Rush Hour
It wouldn’t have made a difference but he opened his eyes anyways. They were strapped in, in that impenetrable darkness. The damp dull soaked-paper stench stuffed him. He wanted to stretch out, dangle a leg, jump up or scream, but the jutting arm of the man next to him- body spilling out of the seat in both directions-tore down his rushing insanity into shreds of silence. It was full, the array of rows and columns of strapped humid human bodies, unbefitting of its rather luxurious generic name of Starship. He had to think of death here, of course. What if this entire thing burned and crashed now, he thought, or better still in the next few minutes, after giving him last moments of physical stuffed in agony? If it blew up , this "Starship" would get nowhere and drift endlessly as molecules in space. Or time?
He had never bothered about the physics of it and his grasp was so slight that the thought evaporated before it could take a grip around that cold sweaty mind of his. The woman in the back seat belched sour onions, swollen mushrooms and blocked drain pipes. The man next to him snored.
They had turned off his personal device and he couldn't read or talk. He had no one to talk to any way; to invite in or to place a call. That was of course the reason why he was there. The reason why he tried so many times, traveled so often.
It would make sense to sleep so he tried to. He had never succeeded ever and he knew this time was not going to be different. He let the memories stream in. This happened to every one when they subjected their brains to sleep efforts in this sort of travel. He had read that some where. No. A doctor had told him of side effects and potential damages when he went to see one, sure that he had a cancer of the stomach. The pain had been too often and too much and this one was sure it was because of the travel he did. ‘You subject yourself to this like a monkey in a research cage’ the wise doctor had told him. Monkeys in research cages are subjects with no free will, he had thought, but kept it to himself. She would have liked it though, like she did when they joked around on a swing at the science park. He had work to do, he remembered. He could choose to let go later, but chances were slim. Thoughts now randomized themselves. Steady flow of images, words, sorrows and painful lost happiness thudded in beat by beat despite the chaos of random recollection. They were all filling him with that same sense of loss that he was now so used to. No way out.
He could feel the tension in the straps. There was the slow, languorous drift of the darkness below his feet, like the drag of wheels on a surface, only that in this case it was an illusion created by some engineering marvel to code in movement ( faster movement, to be scientifically precise) through time. A single red light, too thin to notice, too focused to miss, blinked thrice next to that first row of seats, almost half a mile away from him. Few would have noticed, though. The universe seemed to have the gift to sleep in these boxes, but not him. This was the moment he dreaded every time. That useless, inert, going nowhere feeling of being trapped and strapped and violated by restrictions and rules while he let himself and his body be shipped across through a science he did not know about, a science that could fail so often, directed by flawed human hands and minds that were infallible if he calculated the numbers, but he couldn't because he did not know the statistics…They were off.He could hear her now. He was there. In that vague time frame with no markers, all removed, for the safety and comfort of the passengers by Starship Inc. USA. He hated their thoughtfulness. But it was no time for hate, all puns intended. He laughed at his own meager joke. There she was waiting for him. At a book store this time. When was this? She looked twenty four. What was she wearing? He can mark the time by how she looked and what she wore and what she smelled off. But that was then and now so much had gone. He thought he knew them well, those memories, but he was wrong every time. She looked startled. He had arrived too soon. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. The timing was of the essence and it had gone awry. She smiled. She was surprised, that’s all. This was the auto correction full guarantee package see? They couldn’t have got it wrong. Bliss.
Close your mind and think of me, she said
You mean my eyes?
No your mind, silly. It flows too strong.
It doesn’t.
It ebbs and flows all the time around me.
Like the sea, see!
You would be a sea monster then! She smiled
This was nonsense. They had never exchanged such metaphysical blather ever. It was a functional relationship, theirs. That was its flaw, if there ever was one. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was recalling scenes from a movie for sure. Else, it was his fanciful imagination at work. Why would his mind conjure this achingly tender, sublime, love scene that belonged to an art house Swedish film?
