A sleepwalker's dream sequence!

That sensuous, cold autumn wind is in the air, drifting like a fleeting melody sung by a damsel faraway. It must be a solitary reaper, red-cheeked highland lass, singing with music notes flying out from her lips. I forgot the poetry, a long time back. But that imagery still lives on, even now in a dreamy translucent state of the mind.

A waft of air brings across the nocturnal fragrance of jasmine, that purple and violet smell like a deep shade of fog meandering into my nostrils. A quick flashback takes me to a street lit by lamp posts, strange shadows brushing past. Where is she? I try to figure out those vague faces. Memory it seems is fading away, into a white, blinding shaft of light.

I find myself standing at the edge of a hundredth-storey-building, with one leg dangling in the air and trying to balance my posture with the other, heedlessly gazing into the space below. Down there, minuscule looking people and cars parade like tiny ants through the travesty of man-made lanes and by-lanes. All of them, moving in a helter-skelter direction. The groves of trees look like patches of green here and shades of yellow there.

With my arms swung wide open I stand tall on top of the world, a burning cigarette sandwiched between my fingers and my other hand firmly clutching a whisky bottle. The cold wind incessantly lashes on my brittle, frost bitten face. Standing there, I stare into the endless expanse of the horizon, painted with hues of red and yellow. Luminous clouds stretch across the end of the sky.

A queer flight of imagination invades my nonchalant mind. The desire to fly coupled with an instinctive temptation to be free, plays weird hide-and-seek games with my thoughts. The moment is perfectly thrilling until a suicidal feeling makes me tremble. I shudder at the thought and an icy chill runs down my spine. Goose bumps sprinkle on my cold skin.

At a distant in the air, a flock of birds sing their way home. I wish for a gun to shut them up. Their squeaking exasperates me as though a man in deep contemplation of god has been stirred out of his reverie. If I had a gun, I think, I would hide like a sniper and bring down each flying bird.

Smell of rose.

The images of the flower vase with decaying roses, the photograph lying by my bedside, her undergarments that she had left in the drawer, the ear rings and the necklace that lie on the dressing mirror, rushes past my eyes in a split second. Her lonely pink bra still hangs on the balcony flapping in the breeze. Why does the color pink never stop fascinating women, I wonder?

I am sitting by the window side of a fast moving train. I catch a glimpse of a tall woman dressed in a black skirt with a knee length overcoat. Her head is covered with a black scarf and her eyes with a dark pair of shades. I try to capture that transient face. But before I can photograph the image into my memory, darkness engulfs, as if the train has moved into a tunnel.

I am alone.

I swing to and fro, but this time I let go off myself. I close my eyes and fall free, headlong down. I swirl round and round. Gravity is at its best. I can see the blurring lights, and feel the air desperately trying to keep me buoyant. I hit the ground hard. My head splatters, my brain oozes out of the skull, and a pool of blood flows down the road.

I hear people screaming, a child crying, and the ambulance siren at a distant. The sights and sounds fade out, gradually. This scene is a reminder, a replay of a movie I had watched. Lights go off. I lie there in peace. Forever.

The next morning, I get up from my bed with a terrible hangover. I follow the daily ritual. I sip the little remnant of whiskey left in the bottle and light up a cigarette. It’s a new day, here I come. I joy walk to my office. My editor, grinning halfway through his teeth, hands me my story. Three men had committed suicide the last night. All of them jumped off a building to their death. Déjà vu!