I am positive there can’t be a story grimmer than the tale of my origins. If I was born now, and not a couple of decades earlier, the video of my birth would have gone viral on social media.
The timing of my arrival wasn’t probably right, nor was the setting of my birth. My Ma lay on the ground at the mouth of a cave, and was chanced upon, by a trekker. Ma was partly conscious; in the last throes of labor. She couldn’t push me out. I was stuck.
The trekker pulled out a Swiss pocket knife and scooped me out of my mother’s womb. He could do so without much fuss because he was a nurse. He saved me. I call him Savior. Nonetheless, my Ma died.
The Cave On The Beach At Earth’s Edge. Yes, that very cave. Or blooming cave, as Hilda would say.
Pa vanished into thin air before Ma fell. The story goes Ma and Pa were exploring the cave and the gases in the blooming cave pulverized Pa into vapor. One moment he was full bodied; the next just thin air. Wild animals must have feasted on his bone fragments, if any were left. Another theory was he turned rogue --- sold the chemical warfare recipe to an enemy nation.
It wasn’t impossible to unravel the truth. But I held back because I had promised grandaunt Hilda, I would never visit the cave till she encountered afterlife.
Hilda was my mother’s aunt. However, she was my whole world. She had bid goodbye to the love of her life to raise, Ma and me. Hilda taught me to read, write and dance in the rain. She worked as a Professor of English Literature at the university, where I eventually enrolled for my master’s degree in chemistry.
Hilda’s large heartedness was tested at the mention of Pa’s name. She transformed from my Ms. Santa Claus into an acerbic tongued, geriatric.
‘Bad news that’s what he was, Yann Watters. Tempting Satan, with his misplaced notions. And, my Hope, such a babe in the woods, fell head over heels in love with him. Yann was a smooth talker. Yet, all that stuff and nonsense about the battered surface of the moon got him nowhere, didn’t it?’
Hilda’s house and my life were bereft of pictures, diaries or any of
slick Yann’s belongings. The memorabilia of Pa’s life were sucked into the vacuum of his exit. Science rubbishes the theory of a true vacuum though. So, where was Yann Watters?
A framed picture of my mother, with her hand placed protectively over a seven- month pregnant belly, stood on the mantle-piece. The denim pinafore accentuated the bulge of her stomach. She reclined on Hilda’s worn leather armchair. Her gaze brimmed with promise of a fresh tomorrow. It was a treasured moment of mother and daughter together, stolen from time.
That pinafore now hung in my closet. The picture and the pinafore were the two souvenirs from my past. Both of them belonged to the time when I was struggling to be born. So, in my ‘me time moments,’ I obsessed over the cave.
Hilda had begun to slip; the signs were obvious now. She rambled about Pa and his magic beans. It was tragic to see her shoo away our neighbor Amanda; call her Meddlesome Mandy. The two were close friends, almost soul sisters, but Hilda was now wary of her.
One morning, I found Hilda standing in the middle of the living room. My mother’s photo was cradled in her arms.
‘Hope was so delicately built. The fierce redness of that scar torched her skin,’ she cried in a quavering voice.
‘Which scar, Hilda?’
Hilda shook her head, desolately. ‘That blooming cesarean scar, child. I advised Hope to rub rosemary oil, but she paid no heed to my advice, at all.’
Hilda’s wounded expression broke my heart. Ma had passed away a few minutes after I was born. The Savior had ferried us to the hospital in his truck. Hilda was summoned to identify her niece’s motionless form. However, she couldn’t have seen a taint on my Ma’s abdomen. A fresh wound isn’t a scar. My mother was laid to rest the next morning. I realized Hilda’s time was approaching too.
So was the cave.
I tiptoed behind Hilda to her room. My grandaunt unclasped the gold chain around her neck and removed the key dangling from it. She opened the closet and put the key in the lock of the safe hidden in the far corner. Though Hilda claimed she kept no secrets from me, she was never forth-coming with discussions about her safe. I was certain it contained love-letters. I had asked Hilda once about the safe and its contents. All in good time, she replied with a watery smile.
That night I stepped into the balcony and stared into the vastness of space. The moon and stars were missing from the pitch-black sky. It seemed as if our planet was quarantined in the infiniteness. Suddenly, several streaks of light created countless zig-zag patterns. A meteor shower, out of the blue!
The light ribbons must have navigated a billion light years to reach our solar system. Was it possible for us to traipse across realms to reconnect with those who had bid us goodbye? Or those who hadn’t? Those who had just vanished! Would time collapse, or stretch, across past, present and future? Connect everything forever.
