The Switch

They considered me foolish; they thought that I was growing soft in my head, that I was just plain nuts. And for a long time I did try and examine myself to see if what others talked about me was true.  I was undecided, unsure.  Everything was unreal. Was I mad, or was I the only sane one left in the town.

It has all started of one day while I was having a shower. A slight movement, on the periphery of my vision, made me swivel my head towards the shower door.

I could see nothing. I turned off the shower, and kept looking towards the door. Suddenly I see the Electric Switch wink at me. Man, I was tired, and I was seeing things.

I called out loudly; my soul mate rushed into the bathroom, and very concerned asked me what was up. I pointed to the Electric Switch and told her “That Electric Switch winked at me”

Smiling she said “James Adam Paul, This is not the time to get funny on me, I was getting the kids ready for the school and the bus would be reaching in another few minutes”

After she left, I kept looking at that Electric Switch for a long time. Nothing strange now, everything was the way it was meant to be. Was I nuts?

Throughout the day, this incident kept bugging me. My boss kept asking me if everything was alright, I guess I was not focused on my work, and my thoughts were showing an impact on my work. This was painfully brought up to everyone’s attention including my section supervisor, when I accidently shut down the corporate server. I guess the theme of the day was Electric switches.

 “Hell with it all”, I thought to myself, and took rest of the day off. With my boss yelling at me and everyone giving me dirty looks, I walked home. While, on the way home, I came across a near empty bar. I normally take the subway, and I had never walked past this bar before.

“No man’s Bar”, The “r” was missing between “o” and the “m”. All signs were there, this was the bar for me today, a “Noman’s bar”, this was just the place for me.

Since it was quite early in the day and I was not expected back at home till evening, I walked into Noman’s Bar. No one other than the bartender was around, and he was lost in his copy of “War and Peace”. And the brunette in the corner, staring into her mug.

Nodded a greeting to him, asked for a beer.

Had myself a couple of beers, felt good. Looked around after downing these mugs, and then things started going to hell, my private hell.

The jukebox started talking to me about my day, and she kept getting interrupted by the electric lights, the bar telephone kept shouting encouragement to me and kept asking me to keep my chin up.

I sat silent, expecting Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck to pop up any minute and talk to me.

I guess I was nuts.

‘cause neither the bartender nor the brunette looked up while all this was happening, either it was normal for them or I was the only one who could hear what was going on.

I walked out of the bar and started walking towards home, and the parked cars I kept passing kept “Howdy”ing me.

Reached home. My soul mate was out. I went back into the bathroom. My silent electric switch winked at me. And started talking, and I sat quietly and kept listening.

This is how it all started. Next day I went in for a medical evaluation.

No one in the hospital could convince me that it was all in my mind, you see, the ECG machine kept talking to me, while I was with the Doctor. Kept telling me funny stories about the ‘good’ doctor. Just to check my sanity, ECG machine asked me to ask the doctor about the whisky he had in his office.

I asked the doctor about the quart bottle of whisky he had in his draw.  His face turned a couple of shades of purple before he spluttered on about getting back to my checkup. I did not ask him about him and his nurse.

So it was not just my imagination. Things were really talking to me.

This is how it all started. I do not know why I was the chosen one. There was nothing special about me, just an average guy doing average things.

Then one day, I hit the TV news. There was a homicide. I walked to the house where the  crime had taken place, and the electrical devices started talking to me.

The police had got a fingerprint which did not belong to anyone who was supposed to have been in the house. To cut a long story short, I talked to the chief of police of police and told him the name of the person who committed the crime. The figure prints matched and I became famous with the PD. A few more cases like this and someone in the PD must have got greedy and sold the information about who was solving the crimes for the police, to the press.

Press started comparing me to Noreen Renier.

Well, this is how my life was for a few years. I did my magic stuff, which seemed unbelievable to everyone. 

Had myself a steady income, which I kept parting with the Nomans bar.

