Words On Canvas

[A tribute to Haruki Murakami]

The soda bottle was waiting to pop, the pressure on the bottle making it soft and bulgy. Even the usually flat cap on top had a slight concavity to it.

“Ah! Crap. What do I do now?”

If he opened the bottle here, the fizz would definitely spill onto the sofa, leaving a sugar stain which would inadvertently become a beacon for all those species of emmets out on a stroll. And that was something he could live without. So, he turned the cap very very slowly trying to find that right amount of gap between the bottle and the cap that would allow the Co₂ to escape, without causing the fizz to bubble and spill over. Getting this just right was a priority for he dreadingly imagined his wife shouting at him for being careless and absentminded. Now, no husband would want that would they?

Getting married when still in school was a strange thing in those days. His fiancée was a girl whom he had known since pre-school and they were in love for as long back as he could remember. His lover and he travelled to school in the same mini - van, ate their meals and even studied together. Theirs was a match made in heaven and would make an excellent romance movie, but that’s a story for a later time.

He wouldn’t have made it in life if not for her; for you see this man was afraid of reading. He barely made it through till middle school and high school was a strict ‘No no’ for him. Managing to procure a job at the local electronics store, he slowly worked his way up till he was made the city head. And that’s when he realised that he could start out on his own. A pleasant man such as himself, with an excellent knowledge of his field and tremendous vocational skills had to be his own boss, and his own boss is what he became. But all the credit for his success was not his to flaunt alone. Being more of a people’s person he didn’t handle the finances or the legal documents, rather it was thanks to his wife’s expertise that their enterprise was so successful. She had quit school along with him and made it a point to learn electronics, for you see this man was afraid of reading. When he was working at the store, she was at home studying and in the evenings she would teach him what she had learnt, over dinner.

Apart from his morbid fear of reading, he was not mentally challenged or socially impaired or any of that sort. In fact his brain was sharper than most people’s and he was liked by one and all. His reproach to reading was his only flaw, a flaw that he could not fully comprehend but had come to accept.

It wasn’t like he could not read at all, but more than anything it was a sense of impending doom that overcame him when he opened a book. At the very maximum he could read a page or two, but pushing himself beyond that was a near impossibility. When he was still in school, he had tried to read an entire chapter of a text all by himself but had failed to make too much progress. At the end of the ordeal he was so flustered that he could not leave his room for days on end.

Here is what happened that fateful night, as narrated to his wife on the day after they got married.

“I finally opened my book to read. I had put it of far enough and wanted to give a shot at doing well in the test. I read the first paragraph and it was all fine. But as I read the second para, it all started. It was the R’s actually, the capital R’s. They started shaking a leg, I mean literally as if to a beat. The right leg of the R’s as I read on and on; tap tap tap they went with no end in sight to their ruckus. At first I tried to hold them down, that didn’t work, so I tried to plead with them. And when even that didn’t work I started out to erase all the R’s from the text. Now that’s when the T’s started to protest. I think that the T’s and R’s are in cahoots with each other, forever looking for an opportunity to torment me.. this wasn’t the only time they’ve worked together you know? The damn T’s, they started firing at me. What audacity! The horizontal line on top of every T on the page started flying up at me. Just imagine, a swarm of T tops jumping at you from the page. It just was like in the Roman movies where a barrage of arrows would darken the sky for an instance, raining death onto its enemies. But luckily for me I ducked and the barrage went past me. Ha! I thought it would stop with that for you see, only the T’s on the page that was open could shoot their tops at me! But then came the turn of the damn I’s to pick my brain. The I’s were annoyed that the T’s and I’s looked the same now, and they picked a fight with the T’s. Oh God! it was so horrendous- a bunch of sticks simply running around. The words simply weren’t making any sense anymore. Being already at an edge, I decided to turn the page and skip the few paragraphs on this one.

