Monday, June 11, 2007

Gooble-de-gook

You walk into this room. The windows are wide open. The door creaks as it sways back and forth. It’s a summer noon and it’s hot. You wish to ease those nerves. That can only mean one thing - Coldplay. Having enqueued five of your favourite tracks, you put on those headphones. By now the door is shut and the curtains are drawn. Pleasant is always a few minutes away from a summer noon, if you know how to get it.


4 and a half minutes later, it’s Track 2. The first song has driven the anesthetic a little too far. When The Scientist is ‘go’, you are floating. Those aching calf muscles don’t seem to be around anymore. And it starts…


You see a little girl. She’s running in the open. It’s a vast field. And she is running. Draped in a brown skirt and checked uppers, she wears a cap to keep her hair in place. The wind is getting the better of her skirt though. She is 12, you might want to think. Why is she running? Where is she running to?


A hundred meters behind her, at a distance you can see two boys running towards the girl, who, by now you figure out, is running away from the boys. The three of them are happy to be running in the pursuit of whatever it might be. The boys are wearing shorts, btw. And one of them is blonde. The other has a cap. A painter’s cap, you might say (not all painters like to wear them though.) They look 15 years apiece. And they are running, not real hard, but just enough to keep the girl at a flowing river’s width from them. She is finding this to be fun!


There’s a pond there and a towering windmill that stands by it. As she nears the pond, she looks to run harder. She goes inside. The windmill. The boys follow her.


Could not speak as loud as my heart (faintly, at a distance).


She comes out, as you turn around in your bed. Remember, you are standing in the field. But only this time, she holds a round bottomed bottle in her hand. It has a straight neck at the top. And the cap is fastened tight. Or so you assume. Let’s see. There is scotch in the bottle, you might want to think. And she runs faster than her legs can carry her. And then you see. The girl is being chased by two rather grown up men. They must be 40 apiece. Who are these men? And what would they want from a little girl with a bottle in her hand. And then it strikes you. Where did the two boys go? You cross the pond and go inside the windmill. It’s dark, except for the cone of sunlight that a small window at the top is permitting. You search around the cold place for the two boys. No, they aren’t there. You come out. The field is empty. There is no sign of the girl; or of the boys; or of the men. Something doesn’t seem right of the whole picture. You stop and wonder – “Did the boys become the men?” And before that question can be answered…


It’s Track 3 - Clocks.



[Question: Make sense of this situation]

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