Little did he know...

The mind plays a fantastic game sometimes, allow you to become what you always wanted to be. Albeit in that moment of becoming, all you are is you to the power of your desire. The conflict of the slow unfleeting daily state of being with this microsecond synaptic surge is an irony we can’t afford to miss.

0135 Hrs on a Sunday night, or as some people call it, a very early Monday morning, I woke up. A gush of hormonal activity (obviously unarousing) left a hint of a smile on my seemingly sleepy face. My dopamine receptors were on overdrive. Can a dream have such an intensity to actually make you sit up and contemplate?

My dream was an emulation of one of my dearest movies, Stranger than Fiction, although in here, my life wasn’t being narrated, but was being observed, and to my surprise, I was directing it. An elaborate movie set, maybe, or even a live location, felt like a Woody Allen movie. The crew expectantly looking at me and the actors occasionally glanced up at me for the director’s cue. There was this young actor, with his back towards me deeply immersed in a book. All he could sense was the scent of the book and the slow wind silently nudging the pages as if compelling him to turn them. Line after line he could feel himself getting engrossed in the plot in a manner only a child is capable of. I silently watch him sitting low in his chair bending over the book and his posture carrying an indication of satisfaction. I could see the pages clearly but couldn’t make out the words, but I could see he was approaching the end of the chapter. I timed my words for him to end the chapter and turn to the next one. The moment he reached the last line his fingers instinctively moved to flip the page. I found something uncharacteristically bizarre about this whole reading business. At the exact moment, as I was about to get the scene ready for a shot, he flipped the page and the roles reversed.

I found myself sitting on the chair leaning in the exact same position as he was and about to flip the page to the next chapter. It seemed odd for a second, but I recollected my thought and continued to read from the point where I had left. As I was about to get hooked up with the next chapter, I heard a soft yet firm voice saying, ok, scene ready, camera roll in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.................Action.

It was as if a switch had been turned ON. I was teleported from the sets of the alleged movie to a pleasant and colourful activity room of some house. The walls weren’t clear but there was a hint of a poster and a guitar hung on small patch of wall. I could now see that same person again, his back towards me, holding a guitar and adjusting the knob on his amplifier. He sat up straight in his chair, facing a small table with a guitar tab book facing him. His fingers must’ve moved with a deliberate force and a gentle stroke to create the exact strum. The fingers of his left hand, busy in adjusting and readjusting their position to sync with his right hand and create just the amount of sound which would depict “True Love Waits” by Radiohead. The strum was followed by his words, he sang as if she was standing right there in front of him. He looked at an assuming point out of the window, hoping she was listening somewhere.

I thought of the sort of desire he must feel, while saying those words, does a song really encapsulate that feeling? Does he think it really does? He strums away with sheer determination as if sending sound waves light years away. Little did he know the meaning of it all and that it wasn’t him playing the song, but just his body, since he was standing right behind it all along.