A short story about nothing
from a long time ago ...
FOOLISH THINGS
Take my hand...
to a rain of dreams
to get away, I can
get away, I can
be home again.
touch? Love
you? Oui.
"It's raining again," says Cat. She pulls the covers over herself. Traces of an impending storm float in through the open window. A scent of rain triggers something inside me. "Want some coffee?" I ask. My mind withdraws and expands. The smell of rain tickles my nose. I breathe it in - this air, this life, blown in from somewhere else. I look at Cat, as if I am apart from her reality. Cat is different from me. She doesn't complicate her life with superfluous dreams. She doesn't let foolish things depress her, and she hates coffee. How can anyone hate coffee? And there is something about her that irks me - she feels more comfortable sleeping on my bed than I ever did or will. She says my bed gives her dreams to dream about. A flash flashes. A recurring dream: there is liquid in the air. Lightning cuts the air in a million places. The air breaks to the sound of thunders. The liquid fall, and I see myself in another life. I am kneeling in a desert. I raise my arms and ask for my salvation.
The scent of rain pierces and converges at a point between my eyes. I cough desperately to rid of the tainted air, the whiff of another life. Cat asks if I'm okay. I say yes. The room door creaks as I leave to make myself a cup of coffee, and a cup of tea for Cat, and a cup of milk for Angel, a silver-coloured cat from Tibet. They make such a lovely pair together, you know, Cat and Angel. They seem to have perfected the art of sleeping (When one sleeps, time loses its grip. The concepts of past and future vanishes. Peace only happens when one is not eager to move forward or fall behind. Time becomes a friend). "Mmmmm, you're back..." Cat purrs as I stroke several strands of her hair over her ear. "Do you know what I like best?" I ask. Angel decides to drink her milk. A cold wind escapes into our room. "Rain," she replies at the very moment the drizzle erupts into a full-fledged storm, sending mystical vibes through my body. "You don't have to close the window..." Cat says as she gets up behind me and peers outside. Rain... it feels so good to be exposed to its touch, so free, so wild, and yet, it inevitably makes me sad. Rain makes me remember clearly. It makes me remember the words that used to reverberate inside my head. Now those words and even those years seem so meaningless, so distant.
"I do not have enough space."
My voice is soft, almost lost in the rain and the music from the radio. Another recurring dream: Land becomes sea. Rain falls but I'm not wet. I wear a robe so white and soft that I feel like I'm wrapped in a cloud. I walk the waves and they walk me. The sky is inside me. The sea is inside me, but when I get to shore, my legs collapse beneath my abominable weight. I kneel in the desert, alone and abandoned. And then I'm here, staring out into the window, unable to make sense of my life. The window seems to open a second time. I breathe in its reality. I see myself working day and night, trying to make more money. I see rats in shirts and ties, stealing my dreams from under my nose. Anguish rises and squeezes my heart in his palm. Silently, from amongst the images, a cat jumps out and sits on the table beside me. It gazes at me with its sapphire eyes. I stroke its silver fur. Then the cat begins to speak inside my head. It says, as if in response to my anguish:
"Space is a matter of perception."
"I do not have enough freedom"
"Freedom is a fool's concept"
"I do not have enough time."
"Because you make time your enemy"
"I need money to buy freedom."
"Freedom has no price. You are buying the wrong thing."
The cat, having said her piece, jumps away to pursue her dreams of sleep on my dirty laundry. How easy it was when I was studying in the States. How easy it was to believe, to criticize, to dream, to hope, to be inspired, to change the world, to make a difference, to feel the power in one's hand. "Foolish things..." I let the words slip easily out of my lips. "Nobody bothers, nobody gives a damn - so why should I care?" Cat lowers the volume on the radio. The music fades and merges with that of the pouring rain. Sometimes, I haven't the faintest idea what's going on in my head any more.
"Hey, you're okay?" Cat's voice invades my thoughts, and her face, my vision. I watch her quizzically, tilting my head as a dog would when spoken to in a tone that it does not recognize. "Don't do this to me..." she says, "I hate it when you are in this mood. You get so damned depressing and you will drag me down with you." I laugh and snap out of the cloud that I was in, and crack a stupid joke. The cat looks at us with a knowing look on her face as she circles my pile of laundry, exercises her claws, and settles in a circular sleeping position. I vow to try the ritual the next time I can't get to sleep…
***
Sometimes I do go walking in the clouds
but it's just cold and wet and empty.
But when you look out of a plane it's a special world...
and I like it."
~ Neil Gaiman
***
"You will receive everything you need
when you stop asking for what you do not need"
~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
***
