Chapter 6: Torture

[NOTE: I owe it to my handful, but faithfully anticipating readers: I am sorry for the delay. I was alternating between being too lazy, too uninspired and too overworked to write the next chapter the whole of last two months. But now that I am in the 'flow' of things, I hope I can wrap this up before long. Hang on, people, the finale will be worth the wait.]

The first of his two scheduled mental exercises was finally and – although he wouldn’t accept it – to his immense relief, over. It had been a draining, hard-on-the-ass field day till now. Hardly could he bring to mind any whacking that had been half as unexpected as this one had been. But it was all justified in the higher order of things; after all, the holy Unnamed worked in mysterious ways (not to mention painful and ruthlessly unforgiving, he un-thought). Love and compassion was for those sons of Ardhamanas who adhered to the erudite word of the EPUU with absolute, unflinching belief. For all actions that dared to stand out at non-conformist were dealt with the iron hand. Like sheep herded onward the rich pasturelands by men of god in the guise of peasants, such was the task entrusted to the Arbitron. It promulgated  'उत्तम मार्ग': 'the perfect way', the only way to lead a righteous life.

In all truthfulness, Aseem felt ashamed of his failings as a human being, his inability to follow in the hallowed footsteps of his forefathers: the immediate next-in-line of the venerable half-Unnamed.

The original man had passed down his form and shape to his progeny by means of miraculous reproduction, or  'चमत्कारिक प्रजनन'. The ability to bear an offspring was not said to be a pleasant experience, nor was it expected to happen to anybody who hadn’t attained the officially prescribed age of leaving human shape and journeying to the heavenly abode. Naturally, Aseem wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Prompted by Arbitron, he trod towards the Mental Work 2 bay, which was to occupy the better part of his remaining schedule for the day. Placing himself in a well-fitting corner that had emerged out of the wall, he covered his ears with a device that lay on the base of the opening. This piece of equipment had two rubbed-cushioned circular ends, one for each ear. A U-shaped ‘bridge’ connected the two earpieces, curving over the curvature of the head of the wearer. (The most apt substitute for it to be found in modern parlance would be a ‘headphone’.) This was worn, as per EPUU-ian parables, as a means to focus on the inner sounds the human body radiates when the individual is deep in thought or meditation.

His solitary agenda for the next 30 minutes was to generate a constant humming sound, close his eyes and concentrate on whatever thoughts flitted through his mind while he was at it. Every 20 seconds or so, he would steal long but hurried mouthfuls of air, punctuating the hum that filled his ears, brain, thoughts, everything.

With the passage of a few minutes, the only perceptible sensory input he received was his self created hum, overriding every other external sensation. This uninterrupted tranquil enabled him to do what EPUU called ‘singularizing’ his thoughts to nothingness. The first thought that came to him when he attained equilibrium with the humming medium he had created was darkness; pure, unadulterated, undiluted, blackest of black, serene darkness. Darkness that pervaded all fear, all misgiving of the relatively pallid outsides. The Unnamed was salvation, the Unnamed was darkness. And then there was Mary Jane, and Arbitron, and the hot cuppa he gobbled down every morning: all mere distractions from the path of true austerity and realization of the self. Trifling, sinful digressions in the path of moral rightness, planted in the path of man by the forever-scrutinizing Unnamed. The world was enough, the black ends of the world were too far displaced from each other, too far for any comfort. Something had to—

SCREEEECH!

His stream of consciousness was broken suddenly by…he didn’t know what exactly it was. Suddenly there was light all around. From the safety of his closed eyelids, he could see his vision suddenly turn blood red. He dared to open his eyes and closed them almost instantly. It was sheer horror. The walls of the world were no more black; instead, they displayed multitudes of images of…he couldn’t fucking make out! The split second window of blinding vision he had braved had registered nothing in his mind, save for a sudden blast of dreaded whiteness. He shielded his eyes from direct brightness with his arms, and maintained the posture for about 5 minutes, waiting for shit to happen. Nothing did. Bewildered, terrified and helpless, he shouted and shouted, and then some more.

“HELP ME, ARBITRON!!! HELP ME, UNNAMED! WHAT SORT OF SHIT TEST IS THIS, GET ME OUT OF THIS DAMN INFERNO!”

Nothing budged. Reduced to a cowering bundle on all fours, Aseem began to weep. He wept profusely at first, tears rolling down from his hard-shut eyes. Then he cried with uninhibited shrieks and wails and whimpers and sobs, his body convulsing with the pain and burden of sudden light, of newness and of change.

And then, with characteristic suddenness, the brightness issue was resolved: the walls went back to their homely blackness. Aseem knew this because his vision was no more marred with the bright redness of the inside of his eyelids, it was back to black. However, try as much as he might, he could not get his eyes to open up for more than a quarter of an hour after normalcy had been retained. And when he finally did, much to his surprise, absolutely nothing had changed.


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Chapter 7