[your heroes failed]

it was cold. not the way a chill wind is cold, but the way steel is cold. up your spine, fear crystallizing your nerves to the point where you can feel the world breathe.

but that was years ago. today the sun shines, the colours make poets out of pagans, and saints out of us all. underneath pure light, we can all be good. if only for a few moments, even you can be a child, again. warmth, somehow, suffuses everything. spread, like so much butter, over us all, your warmth will free you.
or atleast that's what they tell you in the movies.

fear, somehow, had never been a problem. you lose it, eventually, when it's been around for so long. like pure white noise, it blends into the background until it doesn't even elevate your heartbeat anymore. it lives behind your scenes, it breathes out through your pores.
it was cold, that night, but i wasn't afraid. or i was too afraid, because opposites inevitably blend together when you live on extremes of some arbitrarily determined scale, trying to make your life fit some rubric the writers, poets, musicians and artists of your time have written, composed, painted for you. when the music catches up with your life, when the words cease echoing with truth, what do you do then? who listens?

cold, warmth. warmth, cold. it breaks down. when you're warm, you're safe. that's what they told me. they taught me to fear the cold. and it was cold. what was i supposed to do, i'm just a product of forces outside of my control, right? i exist as a representation of everyone i've seen or known, everyone i've heard and talked to. your life ceases to be yours the moment you're taken from the womb. you had nine months. it's all over.

to stop is to break. the cycles are far too easy to fall into, and if our spontaneity is merely a part of their order (thank you, stoppard), then you may as well quit now. i can repeat words to you till the day we both end up on a road to nowhere, till the moment you turn to me and tell me you didn't want to fall. again. it's all a shambles.
one of these days i'll tell you a story.

[part ii]

through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes,
i can barely define the shape of this moment in time.
and far from flying high in clear blue skies,
i'm spiralling down to the hole in the ground where i hide.

if you negotiate the minefield in the drive,
and beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes.
and if you make it past the shotguns in the hall,
dial the combination. open the priesthole.
and if i'm in, i'll tell you what's behind the wall.

there's a kid who had a big hallucination,
making love to girls in magazines.
he wonders if you're sleeping with your new found faith.
could anybody love him,
or is it just a crazy dream?

and if i show you my dark side,
will you still hold me tonight?
and if i open my heart to you,
and show you my weak side,
what would you do?

would you sell your story to rolling stone?
would you take the children away,
and leave me alone,
and smile in reassurance,
as you whisper down the phone.
would you send me packing?
or would you take me home?

thought i oughta bare my naked feelings.
thought i oughta tear the curtain down.
i held the blade in trembling hands,
prepared to make it, but just then the phone rang.
i never had the nerve to make the final cut.

The Final Cut
Pink Floyd

'lets go somewhere,' i said, 'we never go anywhere.'
he just sat there, took a deep pull from his cigarette and then let his arm drop to his side.
'is that all you have to say?', i asked.
'what would you like me to say, kid? go. you've only home to come back to, why bother leaving the house at all?'
'rubbish. you're apathetic to everything. that's another one of your problems.'
'my problems? don't put psychoses in my mind - i've got no troubles, kid. i'm doing just fine.'
'you're lying,' i said. And then, after a pause 'you have to be.'
'why?'
'because i don't want to believe you.'
'that, my child, is your problem.'
'i suppose it is.' then he picked up the guitar from his side and played a few notes. dissatisfied, he put it down again.
'the trouble is,' he said, 'that in the end it all collapses to a single point.'
'what does?'
'life. the universe. everything.'
'explain.'
He just smiled at me, and said 'I don't have to explain it to you. You go out there, roam around for a while,'
'pick up some biscuits for me on your way back,' he added, that smile never leaving his face.

*

'you were wrong,' i said.
'was i?'
'take your damn biscuits and wipe that smug look off your face,' i replied, throwing the bag at his feet.
'tell me.'
'forget it, i don't want to talk about it.'
'oh you don't want to talk? all you ever want to do is talk - this is excellent progress.'
'shut up.'
'foul. no profanity - it's against the rules.'
'what rules? it's all a shambles anyway.'
'oh so you think so too, then?'
'yes. i mean no. this..all of this is a shambles. why do you even live here anymore?'
'you never asked me to leave.'
'leave.'
'really?'
'yes.'

He rose and walked to the door. black silhoette, white sunlight streaming in, i swear it looked like a scene from a movie. i'd have let him go, if only he wasn't so perfectly dramatic. you can't live without that. life's grey enough as it is without your shooting yourself in the foot.

*

'you're back.'
'yes, i am'
'well, what do you want now, kid?'
'must i want something? could i not have come for company, words, someone to share a silence with?'
'in my experience, you've only ever come here to get something.'
half of me wanted to prove him wrong, and just talk about the rain for an hour. but he could always see through me. it really was a shambles.
'i can't do this.'
'do what, exactly?'
'be there. i can't do it. i need to go, a..don't you understand, i need to run.'
'oh i understand perfectly. you want to stay, but you've got to run. simple.'
'its not that simple.'
'isn't it?'
'no, damnit.'
the smoke rose in circles around him. it was as if the world was waiting for him to breathe.
'why don't you ever do anything?!' i yelled, as i grabbed his collar with both hands and picked him from his chair. 'all you ever do is just..sit there. you have no answers, no questions, you are..not. if you disappeared today, nobody would ever know, and fewer would care. what kind of pleasure do you derive out of this? tell me, please..i want to know. i need to know - why are you here?'
'put me down.'
'no.'
'put..me..down.'
i put him down. i could never stand up under his gaze.
'that's it, a. i'm leaving. i've had it..you've always been saying its time to take the plunge, and this is it. i'm not going to dance for them anymore.'
'looking for your exit?'
'it's funny. for as long as i can remember, you've been pushing me off.'
'it's the easiest way to go, kid.'
'yes, but what do you get out of it?'
'nothing. it's all a shambles, remember?' he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
'you're hopeless. this is hopeless.' i walked over to the corner of the room, looked down.
'don't bother getting up,' i added.