It took me nearly an hour to put him to sleep. I rocked him to sleep while my mind was thinking about the life’s carnival and my role-reversal. Life is such a crazy carnival! We slip into sleep only to momentarily escape from it. As a child, I must have been as innocent as the sleeping child in my arms reclined on my chest as the rocker moved. Yet, in adulthood, I do not find his shadow. I’m neither innocent nor a child anymore.
The grim realities that knock on my door of consciousness, rattles the door knob that prevents entry to those falsehood and lies. Into my world they always present themselves and get to me. Life rattles on the by-lanes paved with round and smooth pebbles. One slip, then, I am tumbling down to my death. Yet, somehow a balancing act happens upon the by-lanes of life, as I juggle my way through the carnival of life.
The flourishing banners and festoons mark the carnival spirit which the gathering crowd sucks away the human space like a hungry child at its mother’s breast. Sucking sustenance from the very source of the paradoxical life one comes out feeling so jiggered at the edges in retrospection. Childhood passed to let the next stage, appearing now and disappearing then, in mixed orders; while making strong statements with the structure of a dissolving soda bubble. The fizz of life hits the drinkers’ nose with such force that these illusions apart life is a non-stop carnival cursed to be endless.
Was I the King or the Fool of the carnival, I am not sure. If I was the fool then much could be said about me? What kind of a fool would I have been then? May be a wise one or a simpleton playing into the main character’s ridicule. These thought kept me in contemplation. Much of the quixotic fool who believed them to be some kind of superior authority on reality according to their definition of life has caused the sleeping child to dream on endlessly.
Super charged perception gave a weird twist to what happens to be a new structure in essence caught within grim plot and to continue living in dire straits seems simple solutions to obvious outcomes. Yet the carnival doesn’t stop. But once it is over then, everybody becomes their serious self once again. The last song and anthem of the day were sung and the crowd dispersed amidst much enthusiastic outcries of what had just passed. One carnival ends only for the next to begin.
Human life a symbol of ups and downs that one would encounter at different pace, casts a shadow on the supra-consciousness, which dilutes the impact which a human mind can take in. Real moments of extreme sport and laughter brings out the real emotions flooding the gates of individual soul as the sleeping child awakes to the reality of the present moment.
It was time for dinner which was left behind by the mother. It was in fridge and it needed a couple of minutes to reheat before he can have it. Everything was in readiness and in under five minutes he was busy having his dinner. After his dinner, I placed him on my lap and rubbed his back until he burped to let out wind.
He lifted his face and his shiny huge eyes looked at me, I was worried that he might cry for his mother, so I gently hugged his little form and kept lightly rocking. I did not wish to cause him to lose his dinner. I made a mercurial decision and got up gently and started walking in the room while my parents were getting ready to go to bed.
We had done a quick job of the evening dinner when the little one was asleep and I had self-assigned for keeping an eye on the little one. The door opened and my mother poked her head through the door opened a crack. We whispered if about the child being fine. She wished good night and left. It must be the warm sweater that I was wearing or the child felt confident in me, that he fell asleep again.
I returned to the rocker and my mind started to wander as the child slept peacefully. That is when I remember the village fair that I attended many centuries ago. A simple fair compared to the carnival of the complex modern world. There was something that felt naive and innocent about the village festivity. Yet the simpleton girl that I was decked in fresh clothes made from meagre income was my pride.
The accessories to the dress I wore were the glass bangles, ribbons for my two intertwined braids folded and tied to shoulder length, a chain bought in last fair shines against my dark skin around my neck. I was not as fair as my cousins. I took after my father’s skin tone. I was dark-skinned and never felt sad about it. I could feel my heart beat to the fair drum as my mother behind me call out to take care and not get hurt.
Itinerant Storyteller 