Like the Loch Ness, he said unable to control the flow, now that it was all set.
Nessie can’t talk, she replied
Says who?
Says I
How would you know?
I just do
Like you know everything else
Yes
Like your mind, your reasons, your way, which I will never understand and ask you the wrong questions at the wrong times that make you feel angry and me so lonely
Ah poor baby!
He wanted to shout this thing down to a stop. It was all wrong. This couldn’t be his mind. It was never this poetic, to his best of his knowledge and ability. It was an exciting little whirlpool of frustrated desires, deep sexual longing, inane mathematical equations and a dark vengeful competitive attitude towards even the people who loved him. Some one was screwing up badly, somewhere. He needed his money back. Also, the effort and the time; he could let them keep the time. While this went on in his head, there he was still talking to her.
What color am I?
Yellow. Golden Yellow
And You?
Blue
You said I was Blue once
Now you aren’t. I am.
What does Yellow mean?
Same as Blue, I think. But sadder
I am not sad
No you aren’t, she said.
Do you love me?
This was it. He had had enough of this drivel. However, little could be done. This was turbulence in the time stream, with some one else infecting his for sure; Onion breath or snoring fat man, most likely. He couldn’t believe either of them could be this poetic. He couldn’t get off it of course. He was doomed. What if this went on like this forever? What if he was stuck in this alternate cinema shit, that his time line was giving him? Maybe they were all doomed, the entire lot of them, strapped together in that machine. That would be some solace, like going up in flames together. Wait! This had happened…
You are early!
Am I?
Yes you are! You are! She squealed.
Are you still the same, Love?
What do you mean?
I have traveled so much and am really tired. I spout nonsense. Don’t you mind!
No you haven’t! You have walked for five minutes!
Have I?
Yes you did. She laughs.
Like coins shaken inside a tin box.
What?
Your laugh!
Let’s get an ice cream
Why?
Because.
She says his name five times. In quick succession…like she wanted him, his soul, his life. This was more like it. He felt like screaming his love out, but that would be different from what happened. A little too different and trigger the dissonance. Dissonance? How could love cause dissonance? It breaks the temporal loop, because she would figure out an intrusion. Not consciously, but somewhere in the back of her mind. At best of times, it would turn up as a headache and loss of interest, which would only mean that he loses the action for the moment, but gets back home safely. Or he would slip in completely. It had to be regression or dissonance. Nothing else could happen. They had programmed tragedy and farce so well in with this. It was not their fault; it was just the universe fucking up. That was what the Caveat Emptor fine print told every passenger about. They knew it well. They tried nevertheless. It was part of life now. Before he could figure out what he could do, he heard her say
We thank you for minding your safety. It’s a privilege to serve you And we hope to see you again Leave now, Sir!
No.That wasn't her.
It was bright white and empty. The seat next to him was wet to the touch, with the sweat of the snorer. The air was lighter with the open exit door letting in the cold night’s winds in. Most of the passengers had walked away, filing slowly out through the winding aisle, weighed down by their own reasons and tragedies. A few chattered, seeking an impossible release through feeble efforts; like returning together. Their chatter was muted whisper though. Everyone was up and leaving. They had lives to return to, unlike him. He was back again, feeling alone and abandoned, stuck to a chair in the middle of nothing. Like every other time.
When he unstrapped himself, the last of them had disappeared through the exit door. That must have set the alarms off and She came, starch white, trim, friendly and distant like the law. She asked him with polite reserve if everything was alright. He said it was fine and he got up to leave. She was beautiful enough to be his redemption. He would meet her again, soon.
He had done this so often that he had their Eternity Platinum Card Triple Plus. If She knew of his special status, things would be easier. If not, he might not make the effort and slip into his guilt stream again. If there was one surety in that entire temporal mess, it was the fact that he would not make that effort. The fact that he would be back again; that the exit door would just loop itself back in to let him in again. To strap himself and travel, through unclear and unsteady science, back to where nothing waited and in indescribable ways, happened the way they always did.
