Window (Part 2/3)
The story so far: (Part 1)
Two people in an oblong, stretched room are searching for a window. After looking high & low, one of them chances upon a tile in the skirting that looks suspicious. They press it and…
A window squeezed out of the tile & positioned itself on the wall.
We’d seen our share of windows during training – baroque, gothic, neo, ionic, greek, modern, post-modern and all that. But this one took the cake, the icing, the cherry & all that. I’d once seen a window that was so small, it looked no more than a ventilation hole. The room ended up looking like solitary confinement. I learnt later the owner had been wrongly imprisoned & then tortured in jail. I guess things you have a deep hatred for do leave a really deep impression.
Or things you love.
“Figures, eh? A software engineer, a Mac afficionado – the window had to be ‘minimized’ to the ‘taskbar,’ eh?”
“Yeah. Pity, it took us this long to figure it out.”
“Well, when our brains are trained so much, we tend to miss the most obvious. What matters is what lies beyond that window. Are you ready to find out?”
And with that she jumped on to the bottom ledge of the (now open) window. She made it look so easy, so natural you’d have thought she was born with wings. Then, the condescending bitch that she was, she held out her hand for me to grab.
This was, clearly, a challenge. But I wasn’t too worried. After all, I had had a lot of practice jumping on to windows during training. This one seemed like a cinch. I cocked my knees together & jumped. Only, I’d miscalculated the room gravity. I ended up head-butting the top of the window.
“Ouch!” I screamed.
“Ah, you men! You would carry your ego to the grave if you could..” I decided not to take the bait.
“Are we sure,” I said, rubbing my head, “this IS the right window?”
As soon as I had said those words, the door disappeared. We looked at each other – the decision was made.
“The room is crumbling. We don’t have much time. We’ll need to act fast!”
“Oh, in that case – after you!”
What’s worse than a woman getting on your nerves is a woman who knows how & when she gets on your nerves. She knew how to get on my nerves alright. She also knew when she got on my nerves. Right now though, we needed to act fast – we needed to get off the ledge. So we jumped & disappeared into oblivion.
Oblivion is a horrible place to be, especially for a beginner.
You don’t exist, but you do. You are nothing & yet, you are everything. You lose yourself & then find yourself, only to lose yourself again. You’re a memory & suddenly you’re alive. You feel you are an insignificant atom of the universe only to realize that you are the universe yourself. And before you can enjoy the euphoria, you realize that you don’t exist in oblivion. But you do exist in oblivion.
Yes, oblivion is a horrible place to be, especially for a beginner.
The other end of oblivion is another window – only this time, when you exit out of oblivion, you enter into a room. Then you find the door & exit. Easy as pie. You never spend more than a few seconds in oblivion.
We spent a few uncomfortable moments in oblivion and finally found the window.
To say we ‘entered’ the room would be a gross understatement. A better description would be that we were ‘thrown’, ‘flung’, ‘rocketed’, ‘catapulted’ into the room. I was a little surprised by this development, but chose not to comment.
“That was a rough ride! I guess that’ll teach us not to delay action once we’ve reached a decision.”
Sigh. She was still baiting. But I wasn’t biting – I was genuinely curious now.
“You mean that wasn’t how it’s supposed to happen?”
“Not quite. We’re supposed to find the ledge, land on it & re-assemble. This time, the re-assembly happened before the landing & we were ‘ejected’, so to speak.”
“What?! How?! Why?”
“You’ve exhausted your quota of questions for the day, 101. We need to focus on the task at hand. I trust you have all the necessary equipment?”
“Yes. Right here.”
“Good. Let’s move.”
We had arrived at the door. We opened it & stepped out into a brand new world.
(To Be Concluded)
The story-in-parts continues. I think I have this one pretty much sorted out now – but I still ain’t sure how this one’s gonna end. Meanwhile, do tell me what you think of it? :)
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Footnotes:
- Original pic by puroticorico.
- Remixed under CC 2.0 Attribution using Befunky.