Midnight Cowboy

Purple… I see a purple sky… and a magnificent hue of red, orange, yellow flames… ah, how they melt in that purpleness… like a comet with a fire-tail… all I see is the tail, never the comet… and a movement, which my eyes can’t really trace… giving it a queer continuity… a moment hanging in time… slightly elongated… a visual rubalto… life is moving at the speed of twenty five frames per-second… and everything is animated. And in this animated world… my imagination is running wild… and my memory is playing games with me…

These melting balls of fire… which cordially embrace my sight… instead of burning it… this beautiful kaleidoscope of the world around me… that’s changing itself with every passing moment… the slight winter chill, that’s patting my chest and kissing my lips so hard… that my voice is choked, the thin blanket of fog… the shivering droplets on the glass window… multiplying every image into millions… am I imagining all this?

And what do I remember? Hmm… let me see…I certainly remember the veil of smoke…and behind that veil, those red and black images… coming alive in the flashes of light… and then disappearing again in a world of red and black… I remember the ashes and the heat that burns the lips… I remember the clinking glasses, the sound of pouring liquor… the leather covered seats… their nauseating smell… I remember… that I don’t remember anything… but there is so much more to memory than the mind… the pain in my neck… probably a love bite… my pulsating heart beat… the sweat on my forehead… the smell of my cologne… the brisk touch of hair that my hands can feel at the moment… oh… wait a second… who’s hair is this?

Not an extension of my body… but a complete stranger… a piece of flesh… and movement of muscles… a sticky slimy shower of saliva… a hypnotic gaze… am I enjoying it? Maybe… do I really want this? I don’t know… there are moments in life when ethics and morals don’t stand a chance… and life is a long such moment… what an irony. However the question here is the usual one… do I want this? As long as my intoxication brought my other senses to life… something that my silly mind doesn’t understand the importance of… hence I doze it off every once in a while, to sneak away from its dictatorial concentration camp… and give my senses a little freedom… it was fine, but now, when my foe is awake, it will give me all the logics and manipulate with my own desires, what a pity… it will now teach me the norms of beauty that it has, in turn, learnt from the world, and evaluate the person with me on those grounds… what do I deserve, and what do I want… are mostly not the same questions. How much have I transcended my own reservations, biases and prejudices? My transcendental state has often proved my own ideas about myself so wrong… wasn’t it ecstatic before my mind jumped in, but now I know… the game is spoilt for good… there is no point in staying here anymore… consciousness is such a spoiler I swear… it is so much easier to stay in a dream… the movements now repulse me… a pair of eyes looking at me with desires I don’t want to recognize… hands… whose touch burns my body… I see the white strands of hair… the lines on the skin… I ask myself… where am I?

Out from the window of this moving car… I see a familiar signboard… I identify the road… though it’s difficult to do so when you see a road in such a deserted state… as all you can remember is the crowd and the horns… none of those signifiers exist for me tonight… yet this little blinking signboard has emerged from my subconscious to rescue me… I’ve never appreciated advertising as much as I do right now, however miraculously, I do recognize this place…I recognize the large MCD sign boards, the perpetual construction of metro route.. every bounce and jump that this fast riding car is taking, because of a newly made… and then newly dug road…yes, I ‘know’ this place… but how do I get rid of this situation?

Now I remember slightly… like a montage… though it doesn’t make much sense… but I do remember the face of this stranger… the bouncer at the gate… the mirror on the wall which couldn’t hold my image still… the blocked basin… my purple haze is all gone… and as I see through the boulevard of street lights and murky sky… a blistering headache engulfs me… my mind is awake… the stranger is still busy with the ecstasy of senses… I wake up to watch someone dreaming. The chauffer is obdurately busy with his job, not caring to even turn back once… but I can see a small line at the corner of his lips from here… a smile… an amused mocking smile is all I get… I look at my stranger again… and the hands which are mapping my body for colonization…

I ask coldly- ‘so will you pay me now or later?’
I hear another moan of headache… someone has just woke up… the next sentence however, doesn’t attest it, a brief ‘what?’ like the name of God in the middle of moans and groans…
‘Didn’t I settle it before? Oh, I must’ve been pretty drunk… when would you pay me? Now?’ I lay special stress on the last word….
There is a slight pause… I see the hands getting back… I feel the breath going away from my thighs, ‘how much?’ the stranger asks…
now its my time to take a pause… a luxury car… middle of the night… what amount should I quote, anything within the limits of this person will turn me into a sex slave… then I realize… the question isn’t what’s the worth of my dear stranger, but what is my own worth? In a moment, I evaluate myself… a thin little boy… with ordinary looks… it must have been my drunkenness that interested someone in me… or that person must have been insanely drunk… however, how much would I pay for myself? Well honestly, not even a paisa… but now when I come to think of it seriously, in a situation like this, someone may end up paying me a decent sum… so, how do I turn it into an ‘indecent proposal’? I re-evaluate and conclude… ‘Twenty thousand’

As I walk down the same, ‘familiar streets where I live’… I hum a little tune… and wonder what if this momentary consciousness didn’t dawn upon me? And why did I listen to my own mind so much, after knowing all the problems of it? Is there a way I can learn to understand my own self, my own desires in a better way? the auto drivers are asleep... and the dawn is approaching... The night is not over…