LXII & XIIi - back, going back

LXII   Back to Annie

She was,she knew, going down, down a hopelessly downward, bottomless spiral – like some involuntary jump - down the top end of the New York twin Towers - no pressure, no push, no suicide – no nothing.

Just a jump. Simple.

All air, sky above.

Blue.

White nimbus clouds hanging.

Sea gulls cawing.

Annie just felt , she was falling through a free fall, that she simply chose to experience – all she knew was - once she jumped - was that her hands went up and down due to the force of the wind, her skirt was up, her legs were going up, down, side, flat, vertical, horizontal – she had no underpants, so she was exposed but she had already taken the jump, she was hopelessly going down and Thankfully, the New York traffic refused to look up. 

Yet, Annie, felt exposed.

And yet , she was surprised that she actually felt good, as she flew down and was surprised she could even control her speed of descent. The way her skirt flew, the way her hands moved or the way her legs waved, she felt she could control them all – to the admiration of a few others who seemed to have also followed her jump, they all seemed to be falling voluntarily falling along with her in Slow motion - acknowledging, smiling, encouraging.  

And, She was smiling back at them too since she could actually look down, stop mid air, wait, hover, move left, move right, talk to herself, smile at all the others, acknowledge each as she approached the bottom, as she took a quick swig from her cocktail flask , she thought it was her duty that she should assure the few who noticed her coming down that they wouldn't be hurt and of course they shouldn't be worried.  

She even saw someone who resembled Daniel in the crowd even as a few looking like a group, which included her Parents, her Grand Parents, Uncles, Aunts and many more. 

Annie tried her best to acknowledge them all - but yet She had to also focus. She wanted a smooth landing.  

Soon , she crash landed along with a few score others.She recognised the Park which was somewhere in New York, She wasn't sure but she knew, she knew. And all those others who landed along with her also knew, she knew. They were all smiling at her almost applauding her, for a near perfect landing. 

But soon, all of them disappeared and the rest of New York still seemed busy – very few noticed. She was disappointed , yet, happy enough as she quickly straightened her cotton skirt and scampered away.  

Annie? Annie ?

Annieee?

Annie heard the sounds of her name being called , they were so far away, she tried reaching out with her hand but she felt so weak she just bundled down. Like a castle made from a pack of cards - blown.

LXIII – Daniel Goes Back too  

He was jogging, the wind was stiff, he was running over sand.

Seemed like the sands were playing with him, forming huge mounds in front even as he kept scaling up each dune, each mound , as they appeared.

And he remained smiling, even as the sand dunes that were swirling and then forming endless dunes and mounds continuously placing themselves right up his path even as he jogged. 

The sand dunes and mounds seemed on auto mode forcing him to jog up the mound and down even as one new mound appeared while the other one disappeared – he was surprised - he was able to run up so many mounds, so many hurdles, so many dunes and he could actually watch them swirl and form right in front , almost gently, gracefully ( yet with all the power and venom of a blasting storm ) and then place themselves quite nicely into his path – he was even more surprised to see that the sand mounds, the beach and everything around were actually trying to be pretty human with him – he could see the sand mounds smiling, hear the ocean talk to him and the several living things around communicating to him in English.  

Some just said Hi! The Ocean simply said Hey! The birds cawed their own way of acknowledging his presence and the wind simply kept whistling different kinds of his favorite tunes.

Which actually reminded him about Annie – and there she was.

He caught her as she was enacting scenes of a great dancer, She looked younger than her Harvard years, Daniel thought She had deliberately dressed herself to make her look a lot younger, like she was still attending her years as an early bird at the Mumbai University and Daniel watched as Annie went about delivering a series of dances almost as a kind of a repertoire of traditional Indian dance, music and mythological poetry.

In fact Daniel felt she was showcasing herself, exclusively to please Daniel, for his sheer pleasure, She was almost performing for him, but there were so many others around , he was embarrased, even as he saw quite a few envious men eyeing him, even as she, Annie, eyed him through her every move – even as she scampered at the end of each session to the dressing room and then came back with equal rush with an eye that was searching for him and at the same time enacting nuances of India’s greatest known dances, almost as a great exponent of all things traditional and Indian – Annie's varied exposures included a terrific sense of the eastern, oriental aesthetic – the background scores were a treat - She was enacting actions and motions as if She knew several of the Indian folk arts pretty well – the Kathakali of Kerala, the Yakshagana of Karnataka, the Mohiniyattam also of Kerala, the Bauls of Bengal, Odissi, the Manipuri and gosh ! She could even enact various tribal dances too – the Naga dance, the Asamese!

Daniel! Almost screamed his excitement out.    

He was drunk. He was dreaming, He was not in India. He was somewhere in Nevada.

And Annie was drunk too. 

Students of the University of Harvard found her running nude.

Drunk .

It wasn’t even evening.