BEING DEAD

I met Peter’s body recently. He had died sometime back. Happens, you know. Meeting a dead man, talking to him while knowing that his soul has drifted out of the mortal body a few days back, realising that life goes on but not for ever: death being a form of living just as truth seems like storytelling often.

Peter had died; neglected, forgotten, his body was rotting. Possibly, that is what epitomizes urban isolation. Decanted into a vacuum of solitude for being a bastard, there was he, trying to put his stubborn soul back into the body while it tried to escape through a tiny aperture. Like most stupid people trying to postpone death, Peter was seeking life.

“Can you help please? Please catch hold of my soul and bring it back to me.”

“Show me where it is. I will try,” I said, desperate to help but unable to see the soul.

“See, see, it is there. There, please,” he beseeched, a sequence of staccato utterances trembling out of his dry mouth. Only dead people see souls, which he did.

I pretended to try but couldn’t. When the soul ditches the body, there is nothing one can do.

In life, there often comes a time when helplessness guillotines the nobility of human intentions. Much as I hated Peter, I had met him at a juncture when his desire for mere life had buried all my negative thoughts about the man. The tears in his eyes, his sweat-drenched face, that guilty look which seemed to summarise his penitence for a sin-laden existence, his unkempt hair and beard, the sight of him lying crumbled on the floor: they had driven away my contempt for a man whose only achievement in life was his uselessness. But, he wanted to live. He wanted a second chance, and there was none.

“Sorry, Peter. There is nothing I can do,” I murmured, and dashed out of the room before he could say a word.

“Please, please come back. I beg of you. Please.” I could hear his voice, which faded into inaudibility once I had left the compound of his house. My inability to do anything had taught me a lesson, one I shall never forget.

Impossible is not a word in the dictionary of fools. Just stay away from dead men.