The room is quiet. Quaint almost; the gentle curve of the ceiling gracefully complements the alcove that is the fireplace. There is a bed near the slowly burning fire. Facing the bed are two high backed armchairs. There is a table as well.
On it is the vague silhouette of a phone and a bowl of uneaten oats. The crisp night air gently flows through two parallel windows near the ceiling, carrying away the ashes and smoke of the fire. Shadows artfully dance across the room.
A twenty-something year old man sits on the bed. He leans against the wall. On the chairs, facing him, are his two best friends Kiran and Kishor. They are around the same age as the man on the bed. He is called Dhruba by his friends and their friends. They are all relaxed, only disturbed by the occasional echoes from outside the small room. Dhruba needs a quiet room, like the one he is in.
Dhruba is placidly playing a guitar. It is his friend Kiran’s guitar. His fingers dance across the strings. Their vibrations and reverberations are unintelligible at first, yet they slowly form into a single, moving tune. Order out of chaos. The three are almost inseparable. They seem to be in tandem, one small movement causing all of them to subtly shift. The harmony between them and the room is impeccable. They have everything they need in the nest they are in, brimming with wayward thoughts and emotions.
A puzzled look crosses Dhruba’s face. Forgetfulness has come to him and taken its toll. He stops playing, and asks his friends for the next few chords of the song. Only, he can’t remember which song it is. His friends remain silent. No one speaks.
As he continues playing, he notices something glinting on the table. Simultaneously, the voices from outside grow louder. He thinks it is a coin, reflecting the firelight around the room in primordial patterns. He puts down the guitar and waves his hands, as if scaring away a fly. The voices stop, momentarily. Then they continue, but in a lower tone. Dhruba knows that the voices will not enter. He knows that there is a lock to keep them outside. Dhruba then stars strumming My Friends, slowly crooning along, hoping for some input from his friends. “My friends are so depressed...” but there is still silence. No one speaks. Unfazed, Dhruba continues playing. The whole atmosphere has turned slightly melodious. As he plays, the air around him and his friends stir.
There is a haze of sorts. Firelight seems to avoid the vortex of condensing stray thoughts. The very emotion of the room seems to pour into the chasm opened before the three. Yet they all remain indifferent. A third armchair slowly materializes from the shadows. On it is a girl. She has no face. Yet she seems almost familiar to the three.
Dhruba has never been in love. But he knows just what love is trough his friends. The pros and the cons; his friends share a thought and are about to ask Dhruba if he loves the specter. As if reading their thoughts, he curtly says “Never mind”. And no one speaks. Once again he waves his hands. The spectre and her spectral chair dissipate into the shadows and melt into the shadows from where they came. Silence reigns once again. No one speaks.
Indifferent to what just happened, Dhruba continues playing. With the air of subtlety and expertise possessed only by a connoisseur, he changes the tune to The Pretender. “I’m the voice inside our head you refuse to hear,” he says, and continues playing, oblivious to the blanks expressions on his friends.
His friends look at each other. “He thinks he drinks too much,” they tell each other, only without speaking. Almost immediately, Dhruba curtly stops and says “I think I drink too much,” he says out loud. His friends just look at each other and shrug. No one speaks.
The fading sounds of music gently echo through the room. It has grown darker and more confined, yet the fire has not changed. It still glows and is still silent; upholding the air of the cosiness it has projected. Yet it has grown more menacing. The voices outside are even quieter than before, and more distant. “I must be drinking too much,” he thinks. No one speaks.
He continues playing. The tune has shifted to The Sound of Silence. In the darkness of the night and the confines of his room, Dhruba keeps on playing. He is thankful it is Kiran’s guitar and not his own. He never could work his magic on his own guitar. The voices outside are still there, but only just. They are like ethereal spirits of a dark, nether world trying to communicate to the epitome of placidity embodied in a human through the sounds of monuments and melodies.
•••
Sahadev Pant and Ram Rimal look through the viewing window into Dhruba Ghimire’s room in the Mental Hospital at Lagankhel. Sahadev pressed the intercom button and spoke into the microphone, “Food is on the table Dhruba.” Inside, an orange light on a table flashes and Sahdev’s message in conveyed though the phone shaped speaker but Dhruba pays him no heed. He has clutched his pillow and is running his hands over it like a musician would over a guitar. He occasionally gesticulated and spoke in bouts of gibberish. The light bulb in the corner of the room continued casting shadows across the room. “Eating time Dhruba,” Sahadev tried once again. Dhruba dropped the pillow and hurled the tray of uneaten food right at the window. The duo flinched.
“Sad case isn’t it Ram,” Sahadev said. “I know. Schizophrenic, delusional, senile, MPD, you name it. Imagine watching your best friends die in front of your eyes in a car accident before being hit on the head with a concrete divider. Crazy guy, if you ask me.”
“Hush now. Don’t be disrespectful.”
“What, he’s going to escape and eat my liver in front of me? We have locks on the doors to keep him in you know. He’s no Hannibal Lecter.”
Saying this, the cynical psychologist walked off.
Sahadev sadly shook his head and sighed deeply. He could no longer see Dhruba. “An aspiring guitarist too,” he thought, as he walked away. “An attendant will clean up the mess, provided he/she wouldn’t be hit by Dhruba in a fit of madness. What a shame indeed.”
•••
The voices outside have stopped altogether, His friends have returned home for the day. Far way, in the empty echo of chaos, where nothing but death exists, deep in the recesses of his mind, locked away from himself, all alone, filled with regret and waiting to die, Dhruba Ghimire continued playing.
- Amber Upreti
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