The two of them
sat in a silence so loud that they could faintly hear the music of the flowing
brook far below and the chirping of a bird that seemed to be everywhere. The
silence was awkward, but less so than when they spoke in an attempt to break
it, painfully aware of its awkwardness. Their eyes escaped to anywhere they
could, but chance at irregular intervals brought one pair staring into the
other during their movements, as if they were two fugitives hiding from each
other now facing the thing that each thought was about to corner him.
The older of
the two- or rather the old one- made a sound that may have indicated that he
was clearing his throat but it seemed more likely that he was gargling his
insides like all the words he could never express were there contained in the
weight and meagreness of the phlegm choking his throat. The sound unsettled the
forgotten awkwardness that now floated quite tangibly above the sleeping dust
of the floor.
Owing to a
sense of propriety that was an additional pressure on the younger one, he spoke
“I’ve searched for you.” Seeing that the old one’s eyes were still escaping, he
called out “Job”. Job’s eyes went over to the direction of the sound, but there
was a vacancy about their expression, as if they were really still roaming
around in the distance atop the snow-capped mountains or maybe they couldn’t
remember why they answered to the sound in the first place. He couldn’t tell
which was true.
As if in
acknowledgement for the younger one’s sake, Job produced a short cough that
then went out of his control and had its way with him- tearing apart his lungs
and throat and seemingly displacing his insides- for almost two long minutes.
He then decided to speak, “Tell me then, Dave.” A silence followed in which
each was expecting the other to continue the conversation. But Dave was quite
clearly uncertain of what to tell. A smirk formed across Job’s face, and it was
as vacant as his eyes, but to Dave, it was a remnant of a thousand scornful
smirks that were directed at him before. And as vacant as it was, Job knew that
the significance Dave interpreted from it was all that mattered.
Unable to bear
the uncertainty, Dave said, “I’ve even mentioned you in various interviews. You
would know if you-“
Job, still
leaning back on his chair, interrupted him calmly, “Yes, so I’ve heard. I am
the mentor you mention, then?” Seeing as there was no response, he said with a
snort “A mentor!”
There was
something about the way he mentioned it that made Dave’s blood curdle. It was
as if Job was disgusted to have to be associated on any terms with him. He’d
meant it respectfully, but he knew that in Job’s mind there were a thousand
problematic implications associated with it, as with anything he’d ever said or
done.
Job slowly
shifted his gaze to somewhere in the distance, and said in a half-whisper, “You
owe me nothing!” And as if to reinforce his want for disassociation, he
repeated the last word with that same blood-curdling tone Dave had heard
before, “Nothing!”
And yet, his
general manner of speaking was telling of a lack of focus. He might as well
have spoken to the mountains just now. Perhaps he was speaking to the wooden
floorboards that creaked with the gentle rocking of his chair. Perhaps he spoke
to all of them. Perhaps he spoke to none of them. There was no way to tell.
“There’s no one
to listen, Job” said Dave sympathetically. Job had heard him, but he continued
gazing into the distance. Dave followed his gaze and saw the top of the
mountain, and for a moment, he saw the both of them atop it, and the sight
seemed peaceful and far removed from what he knew to be real. The two of them
were simply standing there as two men, infinitely far from the ones who sat
inside the small cottage gazing outside. But clouds soon covered what Dave was
seeing and brought him back to the compact space he was in. At the same time,
Job turned away from the mountains as well. Dave wondered if he’d perhaps seen
the same things. But he knew that that wasn’t possible with them being so
different from each other.
“I breathe
regardless,” Job said, the pride in his voice evident; the pride of being
forgotten and unappreciated? Or the pride of knowing that the one who was
appreciated, appreciated him? He couldn’t tell. Both the breathlessness Job
displayed, and the rising and falling of dust each time his chair rocked one
way such that there seemed to be
permanently airborne layer of dust about him, betrayed any semblance of
serious consideration that could be placed on his words. And yet, Dave knew
that to Job, to breathe was to create art. Regardless of the reclusive location
of the valley the cottage was placed in, and the inability of the birds and
beasts to place any importance on such things because they didn’t need to, and the limitations of walls to
being able to tell stories but not hear them, here he was displaying what Dave
could only interpret to be supreme confidence in one’s work; so supreme in fact
that it seemed to betray a sense of arrogance inherent in anyone being the sole
interpreter and critic of one’s work. Yet, Dave knew there would be no harsher
critic of Job’s work than Job himself, much like he knew that people were
always the harshest critics of their former selves.
