She dreamt about the big rust colored door many times, but in her dreams the door was never locked- it was always left slightly ajar and she could see shadows behind it shifting from the corner of her eye. These shadows were from a parallel world outside and they called out to her even in the silence. Every night she dreamt that the door would open in front of her, but it never happened. Lucid dreaming was the order of the day and she imagines herself in the new world almost every minute. And one day she walked out.
Maybe it was these restless shadows that spurred her into walking out of that door in her waking hours or maybe it was just the recurrence that she took as an omen to move on. Where the journey would take her, she did not know. But she knew that she had to find herself and it had to be away from her past. Trudging down the crooked street that lead to the fields and beyond, she walked excited…..she could feel the wind blowing on her face and among the reeds. She could smell wet earth and rustlings of the leaves. She came to a strange river – rare blue color water- and it dawned on her that she is standing at the edge of the River Lethe- the river of oblivion.
She went into a trance, lost in the limitless space of time, traveling with passing time, words by Plato, echoed in her mind “ …the river of Unmindfulness, whose water no vessel can hold; of this they were all obliged to drink a certain quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things”
Ancient Greeks believed that souls were made to drink from the river before being reincarnated, so they would not remember their past lives. Heroes and virtuous folk drank from Lethe on their way to underworld after death to be freed from the sorrows and suffering of a past life; Whereas mediocre souls drank from the river Lethe as punishment so that they would not know who they were when they arrived to work, machine-like, for eternity in the Asphodel Meadows.
In that very instant she was gripped by sudden rush of melancholy engulfing her robbing her out of her senses, she no longer remembered where she was, who she was and what was her purpose when she first trudged along the rust colored doors. Those were rhetoric questions. She quickly bent down, dipped her hand in the quiet, cold blue strange water and drank a handful.
Next she remembered waking up in her apartment, on her bed, suddenly freed of her guilt, her past, her weight. Light as a feather she happily looked at the growing twilight of dusk. Quickly she got ready in her leather mini-skirts and stilettos and ran to keep her appointment at a private strip tease show. Yes a thousand possibilities and prospects lay ahead of her and yes she is truly happy.
Along with the inputs of Sandesh.. real man of genius :)
