“Life you may evade, but death you shall not.”

Those words keep ringing in my ears, pounding inside my brain (the part that still functions rationally as well as the adaptive unconscious) and I look ay my life. I spread out the puzzle, the jigsaw before my eyes, spread it out… spread it out and eulogize my soul’s lament as I calculate why good things happen to bad people, why bad things happen to good people and why a sky worth of tragedy fills up the fissures of whoever and whatever’s in-between.

Oh and the pain. It’s so surreal that even the thought of hurt shattered to piercing embers causes a ripple in the deep vaults of my tortured mind… and soul. I savor the irony. I giggle at my dilemma. My wretched dilemma.

Day before yesterday I realized that T.S Elliot actually had (and by far still does) more to say with just a fraction of his literary devices and writing than most proclaimed writers/protagonists/artistes have to say in a lifetime.

“Life you may evade, but death you shall not.”

Pardon my cloak of shrouded gloom but my past few weeks haven’t exactly unfolded the way I’d imagined. Even if life is cruel and fate is blind, still a man can stand by what he believes and face the chaos and carnage. You can’t be afraid. No… no…no…no…. Because the power of fear overwhelms even the power of righteousness and the power of hope and all the cherry merry things caught between the bull and the matador. But what if you’re just too bummed out, broken and encapsulated in your own sorrow - that you could make a Goth melt before your eyes – that even the fear of loss, the fear of life slipping away and the fear of death tends to have little effect because you are numb.

Because you’re empty anyway. And you can feel the emptiness eating away at your resolve. And then you remind yourself that life is cruel and that destiny cut out her eyes in the beginning of time.

Someone incredibly close to me was in need of urgent medical attention, so I do not borrow the money but I speak to my broker and have some of my shares sold to raise the required sum for the said treatment. That was the dough I had planned to utilize for the rent this September. So I spend the morning and afternoon taking care of this respective problem and even if I cannot disclose greater detail a part of me just lost its way after that day, never to return. I can feel the absence… the feeding fracture of what used to be, but now will not.

I think of everything wrong and bad that I’ve done to the people around me. How I’ve hurt them. How I’ve indirectly or decisively distanced myself and tell myself that this is me paying my dues for all that. I have to tell myself something ‘cos here I am going crazy. I am clawing at my integrity and then the fear… oh… the fear that this pain will only haunt me in my dreams… in my own abyss of unnatural sleep.

I am right. The pain does not recede and likely never will (And you must all by this point be thinking this fucker has finally lost it this time or something to the effect of “Isn’t he a masochist?”)

Without humor one can’t really take devastation with a pinch of salt. More like a punch of salt.

But I am also strong. A lot stronger than most people perceive me to be. Leaving aside the exterior, the attitude and the Rock ‘n Roll persona – great tragedy; things that have tried to torture me and kill me have not been able to destroy me… in fact some of those things have made me more esoteric and bizarre… but also stronger. And as the late Heath Ledger playing the Joker in this year’s Dark Knight says “I believe that what doesn’t kill you just makes you…stranger”.

It’s true if you think about it. ‘Cos circumstance and consequence makes us different or indifferent… It changes us, alters us, molds us into something more fragile or something that’s unrelenting.

I am an emotional person. I am an individual that is hurt more by betrayal by a close friend than heartbreak by a forlorn lover. I would rather be engulfed in Mo Hayder or Dean Koontz’s latest novel than be out socializing with society’s sanctimonious and the most ‘happening’. I’d rather watch an intriguing, interesting movie than hanging out wherever it is cool to be out and be seeing eating and chatting these days. I don’t oppose fun. Of course not. I love and endorse my share of poison, spend time with those closest to me and value the most scarce resource in the universe: time.

Abstract… sincere… now a little part of me gone forever. Lost from my grip, from my reach… And I cannot save that little part. The fragments that belong to me… that are a greater part of me than I ever imagined.

The treatment was successful. We travel back home in a three-wheeler and it’s exactly 1.30pm and the time that schools close for the day so the roads are jam packed with traffic, school kids, teachers and the only sound is the cacophony, the dissonance of vehicles roaring, wailing, murmuring and screaming.

We pass St.Bridget’s Convent heading towards a roundabout where right next to us is a big red CTB Bus full of people, students and teachers. We go side by side and at the roundabout the bus turns left and we right. We are almost brought to a halt by a manic psychopathic old driver who almost hit us and started to scream. Without stopping, for some odd reason – while turning and shouting something back at the maniac we just pass him and get onto our intended road when suddenly it seems like the entire atmosphere floats for a split of a second. And then…
It just happened. But not the way it happens in movies.

BOOOOOOOMMMMMM

Just a very loud, low yet ominous rumble. We stop the wheeler and turn to look. Black, rings and holes of smoke billowing to the sky. Gigantic, dearth balloons being pumped like venom upwards.