Hilda died soon after the brilliance of the meteor shower faded. I held her frail hand in mine as she closed her eyes for the last time. Safe travels, my superstar, I whispered in her ear.
Hilda’s funeral resonated with emotions of friends, neighbors and colleagues. She was hailed for her compassion. They said she placed the interests of others before her own. I could vouch for it. She had certainly placed my interests over everything else in her world.
If there was talk about Hilda’s dynamics with the Hermit, I ignored it. He was present at the funeral; a bowler’s hat covered his face.
I delivered a tribute to Hilda in an unfaltering voice.
‘The ancients believed the moon and the earth were locked together by an unseen energy. Similarly, Hilda and I were destined, to take on life and the universe together. I once asked Hilda why is it always about me? Why don’t you write your own story? She replied, you are my story, my precious.
When mothers dragged their children indoors during a downpour, Hilda allowed the rain to invigorate my every pore. We would breathe the heavenly scent of rain together as it toyed with the earth.
The sun sets brilliantly, only to rise with a fresh splendor the next morning. That holds true for my grandaunt. She hasn’t left me. Hilda is the air that sustains me, every tear in my eye, and the glitter in a velvet night.
To Hilda.’ I called out gaily.
A merry chorus of love followed.
The clouds burst forth with shimmering prisms of rain as if to rejoice at Hilda’s arrival in heaven. At that very moment, I felt someone leave. He had his back to me, but sixth sense told me, it was the Hermit.
My finger trailed Hilda’s golden chain that I now wore around my neck. The mortician had handed it to me before the funeral. Yet, Hilda’s safe would have to wait. There was a lot on my plate already.
The next afternoon, I journeyed to the ‘Beach At Earth’s Edge.’ Pirates had named it so. Earth’s Edge sounded dramatic; caused an aura around it. What if one went over the edge? Where will one fall?
The beach was deserted except for a group of fitness enthusiasts, and sea-gulls perched on the wet sand.
I had studied the cave’s map thoroughly. I negotiated the treacherous rocks at the beach’s periphery, and after a steep climb, reached the top. I was surprised to see a ramshackle office set against the flat rocks near the cave’s entrance.
‘Who are you?’ A man, seated at a desk, peered at me for a while and then buried his nose in the pages of his register.
I remained quiet.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ he said in a caustic tone.
A tattoo on his forearm caught my attention. It seemed vaguely familiar though I had no idea why.
I identified myself and stated the purpose of my visit.
‘Your name isn’t mentioned in my register. I am the Janitor, so I would know,’ he rasped.
‘Anyway, I will allow you to go in since there’s no one else.’
It took me several minutes to trek up to the cave. I strapped a mask over my mouth and stepped inside.
The cave was spacious and well-lit by the afternoon sun. It was cool inside too. Several rows of pedunculated and trifurcated rocks were suspended from the ceiling like vertical icicles. The cave’s floor was made up of large slabs of rock. Gentle streams of water swept through the corners.
I proceeded to the core. The interiors were dark. I switched on my flashlight; clutched at the rocks for support. My fingers brushed against a velvet tapestry of moss that lined the cave’s wall. I let go of the wall, lowered my mask and sniffed the air. It was clean and fresh.
I stumbled over a piece of rock and the torch fell on the cave’s floor. The light went out. The cave lay shrouded in a pitch-black curtain. I tried to feel my way around but could feel nothing but emptiness around me.
Was this infinity wherein one sees nothing, feels nothing, hears nothing? The complete moment of nothingness; total abandonment? I felt restful in the moment; but panicked in the next.
‘Yann.’ I called aloud.
‘Yann Watters.’
I thought of the letter I had written to Pa ages ago.
Dear Pa,
Where are you? Don’t you love me?
Hilda had scolded me for writing it. That night I slept with the letter underneath my pillow. The next morning it was gone.
I knelt down on the floor of the cave and hammered it with my fists.
‘Where is my letter, Yann?’ I cried out again and again, hitting my hands on the rocks. The cave gave me no answer. The heavy silence made me furious.
‘Fuck you.’ I screamed at it.
Tears poured down my cheeks. The rocks appeared like claws through the blur of tears. They were eager to rip me apart. The once icicle-like stalactites morphed into huge canines that gnashed at the upward leaning stalagmites. My head seemed stuck between the jaws of a savage beast. Surely, this could not be the end?
‘No!’ I screamed.
With immense effort, I yanked my head free and tumbled into a stream. My red t-shirt had ripped and my arm was wounded. I fished out a handkerchief from my pocket and tied it over the cut.