It wouldn’t have made a difference but he opened his eyes anyways. They were strapped in, in that impenetrable darkness. The damp dull soaked-paper stench stuffed him. He wanted to stretch out, dangle a leg, jump up or scream, but the jutting arm of the man next to him- body spilling out of the seat in both directions-tore down his rushing insanity into shreds of silence. It was full, the array of rows and columns of strapped humid human bodies, unbefitting of its rather luxurious generic name of Starship. He had to think of death here, of course. What if this entire thing burned and crashed now, he thought, or better still in the next few minutes, after giving him last moments of physical stuffed in agony? If it blew up , this "Starship" would get nowhere and drift endlessly as molecules in space. Or time?
He had never bothered about the physics of it and his grasp was so slight that the thought evaporated before it could take a grip around that cold sweaty mind of his. The woman in the back seat belched sour onions, swollen mushrooms and blocked drain pipes. The man next to him snored.
They had turned off his personal device and he couldn't read or talk. He had no one to talk to any way; to invite in or to place a call. That was of course the reason why he was there. The reason why he tried so many times, traveled so often.
It would make sense to sleep so he tried to. He had never succeeded ever and he knew this time was not going to be different. He let the memories stream in. This happened to every one when they subjected their brains to sleep efforts in this sort of travel. He had read that some where. No. A doctor had told him of side effects and potential damages when he went to see one, sure that he had a cancer of the stomach. The pain had been too often and too much and this one was sure it was because of the travel he did. ‘You subject yourself to this like a monkey in a research cage’ the wise doctor had told him. Monkeys in research cages are subjects with no free will, he had thought, but kept it to himself. She would have liked it though, like she did when they joked around on a swing at the science park. He had work to do, he remembered. He could choose to let go later, but chances were slim. Thoughts now randomized themselves. Steady flow of images, words, sorrows and painful lost happiness thudded in beat by beat despite the chaos of random recollection. They were all filling him with that same sense of loss that he was now so used to. No way out.
He could feel the tension in the straps. There was the slow, languorous drift of the darkness below his feet, like the drag of wheels on a surface, only that in this case it was an illusion created by some engineering marvel to code in movement ( faster movement, to be scientifically precise) through time. A single red light, too thin to notice, too focused to miss, blinked thrice next to that first row of seats, almost half a mile away from him. Few would have noticed, though. The universe seemed to have the gift to sleep in these boxes, but not him. This was the moment he dreaded every time. That useless, inert, going nowhere feeling of being trapped and strapped and violated by restrictions and rules while he let himself and his body be shipped across through a science he did not know about, a science that could fail so often, directed by flawed human hands and minds that were infallible if he calculated the numbers, but he couldn't because he did not know the statistics…They were off.He could hear her now. He was there. In that vague time frame with no markers, all removed, for the safety and comfort of the passengers by Starship Inc. USA. He hated their thoughtfulness. But it was no time for hate, all puns intended. He laughed at his own meager joke. There she was waiting for him. At a book store this time. When was this? She looked twenty four. What was she wearing? He can mark the time by how she looked and what she wore and what she smelled off. But that was then and now so much had gone. He thought he knew them well, those memories, but he was wrong every time. She looked startled. He had arrived too soon. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. The timing was of the essence and it had gone awry. She smiled. She was surprised, that’s all. This was the auto correction full guarantee package see? They couldn’t have got it wrong. Bliss.
Close your mind and think of me, she said
You mean my eyes?
No your mind, silly. It flows too strong.
It doesn’t.
It ebbs and flows all the time around me.
Like the sea, see!
You would be a sea monster then! She smiled
This was nonsense. They had never exchanged such metaphysical blather ever. It was a functional relationship, theirs. That was its flaw, if there ever was one. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was recalling scenes from a movie for sure. Else, it was his fanciful imagination at work. Why would his mind conjure this achingly tender, sublime, love scene that belonged to an art house Swedish film?
Like the Loch Ness, he said unable to control the flow, now that it was all set.
