And What Then?

Marm Dixit
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

And then what? You reached the last page of the book you had been reading. The end of the line. There is no more of Hermione, or Gandalf, or Granny Weatherwax, or Rincewind. All is well, at times. Sometimes it is not. Eitherways, what then? I realize that I like reading books, but I don’t like finishing them. At least, not if I am being truthful about it. There are evenings when I come back home and wonder whom I am going to talk to now that the tale is done and dusted. If all ends well and is well, what do we do? At times, it is impossible to give myself a reason to start another book.

I wrote this before in the shadows of the mountains:

All destinations are boring. Phenomenally boring. You know why ‘mountain climbing’ is a sport and not ‘mountain tops’. What’s on the top anyways? A view from the top, clouds below your feet and an overpowering sense of loneliness. You need to climb down. Mountaintops will not sustain sanity for long. Exhilaration is momentary. A sense of aimlessness is perpetual. There is only a finite amount of pleasure derivable in a given life. Destinations have a trend of dropping from pleasure to melancholy in three hundred seconds. And the question still remains: then you succeed, what then?

All endings are heartless.

-Stephen King

This man ends his book in a way that I only remember one other book doing: the Manchurian Candidate (if I am remembering correctly). Ka is a wheel, and all it can do is turn against the road, over and over and over again. The only constant feeling in life is that of struggle. And there is nothing like betting your wits against the blind curve of life.

And so -

I pick her up and forget,
that I used to love another
till very recently.
It is not lust,
this madness within me,
it has all symptoms of love.
But I forget whom I loved,
so dearly,
only a day ago.
I lose myself in another.
Then another.
Then another.
Forgetting all loves past.
And still,
on nights longer than sleep,
ghosts of old loves visit.
Marina comes and brings back,
a wake of sorrow.
Tiffany brings back laughter.
Eowyn leaves me with courage and hope.
Rapunzel, wanderlust.
Granny Weatherwax, if she comes,
brings wisdom and
leaves me bereft again.
I realize that love is an emotion.
And like all emotions
it is transient.
Can you be angry all the time,
sad all the time,
happy all the time?
No, right?
You cannot be in love all the time.
And definitely not
with the same beloved.
I keep the book down,
rushing past the last page.
I revel the post-completion
frame of mind,
book in my arms
(not very unlike a little death).
I realize I am in love.
Next morning,
while leaving,
I pick up another.
I pick her up and forget,
that I used to love another
until very recently.

True love never ends. Beloved, most certainly do.

)

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