Looking back from the future

This is my first, and maybe last, try at fiction! :)

(Scenario: The questioner meets Phaedrus in some kind of an asylum)

Questioner: Hi! How are ya?
Phaedrus: I'm alive, thanks.

Q: So how long have you been here?
Phaedrus: I don't know.

Q: Your blog tells us that you checked-in here sometime during 2006.
Phaedrus: Maybe its so.

Q: What happened?
Phaedrus: I must've gone insane. Atleast I felt my going insane then, now that I recall.

Q: Could you be more elaborate, please?
Phaedrus: Some time during that year, that you mention to be 2006, it was already some years that I'd begun disbelieving in the existence of the world. That made it quite difficult to live by the norms laid by the so-called society in this dream world; the work, friends, family, relations, etc. And...

Q: And... ?
Phaedrus: And later, I decided to quit all this.

Q: What do you mean quit?
Phaedrus: I left my job and tried spending some time with my family to ease their pain. I took up a school teaching job for a while.

Q: Teaching what?
Phaedrus: Some sort of stuff. I don't recall. Perhaps, it was more than some stuff, like all sorts of stuff. I did blabbering more than teaching. Maybe I lost my job there due to it.

Q: Oh! So?
Phaedrus: Then, I took some more spiritual trips that I'd been taking, settling down in Himalayas for a few months. There, I felt that the crowd wouldn't reduce anywhere and people were flocking around into these *spiritual* places like anything. Thats when I decided to stay alone in some goddamn remote village.

Q: Then what happened?
Phaedrus: I did that. I spent time in a village.

Q: What did you do there?
Phaedrus: I mostly read stuff and scribbled on to blogs and pieces of paper.

Q: For how long?
Phaedrus: I don't know.

Q: How did you land here?
Phaedrus: I don't know.

Q: You don't have the slightest idea?
Phaedrus: Not really. All I remember is that I used to read & write stuff as I said. I grew vegetables and fruits for food and mostly survived on that. My health, people say, took a toll, due to irregular schedules! Later, I remember that even this eating, reading, writing, etc felt much nonsense and a lot of effort. So I just used to be.

Q: Be?
Phaedrus: Yeah, be... as in surviving.

Q: Ah! So what do you want to do next?
Phaedrus: What I've been doing for a while... BE.

Q: Ah! I think you're at the right place then. Thanks for your sharing nonsense.
Phaedrus: Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for dropping by in my dream. Ta.

1 comment:

Vasant G. Hebbar said...

So that is what occasionally bothers you! After all we are all human. But know so, when you dare to do what few humans would dare.