Snowcap

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.