by Ram Sundaram
I Am Me
A Collection of Short Stories
By Ram Sundaram
iUniverse, Inc.
Bloomington
I Am Me
Copyright © 2011 by Ram Sundaram
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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ISBN: 978-1-4620-7273-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4620-7275-0 (e)
ISBN: 978-1-4620-7274-3 (dj)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011962286
Printed in the United States of America
iUniverse rev. date: 12/18/2011
Contents
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Prologue:
Dreamless
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Epilogue:
Absolution
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Prologue:
Dreamer
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Epilogue:
Absolution
Author’s Note
I Am Me is a two-way book: it begins from either end and meets in the middle. It holds a collection of twenty short stories, or ten pairs that are split into either half of the book. The two stories in each pair share the same title and reflect a similar theme, but are depicted in two contrasting yet congruent ways. One half of this book represents reality, while the other borrows from fantasy; similarly, one half depicts an individual nestled within a collective world, while the other half represents a collective consciousness entrapped within an individual existence. Each reader might prefer one version of a story over the other, or else will find harmony in their combined reading. The purpose of this “two-way” arrangement though, ultimately, is to challenge the segregation of “fact” and “fiction.” These two labels are not as mutually exclusive as we deem; for the world of fiction borrows heavily (if not entirely) from existing fact, while the factual reality we perceive in our daily life is tainted with lies, fantasies and the artful brush strokes of an entire population’s imagination.
The field of literature is so callously split into two halves, and yet if art indeed imitates life, shouldn’t life be divided into the same categories as well? But it isn’t. The world we perceive is not black and white, not even in the facts that we allow ourselves to trust implicitly. One single lie can tarnish the validity of several truths, and so when taken into account the countless number of lies that are created around the world each day, how can a “fact” retain any form of legitimacy? It would be easier perhaps to regard the world with a more open-minded perspective, to breathe in its every message without pausing to wonder whether it is authentic or not. The themes presented in these stories reflect the inherent nature of the “individual,” and the passages that each individual goes through, from birth to friendship, love, desire, ambition, spirituality, death, and eventually the afterlife. I Am Me is both factual and fictional; yet the choice of reading a particular story as a truth or a lie rests solely with each individual reader.
Acknowledgments
I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank some people who contributed to the creation of these stories (so if you don’t like the book, these are the people to hunt down). First and foremost my parents, my twin pillars of strength and stability, who gave me life (and then reminded me of it), who passed on their talents to me (and then denied it), and who have supported me relentlessly all my life—while I climb the ladder of fantasies and reach for the stars, it is they who make sure I never fall. My sister, who though would no doubt love to give that ladder a little shake (what red-blooded sibling wouldn’t?) has always tempered her natural instincts with genuine affection and loyal support—it is her vision and hours of effort that led to the design of this book’s cover. Mona Nikhil, the chatterbox, the clown, and the girl with the heart of a child, who appeared like a light amid the darkness, and showed me altruism in a world where there was none. Diane Wynn, my best friend, my confidante, my sounding board, and my treasure chest of infinite insight and impatience (you read that correctly), with whom I shared many profound conversations between sips of deliciously sweet iced-coffee. Chris Dueck, who played C.S. Lewis to my Tolkien, and imparted upon me the wisdom to create stories that are inspired by ideas rather than plots; it is he who showed me that life exists on different levels and that we rarely see past the first. A special thanks to Rick Bayer, my favorite tennis player and good friend, who found time between crushing forehands to lend me shrewd advice and persistent encouragement. I would further like to acknowledge every person I ever came across, whether we shared words, or merely caught a glimpse of one another through a sea of traffic, for you have each poured water into the sea from which I borrow my tools of creation. And one final acknowledgment, if you will bear with me, for the overweight, self-conscious fourteen-year old, who sat alone in his room and attempted to pen his first novel between mouthfuls of potato chips and chocolate cake—you made it, kid.
Prologue:
Dreamless
One
My name is Ishvar.
I am alone on an apocalyptic sea, adrift upon a leaf. The leaf looks familiar—I have seen it before. It comes from a Banyan tree that had stood defiantly against a flood on a virgin patch of land somewhere… had I been there once? What happened to that tree?
