Tremor

(Sujith Mangala De Silva)

Listen… If you truly can, lend me your ear for a moment. Perhaps I may be able to tell you something. Come closer, lean toward me. I shall whisper it into your ear. Let this story remain between you and me alone. Let us endure the experience in silence. I trust you. Truly, I know that you too feel the vast desolation of this world the terrible loneliness, the burning solitude that strikes the brain like lightning.

You know that nothing can be declared with certainty. That the world holds only indeterminacies. I know you too have become addicted willingly or unwillingly to tasting this infinite indifference, this ominous barrenness. The reason is the tsunami of thoughts that flows beyond both your control and mine. Then think of this: I am you. I am what you call your unconscious.

It was a Thursday. Around eight at night. The area was swallowed by darkness, thick with shrub jungle. While she spoke of her love, desire, and respect for me, I sat absorbed in meditation. The distant roar of the sea, the shrill cry of insects I remember neither hearing nor not hearing them. They failed to pierce the silence within me. I was that deeply immersed.

We walked slowly, tenderly entwined, arms wrapped tightly around each other. The friend who came with us walked ahead, giving us space, stabbing at his own lonely, poisonous world. He too seemed intoxicated by brooding upon his thoughts.

He must have often felt that loving a Tamil girl was some grave sin. As he had told me, his parents would never accept living under one roof with a “low-born” woman. His parents vegetable vendors at crossroads and pavements clung stubbornly to their narrow heaven. He was weary of answering the questions of every passerby about why he had chosen such a love. That night he came to me exhausted, hoping to spend it at my house in quiet company and then leave at dawn to stay a few days with his brother far away, leaving matters to time.

She spoke endlessly. I listened, half-drowned in the ocean of her words. We often wondered why our bodies, thoughts, and hearts did not dissolve entirely into one another.

It was very late. The dense darkness concealed us. I momentarily thought, “Nila, what if a train were to come behind us now..?” But I did not utter it, unwilling to interrupt her.

If such a thing happened would there be a greater punishment for lovers like us..?

I imagined the voices:

“He fooled us and did this nonsense. So proud and clever, wasn’t he..? How shameful..!”

“These girls walking at night with boys. Shameless.”

“Serves them right. There aren’t places to love..? We love too..! Why didn’t we get run over..?”

Ah…such a fate I would not wish even upon an enemy.

Yet gradually a vast desolation, an immense uncertainty overcame us. Under that enormous, infinite sky, we three alone walked upon the railway tracks. Distant electric bulbs flickered like clusters of fireflies. Our inner turmoil swelled beyond limit.

We stopped. Turned back.

Those were not our eyes. Believe me they were not ours. It was not even our vision. It felt as though the entire world were overturning and rushing toward us from behind. I declared to the universe that this was a colossal mistake that such a thing could not be happening.

She did not leave me. We turned forward again.

And then I saw myself walking ahead.

I saw myself beside my friend, moving freely. Terrified, I asked that self what was happening. He seemed far gone, intoxicated in meditation. I was here yet I was also far ahead. He did not turn back.

Suddenly she pulled me down. The train struck like a storm, hurling me aside, dragging our friend beneath it into the distance. I was flung into the shrubs beside her. It all happened within two blinks. Time was long and instantaneous. It was neither long nor short it was Time itself.

Darkness and light ceased to be opposites. They fused into one “dark-light.” We crawled toward each other in the dark, clutched hands. She said she was dying. We screamed, wept, trembled. And in that same moment, we saw our bodies lying lifeless.

We existed in two temporalities at once: a fraction of worldly time, and an immeasurable expanse of cosmic duration. We were spread across space, perceiving all at once. Infinite. Free. Like wind. Like cloud. Like flowing water. And yet simultaneously we screamed in fear. Both states were one.

Then we remembered our friend. Was he dead? Alive..? Responsibility pulled us back into the ordinary world.

Two men approached but hesitated in fear. We struggled upright and found our friend face down between the rails. By some vast miracle, he was alive. The men helped lift us onto the halted train and we were taken to hospital.

The hospital was chaos. Endless questioning. Accusations.

“We don’t have to keep you here. You’re lying. What were you doing on the railway at night..?”

She lowered her head in shame. Tears fell.

The nurse said mockingly, “It hurts, doesn’t it..? Didn’t hurt when you were doing whatever you were doing. It’ll hurt more when the truth comes out.”

Ah… why did we not die? What crime had we committed to deserve such contempt..?

My friend drifted in and out of consciousness. His head was badly injured. He asked what had happened. I lied gently to comfort him. She was in another ward. I knew nothing of her condition.

Fear consumed me. What would tomorrow bring..? How would I face family, society..? My fate oscillated between hope and deeper darkness. Was man truly so helpless as to fall into such a cruel abyss of uncertainty..?

Listen, my friend never try to understand this event. Do not analyze it. Experience it. Let your heart tremble. Experience it humanly, lovingly. Do not think yet act. Act wisely and with love. For if you try only to understand, you too may end up like me able only to write, unable to act.