of the balcony and stood there looking at the glowing morning sky and continued to smoke his joint. With the last drag of the joint, there was a drop of tear in Kaaya’s eye. He threw down the joint by stamping it and left the other half of pastry uneaten in a corner of the balcony. Kaaya slowly stepped inside his room and sat on his bed lighting a cigarette and continued to write his diary…
“The Original Sin.”
A lonesome lit candle,
Is again waiting in filth today;
To get blown off silently,
Without any clapping sound or songs.
But never mind, this unfortunate light,
Has always been so lonely;
Have also become habituated to stay alone,
And so am I…!!!
Don’t know why,
Even the jester looks so gloomy today;
And all the clowns in this town,
Are crying in different corners;
On their own personal grievances;.
Ooh!!! And I am blessed today and forever,
With an ancestral curse in disguise,
For an Original Sin;
Committed by strangers,
Strangers among themselves;
To be born on this heinous day.
But never mind,
This paradoxical reality of my life;
Helps me to maneuver two and half smiles;
Boldly manipulate countless circumstances,
And drink a sip of tear.
To raise a toast in shame on this inauspicious day,
When a misfit like me was born.
Alcatraz Dey
Devleena Nath