I told the guy to just keep going and he did. It was possibly a grenade. There was absolutely nothing anyone could do. It was one of many small packages been left around by people. I said people. Not necessarily terrorists. Even war is wrought and manipulated to the advantage of a number of fractions who are earning off it. Looking at the history of how organized and flawlessly executed terrorist attacks have been in our war torn 20 year marathon, it seems a bit unlikely that the same persons are leaving parcels lying about and running away. No one can be defined as wrong and right in a war anyfuckingways but this just seems like an act of blind vengeance with a hint of strong motive.

Can you smell that?

Anarchism? Nah. Mishap justification is more like it.

So we learn on our way back home that it was the big red CTB Bus that was next to us. If I had only got an urge to go to the DVD store, we would have taken that same route, but a lack of finances just prompted us to head straight home. We watched the news and the entire rear end of the bus was demolished. That’s with a grenade… or a very small bomb. If it was a big one, I’ll be frying bacon somewhere for sure.

But here we were absolutely unscathed and now safe from harm’s way. And the story is that only four people got injured because someone had discovered the parcel and evacuated the entire bus before it went Boom.

We were right next to it. We passed it. We just turned the other way. Now doesn’t that look like somebody just flipped a coin? It wasn’t our time.

That puts a certain sense of pressure doesn’t it? I mean everything’s going in two extremes. Either terribly well or incredibly wrong that I can’t seem to find that comfortable middle ground of sordid grey anymore.

Does that disappoint me? Hell, yes. Because now, something works out and then ten things snowball to try and paralyze me.

The day before
that a musician bud of ours form Germany rolls over. He’s just been endorsed by PEARL Drums and that’s a big accomplishment ‘cos the guy’s a Sri Lankan and we are proud of one of our own getting to share stages with the Donatis and Adlers man. He brings a student of his who seems nice enough and the student brings a friend along who is one of those creepy dudes.

And just imagine me actually calling someone else creepy? That’s a new one init?

So we have a nice chat, take some photographs and our buddy and his student say bye, bye and leaves. I suddenly realize the creep is all jumpy and the last to leave. So I head out to the balcony to tend to our new doggies paw. Once everyone goes, I look for my mobile phone on the table where I kept it last.

Funny. Our click is forgetful about a few things but never their phones. And I wouldn’t misplace my own phone where I live, considering all our gigs and work are corresponded through that. I search the place then tell the guys and the guys dial my number, the damn thing has been switched off.

Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. Motherfucker.

Pigfucker.

Shitfucker.

Pigshitfucker.

We make a call knowing that it is obviously not our bud and it ain’t the student. It’s the student’s friend… The little creep. Then Tenny remembers that when everyone had gone downstairs and I was on the balcony the creep had asked Tenny for some water. Then the guy was in the hall alone. My mobile along with all the other guys mobiles and wallets was on our office computer table. Perhaps he had time to snatch one.

He decided it was my lucky day to be victimized.

I wanted to nail each of the guy’s fingers onto cement. But then he’d gone, they were all half way to their destinations, clearly my sim was disposed off. But I left my line open for 12 hours to track the cheeky bastard if he made any calls. But he was cleverer than he appeared to be.

We called our buddy and he offered to get me a new phone but I declined and told him that it was small potatoes. Just that I’d lost all my contacts and new phone or not, I won’t get that back anyway.

Then the other two hear about it, and till that point they figured we were ‘band boys’, whose home they could walk into, sit for an hour and a fucking half and steal something from our office table?

Either the creep was very well connected or the dumbest person I’ve encountered since a HIP HOP icon from our country some years back. Now that is a story for another day.

Still… in measuring the pros and cons we figured it wasn’t a matter worth pursuing because the creep – although – uninvited came along with a friend. And whatever action we took, would have reflected badly on that guy. So for the moment the creep’s got away. That means he has plenty of time to figure out who exactly we are, and he’s measured value of existence. And he would have sold the damned thing pretty quickly, we couldn’t have tortured him to talk. The nail idea… my nail idea…

So I need to get a new sim and now a new phone. I am running around like crazy finalizing the registration of our Agency, going to the lawyers, then the government printing association to get the Gazettes done and even Stigmata’s recording is taking a bit longer than we hoped. Well, one can’t just hope; this recording, our 3rd Album is possibly the most important record we are creating to date for lots of reasons and we must deliver the goods flawlessly. So far it sounds unbelievable. But that isn’t good enough. It never is. The misunderstood artistes trapped in their own artistry. Then there are my personal demons… oh and how they love to tear ribbons off my being.

Personal hell, bombs and missing phones aside my chaos is ripe for the plucking.

“Life you may evade, but death you shall not.”

Looking back at it now… I guess death just wasn’t looking in my direction huh?

BOOM