Nessie can’t talk, she replied
Says who?
Says I
How would you know?
I just do
Like you know everything else
Yes
Like your mind, your reasons, your way, which I will never understand and ask you the wrong questions at the wrong times that make you feel angry and me so lonely
Ah poor baby!
He wanted to shout this thing down to a stop. It was all wrong. This couldn’t be his mind. It was never this poetic, to his best of his knowledge and ability. It was an exciting little whirlpool of frustrated desires, deep sexual longing, inane mathematical equations and a dark vengeful competitive attitude towards even the people who loved him. Some one was screwing up badly, somewhere. He needed his money back. Also, the effort and the time; he could let them keep the time. While this went on in his head, there he was still talking to her.
What color am I?
Yellow. Golden Yellow
And You?
Blue
You said I was Blue once
Now you aren’t. I am.
What does Yellow mean?
Same as Blue, I think. But sadder
I am not sad
No you aren’t, she said.
Do you love me?
This was it. He had had enough of this drivel. However, little could be done. This was turbulence in the time stream, with some one else infecting his for sure; Onion breath or snoring fat man, most likely. He couldn’t believe either of them could be this poetic. He couldn’t get off it of course. He was doomed. What if this went on like this forever? What if he was stuck in this alternate cinema shit, that his time line was giving him? Maybe they were all doomed, the entire lot of them, strapped together in that machine. That would be some solace, like going up in flames together. Wait! This had happened…
You are early!
Am I?
Yes you are! You are! She squealed.
Are you still the same, Love?
What do you mean?
I have traveled so much and am really tired. I spout nonsense. Don’t you mind!
No you haven’t! You have walked for five minutes!
Have I?
Yes you did. She laughs.
Like coins shaken inside a tin box.
What?
Your laugh!
Let’s get an ice cream
Why?
Because.
She says his name five times. In quick succession…like she wanted him, his soul, his life. This was more like it. He felt like screaming his love out, but that would be different from what happened. A little too different and trigger the dissonance. Dissonance? How could love cause dissonance? It breaks the temporal loop, because she would figure out an intrusion. Not consciously, but somewhere in the back of her mind. At best of times, it would turn up as a headache and loss of interest, which would only mean that he loses the action for the moment, but gets back home safely. Or he would slip in completely. It had to be regression or dissonance. Nothing else could happen. They had programmed tragedy and farce so well in with this. It was not their fault; it was just the universe fucking up. That was what the Caveat Emptor fine print told every passenger about. They knew it well. They tried nevertheless. It was part of life now. Before he could figure out what he could do, he heard her say
We thank you for minding your safety. It’s a privilege to serve you And we hope to see you again Leave now, Sir!
No.That wasn't her.
It was bright white and empty. The seat next to him was wet to the touch, with the sweat of the snorer. The air was lighter with the open exit door letting in the cold night’s winds in. Most of the passengers had walked away, filing slowly out through the winding aisle, weighed down by their own reasons and tragedies. A few chattered, seeking an impossible release through feeble efforts; like returning together. Their chatter was muted whisper though. Everyone was up and leaving. They had lives to return to, unlike him. He was back again, feeling alone and abandoned, stuck to a chair in the middle of nothing. Like every other time.
When he unstrapped himself, the last of them had disappeared through the exit door. That must have set the alarms off and She came, starch white, trim, friendly and distant like the law. She asked him with polite reserve if everything was alright. He said it was fine and he got up to leave. She was beautiful enough to be his redemption. He would meet her again, soon.
He had done this so often that he had their Eternity Platinum Card Triple Plus. If She knew of his special status, things would be easier. If not, he might not make the effort and slip into his guilt stream again. If there was one surety in that entire temporal mess, it was the fact that he would not make that effort. The fact that he would be back again; that the exit door would just loop itself back in to let him in again. To strap himself and travel, through unclear and unsteady science, back to where nothing waited and in indescribable ways, happened the way they always did.