Then the bells tolled for the last time on December 31^st and thus began the year 2012. I did not notice till around March of that year that I was hearing fewer machines talking to me. Not that I was worried or apprehensive, I was finding it pleasant that the incessant chatter was slowing down, was getting more sleep. Getting lost of sleep now.

Captain’s log Earth date 20-december-2012:

I woke up with an eerie silence encompassing me. The normal noises which one associates with urban living were missing, not that it struck me immediately as I woke up. The toothbrush rubbing against my teeth was a noise I was used to for all these years, with my eyes closed, while brushing today I did not hear it. After a few strokes, my mind kind of kicked on and indicated to me that something was wrong. I open my eyes; I see in the mirror that the toothbrush was where it was supposed to be, but no sound. I experimented by moving my hand a few time around my teeth…still no sound.

I opened the tap, no sound of water gurgling out, though I could see the water flowing and hitting the sink. Oh boy was my first thought, next I spoke out aloud; I could hear the voice only in my head. It felt as if my ears were plugged in with a fat roll of cotton.

Locked myself up in the room. Walked around in a daze most of the day, the devices which talk to normal humans were not speaking with me the ipad’s , the stereo, the radio all were silent.  Don’t know when I went to sleep again.

The next day was supposed to be 21^st December 2012. I wake up when I feel something crawling on my arms, I open my eyes and I don’t seem my familiar roof over my head, instead bright sunlight, birds chirping, air that smelled green fresh, insects making their gentle sounds, animals neighing, barking, meowing. Grass under my body instead of my bed, me naked, no cloths.

I look around and I see no neighborhood, no buildings, no cars, no bikes, no people, just trees all around, and the sweet green fresh air. I walked the whole day; there were no sound which mankind makes in an electronic world, a world of devices and crowds. 

The animals were friendly is what is remember thinking when I came across them. They had no fear of humans; there was no aggression in them. I kept trying to understand why I kept thinking that the animals loved me. I walked for so long that day, I did not feel tired at all, but I did not meet, hear, or see another human.

When the sun finally set, I chose a spot to lie down. As I lay down I felt a slight soreness where my ribs end. The flesh felt sore, the skin felt new. I thought to myself, that there was a rib missing.

I loved the blissful feeling, as if I was part of a new beginning.

As I slowly dropped off to sleep with this thought in my mind, I remembered Genesis 1:26. I smiled finally, knowing that tomorrow was the start of a new day and I would be on a quest, a quest for my Eve. 

And I told myself, “Adam, this time around, no apple trees and no snakes.”

Pulling out Rodin’s teeth.

All the book shops I visit have huge section of books dedicated to the “management”. Considering the amount of space dedicated to the “management book”, I would assume that there is brisk movement of these tomes. I am sure this would be the scenario all over the world.
I wonder why no one has asked these questions till now.

Who buys these books? Who writes these books? What happens once the books are read?

Assuming that these books are read by the “managers”, and further assuming that the contents of these books did have lot of information and knowledge, why did we have the huge organizations failing? Why are we in “should be getting out of recession soon” situation?

I guess the “management” books were brought by people who wanted to prop up their monitors or there was more fluff than matter in these books. I guess it felt good to tell your colleague “Man, that book on “purple ocean strategy” was great, you should read it”, though all you did was use it prop up the clock in your house.

I guess I would rather, plunk down money on a good fiction book….’cause you see, there is not much difference in the content … both are just stories.

Let me get down to writing a “management” book on how to manage companies during “recessionary times”. I am sure it would work out to be a best seller, and I do like sci-fi.

Misty day in a bamboo garden

Tea and bonsai at the dawn of a new day

First inkart painting! green thumb?

life has been interesting..
botanically speaking. a sudden spark seems to have moved me from photographing nature to actually working with nature. in that last 30 day, we have about 23 pots ( at the last count) of all kinds of plants, shrubs, trees growing around the house.

will try and post photos of them soon. the list of plants currently in the "Project Go-Green" are

Adenium(Desert rose, this is the one which started the entire greenie thing)
Ficus Benjimina ( to be converted to a bonsai, in the next 4-6 months)
a Rain tree ? ( 6 inchs tall, with 2-2 1/2 inch trunk) seems to be good potential bonsai material.
2 lemon saplings
4 mango saplings
2 aloe Vera
and a few more...

