“The past is dead,” said the man holding up the lantern amidst archaic ruins. It was broad daylight but the darkness that had settled on the ancient structure was too strong for the light. It was not the darkness of negation, but rather of ignorance…of the failure to listen to the whispering lore of this crumbling relic. The yellow flame mingled with the sun's white, blending into each other’s warmth.
This flame had been burning since man set foot on this planet millions of years ago. At times it was like the guiding light and at times it nearly ended his life. But it was inextinguishable… inseparable, giving strength for his blood to flow. He had even found a name for it…curiosity. The endless “why” he used to utter when he was young. With age though, the intensity had decreased, but it still lurked in him… A faint headache in his temple… a nagging feeling in his gut.
Today he suspected curiosity’s hand in making him come here. When he woke up in the morning…he felt as though he was floating. Not in a physical sense but as an overwhelming emotion. He was put on his bed and the bed was firmly on the ground. Nothing tangible had changed, but a lightheadedness coursed through him, snapping the strings that held him to the ground. The force of gravity was losing him to oblivion.
He was worried and confided in his friends. A few laughed and joked that it was a hangover from last night. It would pass by the end of the day. But there were others who had similar experience. The details differed but the sense remained the same. A daunting, distant remoteness that each one felt. They warned him against giving it too much indulgence. Not acknowledging, is the best way to defeat it. Every minute he spends thinking about it is like giving wind to the fire.
The man tried… for hours together, to forget and forgo. Noon arrived but the feeling remained. The more he tried to push it away the more prominent it became. It refused to wane, refused to die but kept on increasing in strength with each passing second. The lightness became so heavy that the man could taste it like bile at the back of his throat. He wanted to throw up. It was with great effort that he was able to restrain himself.
The “why” had now become a virus. Changing, mutating and spreading into his whole being. He felt unwell. He felt sick. But he couldn't just sit here doing nothing. A cure had to be sought. An antidote that would tame the virus. Since the ages, when trouble befell the man, he had just one answer. A haggard old monk, with gray long hair, who traveled through eternity carrying a wooden box. He was always dressed in white and his clothes never seemed to soil.
The box was rectangular in shape and made of reddish-brown wood, that gleamed when it was the darkest. The monk had once explained that the box contained cures for all the diseases that inflicted the world. The man wanted to have one for himself. The monk said that he had to earn it. Whatever was inside was more precious than all the riches of the world put together. The man was amazed…he is still now.
His eyes began to hurt. The silvery brownness of the Monks' eyes bored into him. “You feel light don’t you, as though the rope that held you down had been snapped?” said the monk.
The man couldn’t agree more.
“You have forsaken yourself” continued the Monk. “The link had been broken…that’s why you feel this way”
“What am I supposed todo?,” asked the man.
“Go to the ruins”
“But aren’t the ruins dead”
The Monk fell silent, his eyes looking in the direction of the dead ruins.
So, the man walked to the edge of the village to the ruins. A staleness mixed with the putrid smell of decay washed over him. But strangely the memories it brought was that of freshness, vigor and innocence of his youth. He held up his lantern and trudged forward. Thick undergrowth consumed every inch of the structure. The stone walls and the crumbling pillars seem desperate to escape the moss-eaten dampness. As he moved figs and bushes gave way to trees that formed a canopy covering the sky.
Darkness descended. The light of the lantern was now his only company. He came across a closed wooden door. The yellow light slipped past its planks lining the edges in a golden glow. It was as though that world from beyond was beckoning him
He pushed it open and stepped inside. A green forest glimmering in the dark. The trees were unlike anything he had seen before. So tall that it seemed to touch the bosom of the sky. The trunks, smooth and round of varied thickness. Branches grew out of them like an explosion of ecstatic fireworks. The ground shimmered in a stillness with patches of intertwined roots erupting from the soil. The trees may stand apart but are unified by their roots.
The man ran his hands over a trunk of a tree. Sparks flew revealing a set of glowing symbols. He bought the lantern closer; the whole tree was covered with them. He moved the light around. As the beam touched other trees more such symbols were revealed. They were like the scrolls he had seen in his village.
He was amazed and at the same time perplexed. What is this place? Looking at its outer shell he could never imagine, the immense beauty it held within. As the surrounding worked its magic, a realisation dawned on him. This was no ordinary forest…no ordinary life. It didn't begin or end at the edge of his village. The forest was within him… with him… stretched in an unbroken eternity. It was the mystical womb in which the past was born. The trees, the symbols… were pure history. The history of man…his trials and tribulations.
The ground beneath was soggy. The man looked closely…it was blood and it was sweat…mixed with sand. There was a box wrapped in the roots. It was like the one he had seen with the monk. The make was the same and the wood, reddish brown like trees around him. With shaking hands, he opened it. He peered inside, he saw himself… seated on his bed, the lightness was gone, as he entwined his feet to the roots around him. Sun or storm, he would never drift away. He was rooted. In himself and in his past. “The past is alive,” the man muttered.
By Emon NC
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