I Am Me

by Ram Sundaram

  “Welcome,” he said.

  No more was said, and there didn’t appear to be any need for more words. It was apparent why I was here. Somewhere within this store was my soul mate. I would have to find it.

  The storekeeper watched me intently, with genuine interest. He did not comment as I walked through the shop, studying the thousands upon thousands of random, diverse, seemingly worthless objects. He shadowed me loyally, his hands held behind his back in a casual yet respectful gesture. I grew weary of his presence, and of the profound silence, so I spoke.

  “I see no people here,” I said.

  “No? That’s strange,” he said, in a crisp, clear voice. “What do you see?”

  I turned to him in surprise. “What do you mean? Are you blind?”

  “Not literally, no,” he answered, indifferent to my insensitive question. “But for me, this store is empty but for one, single object, which you have not come across yet. Everything else in here is for my customers’ eyes only, for them to see, judge, and decide upon.”

  “But you’re the storekeeper. How can you not know what items you carry?”

  He smiled. “You seem to take analogies literally,” he said. “I am neither a storekeeper nor a store. My duty is to lead those who come before me to their eternal partners, to their soul mates, and in doing so I hope to impart upon them wisdom and salvation. When you find what you’re looking for, I will be able to recognize it and guide you accordingly. But until then I am virtually blind. The choice and the accompanying responsibility are both upon you.”

  “This isn’t an analogy though,” I argued. “This is real life.”

  “If you say so.”

  I eyed him curiously and then turned back to the many objects littering his shelves. “Isn’t a soul mate supposed to be a person?” I said. “I don’t see anything here but objects.”

  “I’m afraid that’s beyond my comprehension.”

  “You’re supposed to help me though, aren’t you? Help me.”

  “This is your store now. Everything you see is yours. How can I help?”

  I was annoyed, but what could I say or do? I kept walking through the store, examining the objects and simultaneously considering his words. So if this store was empty to him but for one, single object, then shouldn’t the same have been true for me? Why was all this junk thrown in my path? There was a basketball, a lampshade, a fishing rod, several clothes, a cricket bat, a bicycle pump, a flashlight, a stapler, several flasks and thermoses, folding chairs, umbrellas, a globe, a variety of bookends, a witch’s hat, many books without covers, empty jars and bottles, picture frames, and hundreds of similarly useless, trivial, everyday objects.

  I was about to turn around and demand that he give me some answers, when I caught sight of it from across the store, past dozens of objects, some of which were perhaps more appealing and eye-catching. Yet I knew what I was destined for.

  “I see it,” I cried, pointing to the distance.

  The shopkeeper came up to me and looked where I pointed. “I see it, too,” he said, with a satisfied smile, “Which means that your choice is right and true.”

  He took a ladder to the far shelf and climbed it all the way to the top to reach the cage. He brought it down gingerly, for it was fragile and worth far beyond mere reckoning. “I see you are blessed,” he said, as he handed the cage to me. “Not many before you have had the foresight to choose the right one as you have. Many choose from their hearts, but you chose from the mind, and thus your choice is true. The heart chooses for the body, but the mind chooses for the soul.”

  I wondered if perhaps he had gotten those words mixed up, for I would have thought the heart chose for the soul, while the mind chose for the body… but what did that matter? I had my soul mate in my hands, so nothing else mattered anymore.

  “Your soul has now found its partner,’ he told me. ‘I congratulate you.”

  I gazed at it through the bars of the cage, feeling fortunate and grateful. I was still overflowing with questions, was still frustrated, confused, helpless, and anxious about the future. But I knew that my soul mate would lend me the insight I required to find those answers.

  Inside the cage was a large, shiny object within a sturdy oval frame: a mirror.

  IX

  Hangman

  I was in a dimly lit room, washed in a disturbing shade of red. The room had only two walls, one in front and the other behind me. On either side of the two walls, the room opened out onto empty spaces, cloaked in impenetrable darkness, such that I couldn’t tell if the space was only about a foot wide, or was larger than the entire Universe. The walls and the floor were a striking hue of red and contributed more to the atmosphere of the room than any other feature. There was no ceiling, only an empty space again, covered in solid blackness. In the middle of the room was a round wooden table with two chairs. On one of the tables sat Death.

  He was not at all like I expected, for I had always imagined Death to be a short, goblin-like figure that skulked into houses in the middle of the night and stole souls from sleeping bodies. He was tall, practically gigantic, with an enormous frame beneath a heavy, red cloak. His long, skeletal limbs protruded from within the cloak, whose hood concealed his face in shadows. He had enormous hands, each larger than my head, with long, spindly fingers.

  I was seized with the urge to flee, but found myself rooted helplessly to where I stood.

  “Come, come,” he said, in a surprisingly cordial manner. “Have a seat.”

  I did not dare disobey. I took a seat at the table, feeling dwarfed by his colossal, menacing figure. I still could not see his face; there seemed to be nothing but darkness underneath the hood he wore, and yet he spoke as though he had a mouth within.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  I did not look at him. “In hell?”