And i just took a shot at drawing something on my tablet! Just my first shot at the inkart.

wassup update

not much blogging.

shifted my residence, settling down in the new place.
work is kind of hectic.
recession seems to be looming.

naina's has been updating me with the learning she is going through .. NLP, Interplay

a wonderful life of abundance!

john braid and the bean

nothing has ever scared me before in my life. my name is John Braid and i am 6 feet tall and weigh about 190 pounds on a bad day.

it was the 4th of may, when the strangeness in my life started. with an innocuous packet which was left at my door step. I opened the simple looking packet. if i had know what i know about it now, i would have run miles away. i enjoy running, i run to live and lived to run.

let me tell you about this packet, it was wrapped up in a plain brown paper, no tape, just tied with a plain thin string.

i opened the packet, i found a can, on which was written a simple note.

"please open the top and pour a little bit of water and do this for the next 5 days"

so me being a curious kind of chap, did as was asked of me. even then i had a feeling in my stomach, a sixth sense, which said run away. and me being a little hard headed, ignored all the signs.

the first few days nothing much happened, on the fifth day, the surface of the mud in the can broke a little. the next day i could see a little bit of green, popping out.

over the next four days the plant kept growing at a furious pace. it looked like a normal bean plant.

the eleventh day was when things started getting really hairy, and i mean literally hairy, green and hairy. that morning when i walked into the room where the plant was growing, i did a double take. the room was mostly covered in some long hairy green strands. it was growing in different part of the room, and mostly on things made of wood or cloth.

there was a movement in the room, when I quickly turned towards the movement, I saw the plant swaying towards me. and the movement had some amount of feeling, and i perceived it as being a little violent. I drew back a little and reassessed the room, and i was wondering if the movement was a trick my mind was playing with me.

everything looked normal, except for the green growth. i went out and got a cleaner and cleaned up the place. made a mental note to get some gardening tools which i could use to trim the plant. i moved out.

the next day, the door to the room seemed jammed, as if something soft was wedged against the door from the other side, as i was running late for work, with just a perplexed look at the door i moved out of the house.

that evening the air in the house was smelling a little musty, and at the same time had a kind of greenish smell, like stale cut grass. after a few minutes of sniffing this air, i started feeling very satisfied as if i had all my needs taken care of. kind of like a breast fed baby, i went to sleep, thinking to my self that this sure was the most wonderful birthday i have had.

i wake up in a white padded room, as i looked around i was amazed to see that i was wearing a nice and clean straight-jacket. sitting and observing me across the room was a nice looking doctor. she gave me a disinterested look and looked back at the notebook in which she was writing something.

when i spoke, she was startled, almost dropping the stuff she was holding.

she stuttered, and finally gets a grip of her emotions, she started talking to me and questioning me. at the end of the discussion i figured that i had lost about 3 months of my life, i had no clue as to what i had been doing during those 3 month.

the doctor let me know that, i was one of the most wanted man in america, and about to be executed for a few terrible murders and other disgusting activities performed on the victims. she was studying me for about 3 days,as i seemed to have been in a fix!

i had been captured 3 days ago and brought to this asylum. i had been in a deep sleep for the last three days.she gave me a long list of things done to me , during these 3 days, and i looked down.

i started laughing , and have never stopped laughing since.

sometimes , amidst my laughter, i wonder if i had paid attention to my sixth sense,kicked the can and run like hell,if i would have been in this hell.

you see, all she kept asking me and wanted to know was how and why my hair, my skin and in fact every part of my body was green, except my legs which were brown and deeply rooted in the floor of the asylum and growing deeper every day.