by Abhishek Sengupta
One morning, as I woke up, I found my palms were empty. The lines had detached themselves from my palms. They were floating around in the different corners of the mid-air in my bedroom. Like strings lighter than the air. Like destiny trapped in a helium filled balloon, covering the distance between the heaven and the hand.
That evening I told my father -
"Dad, you know what happened when I woke up this morning?"
My father smiled.
"Son, you're insomniac. You haven't woken up for centuries."
_____________
A young Indian man, I've come to know Abhishek's writing through Facebook. This piece struck me particularly for its tight construction. Not a word is wasted here.
A Borgesian, Surrealist, dreamtime philosophical poem. I especially like the lines of the hand detaching and floating... very painterly, I think Magritte or Dali would have been inspired. Then I like how he expands time. That transition in the piece is deft, sudden, from strings to destiny, from strange dream realities to a koan of impossibilities, an insomniac who hasn't woken up for centuries, and then we realize that the entire piece could be a dream. Oh Abhishek is a mind-bender!
