Slow Dancing in A Burning Room

*Inspired by the song "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" by John Mayer*

I am alone, on a Thursday evening. I feel free with the lack of sorrows, as would an ordinary man. I am an ordinary, mediocre man. The kind with the hope that with every passing day he will be richer for the experience, ready to hop over the thresholds that he believes to be hurdles today, but despises the time this process takes. Yet with the same deficiency I feel burdened. Sorrow gives me the freedom of pretense of hope that activity will follow. But on that Thursday evening, I decided to play fate with my destiny of monotony.

I enter the restaurant and witness the want of people for it's survival. Ideating extrapolations of my sincere concern for humanity, in the process conceiving images of my own destruction in the process frightens me for a moment. The most magnificent of bounties that nature provides to a man for the ocean of attention he has to offer, in the corner sipping the glass of Pinot Noir as I would like to believe, however, cannot help but distract. My hesitation kills me. I am alone, on a Thursday evening with the prospect of making it into something meaningfully uncommon. Recollecting my resolve, I stopped reasoning with myself. I walked towards her and sat on the chair next to hers.

Awkward silence. After a few perplexing minutes of staring at each other, I believe we decided independently and concurrently not to speak for the rest of the evening, but acknowledged our existence as separate from the remainder of the universe. I don't remember her blinking or lifting her glass of wine, which I know by now not to be Pinot Noir, but I wasn't looking for signs to consider or ignore. In fact, it would be comfortable, but inaccurate to classify my being as aware.

A few grungy notes of music prompt John Mayer to begin. It's not a silly little moment, it's not the storm before the calm. Incognisant of the blur beyond seven paces of where I stand, I stand up and ask her for the dance that was always meant to be. I can't seem to hold her like I want to, so I could feel her in my arms. She takes proverbial charge, as if she knew everything I didn't. She did. Flames light up in chorus somewhere in the midst of the blur I still don't notice, but I can feel the heat. Sweet sweat beads collide with each other in harmony with the music to remind me if I ever forgot. I follow her step, one by one. We liquefied into something abstract and took proverbial charge to direct John's tempo. He never complained. I take her hand, she takes my shoulder and we exchange whatever we never had before, but had developed. One little bead tells me we're slow dancing in a burning room.

I was the one she always dreamed of. She was the only light I ever saw. After what seemed to be instants separated by intoxicating fumes, but were minutes we hear the riff and trust it's time. It just is. We're going down, she could see it too. She knows that we're doomed. As the flames slowly engulf us completely, we come closer to avoid getting burned. Should we? I think we ought to have known by now. When we were close enough to feel the last few deep and dying breaths of the love that we had been working on, the music fades.

The Dawn..

The Angel taketh her hand and blest the canvas with 'er grace..
She doth but create mountains, and rivers and great cities alike..
She doth give life to trees, and to good men;
And taketh away from those who dare sin..
She giveth to me the gray-vest viewsing..
An Angel ever did bequeath to her child..

Another rout of a routine day and we negotiated for a dine-out outing. I hope you could have seen the drag of a face I felt burdened to carry, for it is not usual. I insist on your presence there for I know, these words are not nearly enough to describe the death of activity in my mind during that array of insignificant events. A few months away from home, and I embody home-sickness. Anyway, that was all to change, albeit momentarily.

In the midst of the crowd, we sit, sipping something I do not remember, gorging something I care not to remember. Any which way, in this particular direction, I notice this family of three, blissfully enjoying their meal on a table for two, with the child, I trust to be not more than a third-of-a-dozen years old, on the fathers lap, particularly disturbed and in envy (I had learnt from fables authored apparently by my mother, that she insists involve a protagonist that somehow resembles me; hence I could make out..) regarding her mother paying undue attention to food and her husband (not necessarily in that particular order), than to her. I smiled; somehow she reminded me of myself. The only way to pacify her was, as the following series of short-and-sweet events revealed to me, for the mother to take her into her own arms and stroke her gently on her back and feed her with her bare hands, bite-by-bite. And then she was to be set free onto her elder sister (elder only by about a couple of years) where she'd easily pass the remainder of the time taken by her parents to finish off their meal, brimming with the satisfaction of the day's work done.

As I follow the hop-walking sugar-coated white chocolate of a little girl that she was, I stumble upon another table for two, occupied by another little girl, who seemed to be (not from resemblance, but merely from the sequence of events that preceded) her elder sister. My engineer mind (trust me it wasn't me, not that I am ashamed of it; just that it's odd to me then as it is to you now) was immensely satisfied at the satisfaction of the law of proportionality, with each of the family now having (relative to my perception) precisely one seat.

On her table, I notice, what I remember to be six glasses with differing quantities of water. The first impression was that of that musical instrument we're all so fond of being played. However, the lack of any sound, or that of intent to play, or that of a metal spoon, pivotal to the instrument led me to believe otherwise. Next, I remember, very lucidly, I noticed three straws on the tables, a-third of each was still drenched in water; and yet another one in her bright white hand, held with the apparent finesse of an artist. And she dipped the straw in precisely the third glass from her left, then flicked it further left on the table. Further, she bathed (now to a lesser degree) the seemingly too-long-to-handle straw (I remember it seemed disturbing to me at that time, an artist of her caliber was using such archaic measures) to the second glass from the right, then reiterating the flicking procedure. After she was satisfied, and I could easily see the tension wearing off her beautiful face (well, it's unfortunate I have no other word for something so beautiful), she caressed the water she had laid down with her fore-finger and spread it in, what I could make out of it to be a rectangular structure, with an upward-pointing triangle on top. Aah, a small little village house of her own. She then used her other instrument of creation, the straw (I was already beginning to miss her holding it) to fill in the voids with whatever was the vivid colour she imagined to be.

Following the house, she created the trees, a gushing river with a boat and a smiling boatman waving at her in the joy of creation, in it. She lit up the sky with an orange-vermilion sun and painted the rest of the void with shades morphing from the hot surface of the sun to the tranquil turquoise of dawn. She didn't leave the little barking dog, or the village-women begging for life, and gave them clothes she was magnanimous enough to provide. Somewhere from the woods of the far side across the river, she left a cow to graze all she could, and a well stood nearby, around which half-a-dozen children were playing hide and seek. Further across the page, there were approaching the kings own men, with eyes gleaming, helping the sunshine to grow, with the aid the gracious saviour-of-all had sent. There were also fishermen, scouring the river for the catch of the day, and the their women preparing the grills for the village feast there was today. It was a carnival, I say! The way the temple had been adorned with all the glitter and food the village could conjure up with and more. The priests prepared for the customary traditions and fire lit up the temple foyer. It was the start of the new year..

And then she looked up at me. And I turned away. I hope she didn't believe me to be disturbing her in her own world, in her own figment of imagination. Her new world so pure, it could crush a creature as adulterated as me. Yet I cannot and will not let go of the smile she inspired me to wear to this moment. This is the beginning..