Every Night
©Vijaya Sundaram
Every night, it’s the same. You stay, frozen at your computer, looking at your half-written novel, your fingers poised pertly on the keys, your formerly strained back feeling nothing, your mind blank. Something prompts you, and you get up, and go downstairs. Always, always, you want to go downstairs, and then come back up. It’s the thing you do. Your restlessness vies with your stillness – you, the wormhole with calm and storm on either side, form the passageway.
…
Now, you’re on your way back up.
It’s strange to go up the stairs every time. You walk, your feet making no sound, your eyes seeing no light, your hand barely touching the banister. It is past three a.m. You know that you’d just been down, as was your wont, to get your water, and look at the blue pinpoint lights of the oven, the microwave, the on-demand water heater on the far wall, the blue light spilling on snow-muffled trees, the pre-dawn violet of the sky. You feel the air moving past your limbs, but it’s strange how stunned your eyes are by the dark, and how you see nothing but faint outlines of light-catching things, so many all around, moving, shifting, blooming into light then dark, all else shrouded in a dark fog.
You shake your head, clear the fog, look down at your hands, and see … something.
You reach the top step, turn left, feel the soft sigh of sleepers in two rooms brushing up against your arms which make your hair stand on end. You hear the occasional snore, the twitch of the dog’s foot against a wooden bench near her bed, the soughing of air purifiers from two other rooms blending with the endless sighing of traffic outside, wave upon wave upon wave, reaching the shores of your ears.
You go back to your chair, to stare at your screen.
You remember everything and nothing. You remember the jasmines blooming outside your window a lifetime ago, crowding your senses until they swooned like maidens overcome with lust. You remember the song of crows at twilight, and the lowing of buffaloes behind your house. You remember the honking of rickshaws, and the incessant horns of cars, the rush of motorcycles, the songs emanating from the windows of homes where All India Radio plays melodies that you could sing now, if you could sing. You remember scenes and sounds from different places: the coconut trees, the banana tree, the papaya tree, the mango trees, the koel singing its lonely song, the fiery flame of the forest blooming, the wistful purple jacarandas hanging mistily on branches, the intelligent street dogs all stopping and standing stock still, throwing back their heads and howling in the middle of the road in the midday sun when the long, low factory sirens go off, responding to the Great Dog in the Sky. You remember sitting in classrooms, standing in classrooms, listening and learning, and teaching, and singing. You remember your first period like it was yesterday. You remember your last period like it was yesterday. You remember your eyes, and skin and hair, so bright and vibrant, like an Indian noon-time. You remember riding your bike furiously down the main road at midnight, with a fleet of barking dogs at your heels, ready to bring you down. Or, biking as fast as you can to get away from the man on the motorbike, slowing down behind you to leer at you, and make horrible noises. You remember the middle-aged couple on a scooter whom you flag down in relief, and point of the pursuer on the motorbike. You remember them with gratitude forever, because they accompanied you home all the way, and walked you up to your flat to your grateful waiting mother. You remember your family, your friends, the people you waved to at college, the gypsy woman by her tent on the side of the road who offered you a roti, because you’d often give her some of the vegetables you’d bought at the market. You remember all the hits and all the misses, the losses and griefs, the waiting for a father who had vanished, the move from bigger house to smaller house, to very small house, your mother’s jewels vanishing from her ears, her nose, her neck, her wrists, her toes, while she fed everyone. You remember all the books you loved vanishing one by one, the selling of your history, and you remember the endless dreaming in which you steeped yourself, as if to escape everything would help you slough off your old skin, and you can step out of yourself, anew – renewed – no – just new.
You remember all the places where you worked, all the people whom you loved, or who loved you, or both. You remember those who tried to harm you or malign you – that pain has ebbed, and it’s a memory of a memory, and you try to erase them. Erasure leaves marks behind – little marks that only you can feel.
And you ascend the stairs. You don’t look up or down, or ahead. Your eyes are shut, but you know it’s past three a.m. You return to your desk, and sit before your open computer, eyes closed, seeing everything, hearing everything, being everything and everyone, and it’s strange, because you are both in the world, and out of it.
Time to go downstairs. It’s always past three a.m. where you are.
You come back up the stairs. You might have drunk your water. You might have seen the blue lights of the kitchen, the blue light spilling lightly on snow-heavy trees, drooping in the violet night. You might have heard the yowling of a night creature in distress. A sleeping dog barks in a dream.
You look for your hands in front of the computer. You see nothing. You haven’t finished your story. You might not have begun it. Your eyes are shut, though you open them in panic. You hear someone crying in their sleep.
Darkness clothes you. You look, but cannot see your hands. You do not exist, but you know you’re still there.
It’s the same, every night.
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