A violent explosion suddenly burst in my ears. A tornado like spiral wind had forced itself into the cave. A frenzied Dervish danced around me; looked me in the face, with eyes like embers. It growled, angrily, and sent shivers down my spine. No wonder Hilda hadn’t wanted me to visit the blooming cave. The Dervish soon calmed down as it sensed my fear. The nascent menace in the cave vanished magically. I flashed the Dervish a brave smile.
He performed a gesture that mimicked a bow. Suddenly, I found myself floating in mid-air against his fizz. We trotted, frisked and listened to the crashing sound of sea waves. As if in rhythm with the symphony of the universe. My foamy friend twisted itself into a circle. Its silver effervescence revealed the Enzo sign --- the symbol for infinity.
I understood the comet had woven it in the sky too the night Hilda passed through.
Several beams of light streamed inside the cave. They shone, paused and shone again. A pattern of light and darkness. That was followed by the sight of the earth revolving around the sun; and the moon orbiting the earth. Was I looking at this celestial revelation from a space craft, light years away?
The images faded. They were replaced by a gossamer veil of stardust. It parted to reveal a young lady dressed in a denim pinafore. She was Ma.
Our eyes met, and she smiled at me. I had often dreamt of this smile. I wanted to run and cling to Ma for an eternity. But when I moved forward, the ground beneath us moved. She was carried away. My arms remained outstretched in an empty space. A faint lullaby filled the cave instead. The lullaby of my childhood.
A strange sort of peace settled over me. I understood Ma, like Hilda, was everywhere.
I raced to the cave’s maws drenched in sweat. The last thing I saw before I collapsed was a bewildered squirrel seeking refuge in a rosemary shrub.
‘Are you okay?’ A concerned voice spoke.
‘Huh!’
A pair of kind eyes stared at me. An athletic man in his mid-thirties, was crouched at my side. Must be a tourist, I thought; he was carrying a backpack.
He helped me sit up and gave me water to drink.
‘Thanks,’ I murmured.
‘I was in such a rush, to leave the cave that I must have slipped over a rock.’ It was the only explanation I could provide for now.
‘Yes, I saw you racing out, looking spooked.’
‘Did you manage to climb the rocks wearing these?’ I pointed to his maroon plimsolls.
He grinned. ‘I am Sky.’
‘Sky!’ I exclaimed startled.
‘Does my name sound weird?’ He grinned.
‘No, I have heard it before. Sky, it seems, I owe you big time.’
I stood up. Sky tucked my arm in the crook of his elbow. We began our descent.
‘Where on earth is the royal custodian?’ I questioned as we approached the office.
‘Praying.’ Sky pointed to the Janitor.
Sky drove me home. I invited him into my flat.
We sat in Hilda’s living room. Sky was an archeologist determined to explore the ancient wisdom. I spoke about Hilda; her unconditional love, my mysterious parents.
‘Hilda sounds like an amazing energy.’ Sky remarked.
‘You missed meeting her by a couple of days,’ I said, wistfully.
He reached for my mother’s framed photograph.
‘Mother and child?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded.
He ruffled my hair. At precisely that moment, the nickel dropped. I had found a missing link to my life.
We soon became inseparable. Sky would meet me in the university library where we would browse through thick volumes. The scent of old pages bound in leather and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee at nearby cafés stayed with me for decades. They would stir up my senses like nothing else.
I visited him at his bachelorette sometimes. We would laze on cushions; watch old movies, devour instant noodles. When it rained, we took unhurried walks. One day, Sky rented a bicycle made for two. We created a riot.
A few weeks later, I was a bit on edge. All sorts of thoughts crowded my mind. Why had my father abandoned me? Ma had gone; Hilda too. I still didn’t know what happened in the cave.
‘What if my parents were part of a secret cult that believed in restricted access to information? Were they pagans? Or did they want to get rid of me, and the blooming cave was the right place to do it?’
‘They didn’t have to wait months to get rid of a child,’ Sky answered in a matter-of-fact way.
‘Caves are notorious for hoarding crevices and furrows. Yann may have lost his footing. Years of weathering leads to crystal and gypsum formation that hide such cracks.
‘Yann could have even been washed away to the sea,’ Sky said.
I frowned.
‘If you promise not to frown, I will introduce you to the Hermit.’ Sky commented.
‘Hermit? Hilda despised hermits. She said their otherworld knowledge and mumbo-jumbo was crap.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me in the least. But this Hermit is no charlatan. Meet him, it will do you a world of good.’
‘Okay, and I promise not to frown.’
Sky hugged me. It was an embrace scrubbed clean of the male gaze. Sky was as safe as my own house.
He arranged for me to meet the Hermit the following afternoon. The Hermit was a departure from all expectations. He was dressed in an incongruously dapper suit, complimented with no-show socks. Sky had prepped the Hermit well, as he knew a lot about me.