  To my surprise he suddenly laughed, loudly and with considerable relish, though the gesture lacked any warmth or actual mirth. “Yes, I can see what led you to that assumption,” he said, in his deep, powerful voice. “You are somewhere in the nebulous realm between life and death. But your fate lies in your own hands. If you so wish, you may return to life.”

  “So I’m not dead?”

  “Not entirely, no.”

  I frowned. “So what happened? How did I end up here?”

  He shrugged. “You were killed.”

  “But I’m not dead?”

  “No, not yet.” He said the words plainly, without menace, and yet the threat loomed clearly behind the remark. “Whether you live or die is your choice.”

  “I want to live.”

  “I thought you would say that,” he said, with something of a sneer. He turned his head to the side, ever so slightly, and I too looked in that direction. From within the darkness, a tall T-shaped pedestal appeared, with a noose tied to one end of the bar running across the top.

  “But I said I wanted to live,” I said hastily, though with enough fear and respect in my voice, so as not to offend him.

  “I heard you.”

  A piece of paper appeared on the table between us, and on it ten dashes were drawn. My stomach tightened slightly as comprehension dawned upon me.

  “Let’s play hangman,” he said, smoothly.

  “Hangman?” I said, shakily.

  “I know you’ve played this game before,” he said, in what I imagined was as cheery a tone as his voice could reach. “Indulge me. Play a game of hangman.”

  “Are we just playing for… fun? Or is there a purpose to this?”

  He chuckled. “There is always a purpose.”

  “So if I lose…” I said, hesitantly. “Then I die?”

  His answer was immediate. “Very good! You’re sharper than I expected.”

  I stared at the word, at the ten spaces I would have to correctly
fill out in order to survive. The long, skeletal fingers of his hands met atop the table in a contemplative gesture. But I found the sight of his hands rather intimidating.

  “Do I get a clue?” I asked, tentatively.

  “Oh, silly me,” he said, slowly. “But of course—the word is the answer to life.”

  “The answer to life,” I repeated, nervously.

  “The rules are quite obvious,” he said. “You will guess one letter at a time. If your guess is correct, the letter will appear in the corresponding space. However, if your guess is wrong, then a part of you will be strung onto that noose. If you accumulate enough wrong guesses, then all of you will be dangling from that noose, and you will most certainly die.”

  I felt my palms sweat with the tension.

  “Come, come,” he sneered, with mock sympathy. “You have led an interesting life. Surely you cannot tell me that it will be a tragedy if you do not get to return.”

  Truth be told—and I suspected that he already knew it—I didn’t remember anything of my past life. I had appeared here suddenly, without any prior memory or instance to look back upon. I didn’t have an identity, a purpose, a past, or a clear future. All I knew was that my survival depended on my success in this game of deduction and chance.

  “You may begin,” he said—it was an order and not a request.

  “Um… okay, uh… ‘A’,” I said, deciding to start with the popular vowels first.

  “Good choice,” he said with a hint of disappointment, as the letter “A” appeared on the ninth space on the word. “Tell me, why do you want to live so badly?”

  I was nervous enough about the prospect of guessing correctly to save my life that I didn’t particularly feel like answering his questions. However, to not answer would have probably been foolish and near-suicidal. “I… uh… it just seems like the right choice,” I said.

  “Does it?” he said, and I sensed that he found my answer humorous.

  I stared at the empty word on the paper:

  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ A _

  “Um… my next guess is ‘O’,” I said.

  “People do labour under many misconceptions, don’t they?” he sneered, as the letter “O” was etched onto the paper, not in one of the spaces, but above the word. Once written, a line was drawn across it. Almost at once, I felt a sharp, searing pain along my shoulders—my arms were being pulled by some invisible force. I tried to resist, but how could I? With a resounding tear that induced a piercing scream from me, my arms were wrenched free from my body. They now hovered beneath the noose, as if attached to an invisible body. I had never known such pain before, and I didn’t think I would survive. I screamed at the top of my voice, and the noise echoed around the room until he very calmly but authoritatively said, “Enough.”

  I stifled my screams at once, for I didn’t dare disobey. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I writhed in pain and misery, but he didn’t even flinch.

  “I’m afraid ‘O’ was not a correct guess,” he said, with considerable delight in his voice. “Tell me,” he carried on conversationally, as if my arms hadn’t just been torn off my body. “What do you think death is? What does death mean to you?”

  Breathing hard with panic and agony, I did not answer him at once. I contemplated his words through a fog of pain, before answering, “It means… release.”

  “Do explain.”

  “Death… is an escape,” I panted. “Life is predictable, even at its most turbulent and unexpected moments. But death? Death is an escape from everyday reality.”

  “What sort of a release do you think death brings?”

  Though I was answering him, my mind was busy contemplating my future. What if I guessed the word correctly and my life was subsequently spared? Would my arms be returned to my body and this agonizing pain erased from my memory?

  “I suppose… it must be something like salvation,” I said.