Memory is an estranged friend of mine. It never visits when I am at my most lucid, and seldom stays long enough for me to remember. Perhaps it has become obsolete in the absence of time, for time itself is an estranged friend. The Banyan tree therefore stands comically in my thoughts, anchored neither to time nor to memory. It is adrift, aimless and unheeded, within the sea that is my mind. We share a similar plight, the Banyan tree and I.
Two
He had once shared a name with God.
Every person in that world had known of God, but few (if any) had known God as Ishvar had. Ishvar had known God within a separate world altogether, a world that was replete with colour, love, joy and possibility. But alas it was a world that had always been destined to f
all, for it had been built upon the fragile, feeble legs of imagination.
The imagination is a villain in the real world. It is perceived unfairly as a friend to those that defy the truth, and thus declared a servant to those who lie. Truths and lies are actually the same, only they hail from separate worlds. In Ishvar’s world, the lie would be true; and yet in the world he was now imprisoned in, his truths were declared lies. For how could he prove a truth that was invisible in that world? And how could he defend a lie that bore neither merit of possibility nor of practicality? So when Ishvar declared that he knew God, the non-believers doubted him. “Prove what you say is true,” they demanded, but he couldn’t.
Their faith evaporated, and God was duly forgotten.
Faith is a strange phenomenon. It lurks in trivial rituals and idle superstitions, yet it is ignored in matters larger than life, such as in dreams. In Ishvar’s world, faith and hope were best friends; they walked arm-in-arm through the clouds, as one. But in reality they are bred for different purposes, and thus live apart from one another. Faith is considered to be belief, a trust set in stone. But hope is perceived as a flimsy quality, a naive game-of-chance. Yet Ishvar had known that in a world where possibility translated seamlessly into actuality, and where dreams blended artfully into reality, faith and hope could share the same meaning. In such a world, there were no lies and therefore no truths. Such had been Ishvar’s world.
He now looked remorsefully at the sea…
What had become of that world?
Three
There is a flower on the water.
How did it get there? Ishvar wonders. His world has been stripped of its powers and its defining qualities; the very basic aspect of thought becoming reality has been broken. And yet there lies now this undeniable symbol of illusion:
A flower in the midst of a flood…
He wants it to be real. The need is beyond desire, beyond the mere desperation he usually endures. It claws at his insides, urging him to make it a reality. The feeling is strangely familiar—it reawakens an old realisation, one he has long kept suppressed.
He loves this flower…
He sprawls himself onto the leaf, and paddles towards the flower. It bobs teasingly, just an arm’s reach away. He reaches for it, but the current pulls it away. He paddles closer still, but again as his fingers reach out, it coyly drifts away. The current seems intent on working against him, and the flower intent on eluding him—it is ever more than an arm’s reach away. He sits up and stares longingly after it. “You’re real,” he mutters. “Too real.”
The flower’s veracity is a significant realisation, for it means that he truly is in danger of drowning in this apocalyptic flood. And it means that he cannot dream or imagine an escape.
How has my world turned real? he wonders…
The sea is thinning in the distance.
Four
The sea.
It has swallowed everything graciously: man, woman, child, life, death, and even time. It has left nothing behind but the imagination. My imagination.
But without the sea, I can no longer imagine…
An old memory surfaces:
In a world without imagination, God cannot be found.
The words resonate within my thoughts. I try to remember where I’d heard them spoken, but my memory is weak and disjointed. In a world without imagination, God cannot be found. I realise just how true that is, for I hadn’t been able to find God inside the other world. Religion and Reality limit the reach of the soul. It is only after this sea swallowed me in its forgiving embrace that I saw God standing before me, smiling.
In an existence devoid of imagination, the senses perceive only one dimension. They see the world in only one form, and in only one translation. The true meaning of God’s rich and generous message is therefore distorted and eventually lost. But imagination enables the senses to search beyond the present, beyond the physical and the real; it highlights the impossible, which is where truth usually lurks. The imagination is a tool of translation; it works endlessly to bridge the two worlds, and it is a lens through which those with faith can find God.
I looked through that lens a long time ago, and I saw God, yes; but I saw so much more too… I saw myself. I saw the entire Universe within Him. I was within that Universe, looking through the lens at Him. It is only then that I understood I had been blind thus far. I had been blind to faith; I had been blind to imagination, to perception, and to the truth.