‘My life has revolved around the cave since forever. I can’t seem to break free from its clasp,’ I said in a sharp voice.
‘You have awakened to the truth,’ The Hermit replied.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We all desire freedom from time’s constraints.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The Hermit looked me in the eye. ‘Yann told me so.’
‘Did my father seek an audience with you?’ I asked in disbelief.
‘No, I requested an audience with him.’
Was the Hermit trying to play with my mind?
‘Did you see any tunnels in the cave?’
‘No, but they may have been weathered by the erosions and water,’ I replied.
‘May have,’ he was skeptical.
‘What else did you encounter?’ The Hermit pressed.
I closed my eyes and saw myself drifting inside the cave.
The rocks, streams and velvet moss flashed before my mind’s eye. I sensed the empty exquisiteness of isolation, and the dread of captivity. I remembered gazing at the earth spin around the sun; the moon orbiting the earth. Then the vision of my mother. The apparition had numbed my years of pain.
I opened my eyes and narrated my feelings to the Hermit.
‘Thank you,’ he bowed. ‘You have told me about the rocks, the water, the earth, the moon and your mother. But you have forgotten something, haven’t you?’
‘I even danced with a frenzied Dervish.’ I confessed, sheepishly.
‘What did the Dervish say to you?’
Surely, he couldn’t know. I thought wildly.
‘It was something I couldn’t understand.’
‘Really.’
‘I may have …’ I hesitated.
The Hermit paused before he spoke.
‘When a child is born, he is a reservoir of truth. But there’s a reason he doesn’t speak. What would happen if it did?’
I was silent.
‘It may not like its new parents … it may want to return to the lover, children, or friends it has been taken away from. It may be searching for his mother or father. The way you yearn for your parents. Sometimes, the truth stares at you in the face, but you can’t see it.’
‘Yes.’ I mumbled.
‘May I take your leave?’ I said after a pause.
‘Sky wants me to meet him outside the cave shortly.’
‘I will watch out for you, forever.’ He gave me a cryptic smile.
I drove to the beach, eagerly. A salty foam sprinkled against my face when I arrived at its sands. As I stared at the cave, I understood the significance of the beach’s name. The cave was positioned on an edge between the on-goers, and those left behind.
The Janitor wasn’t surprised at my arrival this time. He accompanied me to the mouth of the cave. I waited for Sky to turn up. He didn’t.
I frantically called his office. Yet, they claimed no one called Sky worked there.
‘Damn this blooming cave to hell.’ I lashed out at the Janitor and pounded my hands against his chest.
‘Madam, I don’t understand this language.’
‘It is the language of the cave.’
‘Under this infinite sky, and at this eternal moment, I am yours and you are mine.’
I repeated what the Dervish had said.
I snatched the Janitor’s water bottle and gulped down the fluid. The water spluttered out of my mouth, and spilled over my clothes. I was about to pat myself dry when my hand stopped in mid-air. How could this be possible?
I stared in shock at my red t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt’s sleeve was torn, and my jeans were mud-stained. It was the exact outfit I had worn when I had first visited the cave. The day I met Sky.
I looked at the date on my watch. It was the twenty-first of June. The longest day of the year. The day I had visited the cave; a day after Hilda’s funeral.
Oh God! Had time stood still? Or had it compressed itself for a purpose?
‘Madam, are you okay? You were unconscious, so I sprinkled water over you.’ The Janitor hovered around me with an uncapped water bottle in his hand.
‘Where is Sky?’ I noticed his tattoo. It was the Enzo circle.
‘The sky is over all of us. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’
‘Dreaming!’ I was startled.
Had I dreamt about my life with Sky?
It began to add up soon after. I had visited the cave, encountered some source of trapped energy that made me hallucinate. There’s always a scientific explanation for such things. The Dervish was nothing but a strong current of air. I must have fallen on the rocks, suffered concussions and experienced lucid dreams.
I hurriedly scrambled down the rocks, heedless to the unforgiving stones as they lacerated my hands. I needed the sanctuary of Hilda’s home. I needed to be safe.
‘Safe,’ I repeated to myself after a while as I stormed into Hilda’s flat. How stupid of me to be looking in the wrong place! My obsession with the cave had blinded me to the reality hidden in my own home.
Sometimes, the truth stares you in the face, but you can’t see it. The Hermit was right.
I unlocked the safe. A large envelope lay inside.
I emptied the contents on the bed. The letter I had written to Pa was right there. I picked it and held it to my bosom. Tears made twin trails down my cheeks.
