“Slim” rings in his head over and over again. He knows why but tries not to think about it. Yet, he is uncertain what makes him want to scream, even more so whether this would help. He knows what he battles daily, but the problems are not going away. He knows he needs to continue to act, and his neighbours seem to agree, so far. He thinks of calling them out again, but is uncertain they still have the zeal. Meanwhile, time is running out. Rot creeps around. Now, though, it is right at his entrance, and the voice in his head constantly reminds him that he must act.
He plods back and forth, irreverent to time, the very thing he proudly professes is the only thing he hates, and derisive of it now for the very reason he hates it. Yet, he is not going to budge. His head is pounding even harder. His thoughts run amok, not least on the curious glances that sweep across his face every few minutes, the frequency of which to his relief time seems to diminish, if not mellow. He sits for a while, and then keeps pacing. This seems to ease his pain. However, it does nothing to the hurt he wants to mend, or to the cranial drumbeat he sometimes prays goes away, or even to the voice in his head that waxes and wanes synchronously with this beat.
He realizes he is acting alone this time, and as nothing seems to change, even when he is not, he feels the need to do something different. He believes he needs to change to expect others to change. He is flustered the more his thoughts veer in this direction. That he feels just as frozen in time as those he expects to make a difference wallops him. Pacing the distance that the previous three hours made for him, Olympian becomes a chore. Just then, his goal muscles to the fore. Duty trumps glory. The kliegs shine again on all.
He now even mutters. Probing eyes lance him even more but they are painless. He remains in limbo. Words that he carefully crafts bolster and armour him. Sometimes he chants, other times, he rhymes, in subdued tones though, and garners strength. He conjures images of pain and shame, and he consoles and rages, in an imaginary conversation whose tenor he strenuously modulates. He is mindful of the dismay his actions may stir. Yet, he sees himself now in a different place, where he believes he has to be to effect the change in himself he deems crucial to that he hopes to inspire in others. He knows he needs to remind himself of the very reasons he still paces the realm of the temporal powers he hopes would effect the changes he seeks, hours after he first got there. He begs in his mind for the voice.
His efforts seem to pay off as the voice rings louder in his head. He walks toward the massive glass window that separates him from the ground that seems to be miles away. He looks across, and sees a building, through the foggy glass. A throng of doctors and nurses hasten about. He does not think it is a hospital, because he reckons, it is too far from the ground. People, their faces long-drawn, some with bandages soaked in blood round their heads also walk around seemingly in a daze. Others simply stare in his direction, their eyes begging for help, their children gaunt, and the elderly groping thin air. He promptly realizes that the place fits into the waxworks that torment his soul.
Moments later, he hears a door slam and he looks back. It is not the door he expects to open. The two individuals that emerge look different from those in the building across the street. Dressed in well-trimmed purple suits, their cuff links and tie pins glistering in gold, their shoes evocative of the ornaments of mythical gods, they strut down the corridor where others join them in what looks like a titanic frenzy. As they disappear into a door, he looks back across the street, only to see them stroll merrily along where a while earlier was a closet of misery. He turns round and starts pacing again, still hoping the right door would open to usher him into a new era. Now he even wills the voice in his head to become louder, and it seems to work. His make-believe dialogue also intensifies.
At this point, not even the stature of the office scares him anymore, nor does the starkness of his appearance bother him. He does not regret changing his mind about buying a new shirt for the visit. He is no longer afraid of change. He sees pursuing goals greater than himself as inherently noble. He believes he would achieve this goal regardless of his presentation, since he sees change as inevitable. Yet, he is uncertain how he would convince anyone else about this. Still pondering, the clock on the wall chimes. Someone taps him on the shoulder. He starts, and then looks back. A scruffy-looking man is standing there. He says he is the caretaker.
Something clicks between them. They start to chat. He soon finds out that the door he waits for to open is shut for the day, and that everyone has gone home. He realizes that he has been waiting on the wrong door. The caretaker shows him the other doors and tells him that they all lead to the same office, but that everyone comes in and leaves through the same door, the door they will use on any particular day, difficult to know. The intricacies of change at once resurface on his mind. He struggles to shake himself out of the dejection that follows. In some way, he believes the caretaker, but the aroma of alcohol that envelopes the man, even as he leaves, raises trust issues, the melody made by the bunch of keys hooked to his belt in tandem with his unsteady steps however, a soothing contrast.
He knows it is time to go home. He takes a few steps then pauses as he watches the man check on the doors, presumably to make sure that they are locked. Transfixed on the spot, he looks across the street and sees the same people in purple suits emerge from a door heading in his direction, this time, evidently distressed. They mingle with people who seem to be just as anguished. There are doctors and nurses there too. No one says a thing. Then, suddenly the place is empty. “How may I help you sir?” Someone at the door beckons to him. He walks gingerly toward the door, the caretaker on his mind. As he sinks into a sofa, a mammoth figure in a purple suit emerges from an inner chamber, and asks his name. “Call me Slim,” he responds, after a brief pause. He is eager to stay calm struggling to see his host’s face and at the same time free himself from the sofa.
As he enters the inner chamber, he wonders if he would succeed in securing the change he desperately craves. With so much at stake, images of festoon embedded in a festering mesh fluttering in his mind, cries of people close to him audible from afar, memories of the roots of his abiding quest for change looming large, and the voice in his head as ever, a passionate mantra, he wills himself to succeed. I had no such power let alone luck. At well past midnight, my eyes cried for sleep. The diary must have slipped off my hand. It was lying on the floor the next morning, opened and face down, the last sentence, “Call me Slim.”
