Fiction
'People like us cannot love. . .'
In the scheme of life I know I am dispensable. On this there is nothing to analyze or be analyzed. Death separates laughter and tears, the perspective I never lose sight of. This fact rules every act and thought process of mine. It grounds me as a human being. It also makes me a matter-of-fact person, i.e., I hardly find any reason to laugh, the cut-and-dry type. And then one evening the familiar self of mine hesitated.'
Capella was sitting face to face with a gentleman she hardly knew. The divide between them was of an unknown nature, they couldn't be more different as people. He reached out, touching her hand, and said, "In my lifetime I have met you only four times." In a few minutes he had settled in his comfort zone. She liked his frankness. And then she noticed the eyes, laughing, dancing, questioning, challenging. Totally engrossed in that stare she stopped listening, wiping out all that was in her surroundings. Without blinking she said, "Remove your glasses." Midway his sentence stopped, and then he took off the spectacles that kept slipping on his nose. Reaching out, she touched both eyes gently, as if they belonged to someone intimate. As if they needed to be handled with utmost care. As if they existed independent of the owner.
"Tell me, what is morality?" She resumed her query to him. Mores and norms that cage desires. Yes, she responded, even innocent ones. "My touching you…makes you uncomfortable?" "No, not at all." He was surprised, but was bound by the code of conduct. She smiled, knowing very well that confessions get imprisoned between the spontaneity of an unexpected act and a constrained reaction. Throughout her life the restless peregrinations in search of raw emotional truths had led her to look for observables in life with openness, to 'see how deep the place is from which life flows,' looking for fundamentals of honesty that persevere beyond the boundaries of relationships. She had always stood at the periphery of her own life, watching as a 'being that causes itself.' This constant bind to recreate herself eventually took her away from those who mattered. She was yet to find one who would reciprocate at her level to make her come alive, to live. Could he?
"Have you deviated from standards of behavior?" She put forward a generic question, wondering if he would ask her to clarify. Instead, he reflected on relationships. His. With each he was involved intimately. She listened with intent. Were these stories of love or the idea of love wrapped in carnal desire? Or was it the story of feeling desirable, the mystique of authenticating oneself through the other. She asked, "Do you ever feel married?" Without missing a beat he replied, no and yes; laughed out loud and then added his reasons, ah…yes…we are chained by conventions! But there are many ways of and to love. It is not a continuum. In each instance, he quoted, 'that which bound us freed us; and in this freedom we found ourselves bound as closely as possible.' Every relationship is unique and beautiful. My sincerity and commitment are and were true for all. Most of us desire, act, and yet deny confessing or understanding the depth of such love.
To her question, "Is it happiness?" he said, "It is relative." The aesthetics of these often-heard-words played a quiet concert in her mind. In silence she reflected. What is a meaningful end in relationships? Is it the incarnation of self(s) in Desdemona and Othello, Constance Chatterley and Oliver Mellors, Anais Nin and Henry Miller, so on and so forth, capturing the reflection of self that one paints in thus many portraits? And yet surrender to the monolith of convention is so complete that even the acknowledgment of this profound truth no longer remains a reason. That evening her alienated emotions reached for a conscious choice. Let me conserve life in the realm of just these moments, she thought; but on my terms. She said, "We are not friends, but will you be one?" Yes, he replied. Ah…the seeker of life. The quiet of her mind ventured --- but I seek nothing and yet so much more.
That evening she confronted her own accepted order of things. Indeed, the liaison between knowledge and experiential awareness as elements of life is incomplete one without the other. She left with a sense of disquiet…with a lingering thought on Nirvana, Through my body and soul … I learned to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is…
And then she said, to no one in particular, "But people like us cannot love!"
Ainon N is an academic and writer.
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