The Perfect Date

 Knock Knock…I was in that hotel lobby again… the lobby I feel I have been visiting for ages it feels familiar it feels comfortable it humms my favourite songs and it radiates the warmth in my presence yet you keep on saying isn’t it that we just met yesterday?
Knock Knock “Come on in, I’ll turn on the AC and slightly whisper to the windows and will sway the curtains, don’t light two light one and we’ll share”.
So how’s it going I feel I just have today isn’t it and then we’ll never meet again…how strange is it, you can share anything, lie truth fiction, or even fantasies you can narrate an eternity or a monologue where there’s no mention of me…you can create a memory or I can erase yours yet remember we’ll never meet again, you can hate me you can fall in love you can shout reveal or just be quiet yet remember we’ll never meet again.
And there it was the lighter of pursuits, reasoning, and reality…I wonder how you always manage to kindle the fire not so ordinary how with a single press it ignites the passion the soul and the emotions which I thought were long gone and dead…She smiled like a grin of sinister chuckle.
“You know you’re a smooth talker right, here why don’t you light it this time”.
I wonder why only you decided to talk to me whereas everyone acts like I don’t exist I wonder why only you open the door when all my knocks go unanswered I wonder why only you let me play with your hair and I wonder why only you somehow always have my favorite cigarette.
“Because you make me feel special” she replied.
“So what do you do” she asked…What do I do? What did I do? What I could have done? What all I have made out of myself?
Why a sense of guilt pain sympathy and embarrassment the one word encapsulated in a What brought, buzzing like a fly…I’m an engineer I work in an IT company and…”Blah blah blah” she just cut me off…”Isn’t it all of you?” Again she smiled this time not with a grin this time there was no twinkle in her eyes.

The cigarette was now almost at the point between extremes it was at its half-life and just like uranium 235 it was creating fission inside, just like the neutron her questions shattered my existence and my identity, I was reaching the point of a meltdown, are we in Chornobyl I somehow managed to ask, “I thought so” she replied.
The cigarette was now almost at a midpoint and so was my life…it had burned my childhood my teenage and all the roads I took were the most traveled by.
“Am I audible, Can you hear me, Is my screen visible” she jokingly giggled mocking like a rhyme, as if I was a mere toy whose keys were now intertwined.
What do you do I asked in retaliation…”I dream stranger I dream” she replied “And right now we are in a dream, a dream hovering like a 2001 space Odyssey the room is alive like the shining and soon you’ll scream like a clockwork orange” so are now eyes wide shut in the universe of Kubrick I replied as I passed the cigarette.
You know you’re beautiful and so is your smile…” yes I know stalker”

OK, now some introspective thoughts… date questionnaire (I opened in my mind):

1. Impress by job – failed
2. Ask what do you do – failed
3. Signature move – placing the hairs over ears  (Always works) – Passed
4. Movie magic – She played the card first – Abstained
5. The killer smoking dude look – She’s better – failed
6. Poetic skills – Passed

Note: The date playbook requires at least three Passes to proceed

“What are you thinking Mr. Robot” (Damnnn that was one of my favorites)…Third Pass I stated.
“Books” you can try that, she replied.
And there it was the signal that I was looking for…I asked Stephan King for the rescue…Won’t work as she smirked
Orwell: 1984, Animal farm,  “move on”
Dickens…Oliver Twist, A tale of two cities, Great expectations…”Interesting”
Kafka: The Trial, The Castle…”Damn K, you have got something in your mind”
Murakami…”Ya now we are talking Kafka Tamura”
Hahaha here the wind sing, pinball 1973, a wild sheep chase, dance dance dance, Kafka on the shore, A windup bird chronicles, after dark, sputnik sweetheart, and I kept on murmuring the whole night.
“You know you are not alive right…There’s a reason no one else answers your knocks and there’s a reason why eternity feels a flicker to you, tomorrow yesterday and I respect that you came through the door, you can slide through walls right.”
How can you see me then…”Stranger, I told you I dream right.”
There was silence in the room and suddenly we both were just looking into each other’s eyes…
Indeed there was a moment and at that moment she said…”you know it’s the last drag
You give it to someone you like.”

By – Kshitij Sinha
12/5/2024