There were two yellowed newspaper cuttings too in the envelope. I straightened one such rumpled piece of paper. It was dated for twenty-five years ago.
Yann Watters returns from the moon.
I read the headline again and again; stared at my father’s picture in utter disbelief. He was dressed in a space suit; held his space-helmet under his arm.
I was looking at a picture of Sky.
I had dreamt of Sky, who all this while was my father. Or was it the other way round, and Yann Watters was Sky?
Breathlessly, I read the second newspaper cutting. It was an article about a trekker who had delivered a baby outside The Cave On The Beach At Earth’s Edge.
I stared at the picture of my Savior. It was the Hermit. I almost fainted with shock.
I somehow gathered the courage to glance at the photographs nestled between the newspaper cuttings. What lay in store?
The initial photograph depicted Hilda with a young man. Still my only love. Hilda had scrawled at the back. I could recognize her handwriting anywhere.
I looked at the photograph closely once again. ‘The only love’ was undeniably the Janitor.
The second photograph was of a young lady with her man. They were perched on a ‘bicycle made for two.’ Hope and Yann, the inscription read.
It was a photo of Ma and Sky. Or should I say Ma and Pa?
How could I have dreamt of them? I bit my lip.
It took me a while to regain my composure. I decided to take a shower.
I tossed the dirty clothes in the washing machine in Hilda’s bathroom. I went to my dressing room and looked at myself in the full- length mirror. My eyes looked haunted, and my skin had been grazed. My gaze travelled downwards and I screamed in horror.
No! It couldn’t be true.
Splayed across my lower abdominal skin, above my pubic hairline, was a horizontal scar.
The scar was red hot, a reminder of a recent cesarean surgery. I had never undergone surgery in my life. Hilda’s voice came into the room, ‘That blooming cesarean scar.’
It took a lot of energy to walk to the closet and take out Ma’s pinafore. I wore it for the first time in my life. It was a bit oversized.
I read the entire article in the newspaper below my father’s picture.
The stone, or moon rock, recovered by Watters from the moon is composed of minerals whose properties are unexplored. Traces of water and volcanic activity have been suggested. However, the public is being spared the scientific or lunar details. Though scientists and government agencies have adopted a tight-lipped policy to deflect mass hysteria, Watters insists the rock can crack the earth’s magnetosphere, warp gravity and manipulate time. If this is proven true, the rock could be the key to redeem our previous errors. Probably the moon stone is older than time? Will this discovery make Yann Watters a national hero, an enemy of the state or a prey for rogue nations?
According to our insider, Yann and his wife have been whisked away to a secret destination with the tightest of security. Now the million-dollar question. Where is the rock?
Dusk had settled. I went to the balcony to close the French windows. The scene before me threw me off balance. The clothes I had placed in the machine flapped in the wind on the washing line. I hadn’t even started the laundry.
The past several hours of turbulence in my mind had heaved out a tiny, yet phenomenal detail. When I had washed my wounded hands in the cave’s stream, I had fished out a tiny rock. I had thrust it in my pocket and forgotten about it.
The stone had rolled out of my jeans, when they were strung on the washing line. It lay in the farthest corner of our balcony. Next to the bird feeder bowl, full of water. The birds would discover it at dawn.
The mystery behind my existence was driving me insane. I needed to ascertain who I was. I fished out my identity card from my bag.
Rosemary Sky Watters, it read.
Why did you name me Rosemary? I had asked Hilda when I was three years old.
You will find your answers in good time, my child. She had replied.
I blinked furiously to dampen the image of rosemary shrubs that fringed the entrance of the cave. Had Hilda ever visited the cave?
Hilda, Hope and Rosemary. Three women, three lives, yet conjoined through time’s infinite corridors.
Time! One word, tangled between an infinitely layered net.
Yann Watters’ name will be cleared. I will find him even if I have to travel to the edge of the earth, I resolved.
The great cycle of birth and after life is unending. Like the vastness of the cosmic dance. We are reborn and rediscovered with all that is.
A voice cautioned me from the evening shadows.
Was it Sky speaking, or the Hermit, or even the Janitor? I wasn’t sure. Maybe it belonged to Yann Watters. Or had I just heard the Dervish?
I headed to the living room and looked at Ma’s photograph on the mantle-piece.
There is so much of me in her. On an impulse, I tucked a large sofa cushion under my pinafore.
Yeah, that does it. I patted the faux seven-month pregnant bump.
The door-bell rang. It must be Mandy checking on me.
Meddlesome Mandy, Hilda had scoffed. That was the day Mandy insisted it was tough to tell Hope from Hilda; or Hilda from Rosemary.
THE END.