God is real.
As real as dreams.
As real as lies.
As real as life.
That truth is the only fortification I bear in these fading moments of existence. I watch sadly as the sea thins around me. The water is disappearing rapidly, as if a large drain-hole has been unplugged far below. I wonder what will happen when it turns dry, when the sea no longer is? Will I still remain, or will I be jettisoned on an unforgiving beach of cruel pragmatism?
Stay with me, I implore of the sea.
It does not hear me. A whirlpool appears. It won’t be long now…
I stare at the leaf, floating beneath me. I blink, hoping against faith that when my eyes reopen it will disappear. But it remains stubbornly by my side, defying illusion and awaiting its absolution. The sea will not drown it, I decide. No, that is my job.
I fold my arms and glare at the leaf.
I need an axe…
Five
He has no axe.
So he plants his feet apart and pushes down on the leaf—it submerges momentarily under the water, but then rises up again with renewed vigour. He jumps on it with all its might, hoping to sink it. But it does not even tremble under his weight. So he claws and hacks at it with his bare hands, hoping he can tear and rip it to shreds. But its edges are strong, and his arms are weak.
Exhausted, he sits back down.
It’s just as well, Ishvar tells himself; I don’t know how to swim anyway…
Six
My story isn’t about idealism. There are definitely no dreamers in this tale, but it is littered with pragmatists. It’s much like how the world once used to be: billions of pragmatists, convinced they were dreamers. They learned the truth near the end. So did I.
I know so much now, so much more than I ever did. But I still don’t know enough… this Banyan leaf knows more than I do. It could tell me a story or two about dreams. Its very existence is a story worth telling, for it floats alone upon a sea that is now abandoning it; it came from the earth that is now reclaiming it; it breathes into the air that was never a part of it. And yet, despite all the improbabilities it has endured, it is real.
We are real. It is nothing more than wishful thinking that we are dreamers, thriving with imagination, creativity and a desire to ponder. We dream while we survive, but—and here’s the rub—we are not dreamers. We are real.
We dream to escape the harshness of reality, but it is within reality that our lives begin and it is within reality that our lives must end. We cannot escape our fates, not through dreams, not through illusions, not even through hope. Dreams help us understand reality, but our lives are too short and too meaningless to enable any significant understanding. Perhaps existence is about survival then… Is life about accumulating enough resilience to survive? Answering such a question requires the aid of imagination, and that is a luxury I no longer possess.
Do you have a dream to share with me? I ask the Banyan leaf.
It lies still, drifting lifelessly upon the sea.
It can sense the end coming.
So can I.
I
Earth’s Child
The events of that night precipitated from an incident that occurred two days prior, when I was separated from my company by a snowstorm. The winds destroyed any tracks they may have left behind. The storm raged relentlessly for two day
s and only slackened on the third. When the winds subsided, I left my shelter and made my way north, hoping to reunite with my company. It was then that I reached the canyon. Long and narrow, it was a mere cleft between two mountains, and our camp was to its north. I would have to pass through it to reach them.
I slid down the side of the hill as noiselessly as I could. Using the rifle butt for support, I edged down to the western side of the gorge, behind a large slab of rock. I dropped my rucksack and lay on my back, facing the mountain. The rifle sat on my chest and my finger tightened around the trigger, while my gaze drifted to the skies. It was snowing again and the wind began to howl. I readjusted my helmet and mopped the sweat off my face. I marvelled at the absurdity of sweating in the middle of winter—war did crazy things to men.
It was very quiet. My thoughts felt somewhat disjointed and I could discern no particular pattern to them. I pondered the snow first, but then my thoughts wandered towards my family back home, and suddenly I found myself thinking of food. I thought of steak and potatoes, of meatloaf and gravy, of the thousands of dinners I’d had, without ever pausing to relish every bite and every morsel. I promised myself that if I made it out of here alive, I would learn to celebrate every moment of my existence, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem.
“I’m starting to think like a dying man,” I said aloud and chuckled wryly.
I held my breath for a few seconds, straining to listen for any sounds in the ravine. I knew there might have been dozens, maybe even hundreds of enemy soldiers scattered through these mountains at that very minute. But how many were in this canyon, and how many were near me?