There was
something stunted about their conversation, which a stranger might have
compared to troubled breathing, but they knew it was more akin to controlled
breathing in the way that one who has physically exerted himself breathes or
rather holds half his gushing breath, if he wants not to appear to be gasping
for air.
A long silence followed in which Dave felt he
must concentrate on important things and recollect important memories regarding
his relationship with Job, but his mind wandered to irrelevant things. When he
occasionally became aware of his mind’s absence, he would try to force it back
from the infinite space of himself that it wandered. Thoughts of his success were
brought to the forefront, as if providing an argument for a debate that wasn’t
taking place.
Suddenly
growing aware of the long moments which the silence fully filled, Dave started
looking around the room in- what was to his mind a metaphorical search- an
attempt to find a subject. And just then emerged Job’s voice, low and hazy,
“Have you wondered what it’d be like to be a mountain in winter?”
Admittedly, the
question caught David unawares, and he knew not what mythology Job was alluding
to or what deep symbolism was layered in his question. He knew not what tenets
were laid down to help him interpret the workings of Job’s mind. But he knew he
must answer, and said, “I do not wonder, and I do not want to. What use is
there in thinking of things that can never be?”
A pause. Then
Job uttered a sound, “Hm” and for a second, Dave thought he saw Job’s
disappointment creeping around somewhere in the room, but the emotion quickly
ran over and away from the contours and lines of his face that he couldn’t be
sure where it had come from or where it had gone to.
“I’ve thought
of it; what it’d be like to be a mountain and wear a cap of snow,” Job said,
and there was a hint of childlike wonder in his voice. Then, with a helpless
chuckle, he yelled in a whisper, “A cap of snow!”
Dave’s face’s
immediate response was to twist a smile onto itself without bothering to report
to the brain of its actions. It couldn’t be helped. The image of Job’s face
superimposed over a mountain, and with him smiling about his treasured snowcap
that he now wore made Dave’s face react unthinkingly. But his conscious mind caught up with the
situation tiredly and he felt a certain glee as the athlete experiences when
able to finally pant incessantly once he’s reached the finish line and need not
run anymore. But he swept the feeling away hastily as a child sweeps away a
dead bug under the carpet: both happy at the bug’s state of being, and annoyed
by its presence in plain sight. And slowly, he started feeling what he knew he
was supposed to be feeling. The right feeling:
a feeling of both bemusement and the dawning of a realization so great that it
threatened to erase his very sense of identity.
He was bemused
at first because he did not know what to make of Job’s words. Was he joking?
Was he having a laugh at him perhaps? But no, he seemed sincere. What if that
was all there was to Job’s “great” mind? It was entirely possible that he had
simply seen Job as having been great then because of his own inexperience, and
continued to see him so because of the power exercised over his memories by that
tyrannical force called nostalgia.
And now, a
smile well under the control of his mind plastered itself onto his face and his
very self. The smile was the reflection of the sense of validation he felt.
Still smiling, he said to Job, slowly at first, “I owe you nothing” and then
laughing a little, he repeated himself more enthusiastically, “I owe you
nothing! Haha!” and went on and on, “Nothing at all!”
Job simply
grinned widely, and occasionally laughed along with him as well. He might’ve
wondered at Job’s glee if not for the self-consuming joy he was feeling.
Still laughing,
and holding his aching sides, Dave walked over to his car parked outside
without bidding Job farewell. The last he saw of Job was him sitting on his
chair and gazing outside.
When the car
had gone some way, Dave thought he fell asleep and saw a dream that seemed all
too real. In this dream, he saw ‘Mountain Job’- the mountain with Job’s face
superimposed over it- as well as two figures on this mountain, one resembling
himself and the other resembling Job. Job was near the top the mountain and was
walking slowly and leisurely and within some time disappeared over the horizon.
Dave himself was near the middle part of the mountain and was heading down at a
rapid pace and only barely managed to keep himself from falling many a time,
and was soon covered by the presence of another mountain in the forefront.
All the while
and even after the two of them had disappeared from sight, Mountain Job was
smiling gleefully about the snowcap he wore on his head.