The next page wasn’t as chaotic as the previous one thankfully. It was just the R’s doing their old dance routine and the S’s curving around like snakes this time. It was alright for a few minutes I guess till the O’s got in the game. The O’s are very very voracious eaters you see and they gobbled up the little i’s, L’s and e’s mercilessly. It was a sad plight to watch actually. I realised that there was no hope in simply sitting there and went to get a glass of water and when I got back the page was almost empty, with nothing but O’s roaming around hungrily.

It was unnerving to see that there was nothing left to read on the page, and so I decided to read the next one. Now this one was chaos right from the beginning. It was as if they knew that I was coming and were waiting, ready, armed and planned. The moment I reached this page, all the letters swarmed around each other forming abusive words. Not just intended at me, but you, mother and father as well. There was nothing I could do, but watch in vain. I tried to catch a few of them, but the slippery characters that they were; they easily slipped through my fingers and went on to make more of their twisted, demented words.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I simply couldn’t. I grabbed the book and smashed it against the wall with all the force that my arms could muster. I ran towards the book and stamped on it. Stomp, stomp stomp I went unable to control my anger. They had troubled me long enough and I wanted it to stop. Stop them I must is what I thought I as I picked up the book. I hit it against the chair, on the window sill and on the sharp metal rod that I kept in my room in case of emergencies. I hit the book to my left, and then to my right venting all my irritation, anger and frustration on it. Anything not easily breakable was a weapon that I used to cudgel the book. Finally when I became too tired to go on I threw the book in the corner and collapsed on the floor.

I must’ve lain there for half an hour at least when I heard a noise coming from the book. A faint sound that too, like that of a small girl crying or a puppy whelping, I couldn’t be sure. And slowly this sound grew, filling the room till I could take it no longer. I decided to throw the book out the window once and for all or burn it, whichever I whimmed to accomplish the first. I slowly got up and walked towards the damned book too pick it up and destroy it forever, but lo! the page that was open was.. well.. Quite. It was as normal as any other page in any other book. Surprised, I picked up the book and looked at it closely. Surprisingly I was able to read! I read the first page and the second and then even a third. I was pretty excited, maybe it was all over, maybe I had beaten the curse or whatever it was! Happily I dragged the rocking chair near the window and snugged the book onto my lap-ready to read when all of a sudden the letters leapt up at me. The S’s hooked onto my ears, the H’s and Y’s onto my throat and the O’s rolling all over my legs trying to bite deep into it. I dropped the book in shock, for this was the first time they had ever been so vicious. It was as if they wanted their revenge on me for punishing them so. Terrified I leapt up, not knowing what to do as I ran around the room, trying to shake them off. But they only kept coming at me-legions of C’s D’s and K’s. Every letter from every page was harping for a piece of me. This was the final straw thought I. Running towards the book I seized it and cast it out the window. Die wretched book, DIE!!

I remember nothing after that, only waking up in my bed to see you over me looking all worried and scared. And it was when I saw you that I decided never to read again- and didn’t. I never wish to undergo such a harrowing experience ever again” said our friend, shaking all over and in tears.

The poor man must’ve been scared and disturbed indeed. Imagine something like this happening to you or me.. Brrrrr..... So, coming back to our present story, he did manage to open the soda pop bottle without spilling any fizz after all. Glad, he stretched back and relaxed, easing himself into the sofa as the plastic curved into a perfect fit for his body. The game was on in a few minutes and this was a well earned rest. He had been on the move for three whole days –expanding business into a new city can be pretty tiresome. But the game wasn’t on for about fifteen minutes and so he decided to flip through the channels and feel good about the fact that he had given up on TV except for the game. Television these days was spoilt; adulterated and too far removed from reality was what he felt. And as he was switching channels, he came across one that showed movies all day, a pretty popular one that too. They were showing a trailer of the upcoming movie, something about 2 lovers who had fought through thick and thin to make it big in life.

“Ah! Lets see what this is about”

After the trailer was over, the network got started with the broadcast immediately. It was a popular movie channel after all. But just before the movie there was a message that went

“All CHARACTERS IN THIS MOVIE ARE FICTIONAL. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYONE DEAD OR LIVING IS PURELY CONINCIDENTAL”

And he could see the R’s dancing, with their right feet tapping to a steady beat.......