  “So it’s a spiritual release?” he said, derisively. “So that’s what you expect will happen to you in death. You expect God will ride down on a golden chariot and rescue you?”

  I nodded, not daring to look at him. I stared at the blank spaces in silence before deciding to risk another letter. In an ever so small voice, I said, “E.”

  Though his face was hidden beneath the hood, I could sense his ugly features twisting into an evil grin. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said, with mock sympathy. “Wrong again.”

  I had never known that the human body could withstand so much pain and yet survive, for my legs were then similarly twisted, stretched and ripped from my torso. I had to be dead, for no living being could sustain so much torture. But if I was dead, then why was I still feeling pain? Wasn’t death a physical end? Shouldn’t my body have been dead by now?

  All that was left of me now was my torso—with the head attached—hovering loosely above my chair, while my arms and my legs dangled in mid-air beneath the noose. On the paper, next to the “O” the letter “E” had been added with a similar line struck through it.

  “How… how much more?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

  “Keep guessing,” he said, simply.

  I closed my eyes and tried desperately to think of something that would mask the anguish, but nothing worked. I felt as if my body had been set on fire, and I could already feel the effects of phantom pains, for it felt like my limbs were searing with latent wounds.

  “Keep guessing,” he repeated, in a brusque tone.

  I hastily thought of what my next guess would be. I had two more vowels to consider, so I decided I might as well try them. Surely a word of ten letters would have more than just the one vowel in it. So I chose “I” next. At first I sensed more twisted pleasure emanating from within him, but that soon shifted to outrage as he hissed loudly at me. The letter “I” appeared in three spaces: the first, the fourth, and finally the sixth. Relief washed over my beaten body.

  “Well done,” he muttered. “But you still have six spaces to guess before you live again, while just two more errors will condemn you to my dungeons for eternity.” Then he laughed, and what a chilling, cruel laugh it was! My very bones seemed to shiver at the sound of it.

  I _ _ I _ I _ _ A _

  I stared at the word with the four spaces filled, and wondered if I ought to risk guessing “U.” In hindsight perhaps I should have, but I wasn’t thinking clearly with the effects of the pain. So I pondered many letters at length before choosing my first consonant. “T,” I said.

  I knew at once that I had guessed wrong.

  This time my torso was torn free of my neck. I could never accurately describe the tearing, twisting, excruciating pain of having one’s neck separated from the torso, but I was sure I had endured what no other living being had endured before; for decapitation would normally certainly kill, and yet I was still very much alive now. The body dangling below the noose was nearly complete, but for my head and neck, which now hovered above the table, facing Death.

  “One last chance remains,” he told me.

  “What will happen if I guess wrong and die?” I asked.

  There was a long silence before he answered. “I do not know,” he said at last, with a hint of bitterness, as if he lamented the fact that he didn’t know the answer.

  “Will I go to Heaven?”

  “I do not know.”

  I sighed. The word was right in front of me, and yet I couldn’t figure it out. I thought of consonants that would probably most likely be in a word: I thought of N, M, D, S…

  “D.”

  I could feel him seething with rage as two ‘D’s appeared on the third and the seventh space of the word. It now spelt: I _ D I _ I D _ A _

  I stared at the word for a long time, hoping some form of inspiration would strike, but it didn’t. I couldn’t endure this torture anymore, so I guessed blindly. “S
?” I said, in a small voice.

  It was over.

  The moment I said it, I sensed the sheer delight radiating from within him. He stood to his feet as my head was torn from reality, from the living, and reunited with the rest of my body. The noose was tightened around my neck and I dangled lifelessly before him.

  “The answer, for I know you are dying to know, is ‘Individual,’” he said, and laughed coldly. “For it is the individual that is at the heart of all existence. We define our lives by that notion, by putting the individual before the collective, and yet we fail to realise that the collective is the individual. It would perhaps interest you to know that the God you worship is within you, just as he is within me. We are all one individual.” Saying he removed the hood that covered his head, and I stared into a face that I realised was my very own.

  X

  Immortal in Death

  I clutched the knife in desperation, but it was too late. I felt hot blood gush onto my hands as I fell to the floor, crippled with the fatal wound in my chest. My eyes spun around the room one last time before they closed forever. The animals looked down upon me, their expressions cold and hostile—it was fitting perhaps that I should die where I had restored them.

  Death isn’t instantaneous. A soul that has suffered through a mortal existence, encased within a living body, does not part with its circumstance willingly. When a body dies—or to put it more aptly, when a body ceases to function, the soul trickles out slowly and reluctantly. Unsheltered and vulnerable, it floats unheeded in a metaphysical ocean. Space doesn’t embrace the freshly liberated soul with warm hospitality, for it is still a foreign matter, best left encased within another body. Thus it is bullied, or quite simply coerced into the nearest available body. But until such time as a suitable accommodation can be found, the consciousness drifts in a sort of celestial limbo, not unlike a patient in the waiting room of a clinic.

  My eyes closed within the shop, but awoke in a forest. I was walking beside an adult zebra. We were already deep in conversation, and I seemed to be full of many questions.