The Static Dream

He looks at the stars and gazes at it! This has become his favorite past time off late. It was just another night and he yet again star gazing drunk. This has been the routine for a very longtime and everything else just revolved around it. There was a time when he used to have a normal life but now all he looks forward is to gaze at the star after getting drunk. He does not particularly remember when this habit started and all wants to do during the day is for nightfall come so that he could look at the stars and gaze it while drunk!

He hardly talks with anyone and he does not seem to exist in the real world. He does have a postal address but never gets any mails. There are some papers which lie in the attic but it is so old that even he does not know what is actually happening in the world. He knows one thing that he exists as a person and he has job which lets him collect his checks and pay the few bills he has but the main purpose of him working is that he could afford the rum which he drinks every night so that he can get drunk and gaze at the stars.

It was a quiet night and a cloudy night which means that he was not able to have a good view of the stars. He was angry at first but after he started drinking he actually forgot why he got angry in the first place. He kept looking at the sky and after a point was not even sure if he was awake or asleep. There were no stars but just a clouded mist surrounding everything.

The TV had nothing on and he kept watching the static screen. He does not remember how long he has been watching the screen but felt asleep soon. He could not sleep at first but he was yet again looking at the clouds and still searching for the stars. Days like this were rare to him but he hated these days the most as he just could not gaze at the stars like he always used but he was drunk and drunk he was that he could not even move of his old deck chair which he used whenever he was gazing at the stars.

He wondered what has happened to his life, he was isolated and all alone in the world. There was not a single human being nearby and it was all dark & emptiness. He does not even remember who he has reached this stage. There was a time when human contact was there. There was intimacy and the usual closeness but gradually as he sat & pondered upon life, he had come to a place where the only thing he did was getting drunk and gazing at the stars. That he has come to accept as the thing he would do upon and which has been doing for a long time.

He does not even remember what happened the previous night but always does have a vague idea that he gazes at the stars. Even the rum bottle has the same label and he always ends up finishing it. A highly monotonous boring routine which he seems have fallen in love with and which he would not want to change for anything else in life. The pure freedom and the power to control his fate but these actions was so strong that he did not want to discontinue this habit and it is getting drunk and gazing at the stars which runs his life now. This was the life everyone dreams for and this is the life he is living.

There was no winds and there was a hint of rain but there ever no rains, every day the weather never changes but the only change which happens on rare occasions that the clouds appears and when these clouds appear he could not gaze at the stars but all he can do is get drunk and things become unclear. He prefers to call this the Sleeping Awake where the difference between being asleep and being wake is bare minimum. Actually there is hardly any difference at all because he does not feel anything and all he feels is drowsiness and all he can see is the misted clouds. Darkness engulfs everything during this phase and there are no stars. He is again unable to move but he is happy. This is bliss for him and he would continue to do this forever till time stops.

After a point he does seems to recognize the difference between staying wake and sleeping that he is in a limbo where both are one and the same. But then as long as he is drunk and the clouded mist in the darkness is the cue for him that he could be sleeping awake but he is the same place where he should be. This is a big relief for him and he knows that he continues to do what he likes doing the most. Because change is something which he cannot accept nor does he want it but then this clouded mist is the only thing which keeps telling him that things are constant.

He does not even knows when these clouds appear but all he knows is that they do come and when they come he does not star at the gaze in a drunken state but he is sleeping awake and in a bliss. He is not too sure what is happening but he is happy and he smiles in his sleeping awake state. He is on the chair lying with his hand resting on the empty rum bottle on the floor. He may be alone and isolated but he does not care anymore as this is what he has been searching for and he is doing what he wanted to do.

The crank woke him up and TV was still in static. He sat there looking at the screen for hours together while his hands rested on the empty rum bottle lying on the floor. He tried to remember how long he has been lying like this but failed to do so. He does not even remember why he was sitting in the chair for so long. He just decided to stay there and continue to watch the static screen.