FOUR IN THE A.M.

By S. M. Shahrukh · Issue 01, 2025

It's almost four in the morning, I think about going to bed and lay my body there but the world outside beckons, I come to the veranda. There is an uneasy calm, the sky is looking ominous with black clouds, the moon and the stars are all hiding behind the veil of darkness. Is it calm before a storm? A storm may be brewing in my mind and it is spreading premonitions to the world outside. Nature is fending itself against my oncoming wrath. What megalomaniacal rambling is this?

A dog starts running after another and the two run together one lagging the other, almost a slow and silent ‘cops and robbers’ chase scenario. The silence is suddenly broken by a dog wailing at a distance and out of my sight. Has one of the running dogs started the melancholy song? Do dogs suffer from melancholia? Who lost the soundless chase? Must be the cop, robbers don't cry when they lose; cops lose in this city, robbers hold all the trumps. Seven spades they call proudly and then they go about collecting all thirteen of the strongest suit; beg, borrow or steal, mostly stealing.

The lights at the gates of the buildings I see shine bright, as if to compensate for a moon that is withholding its reflected light? Has the moon finally realized that there is no glory in shining in someone else's light? Does the moon feel glory? Or does it take pleasure in the glory of the other?

My eyelids become heavy as I see a man walking in an unsteady gait. I jump up and realize that he looks like a younger me. He is floating in the air, his feet not touching the ground. He glides on without a care in the world, inebriation instils such a demeanour. The older me looks with trepidation and fears for his life. Does he have a destination or is he just lollygagging? I look at myself and feel an anguish rising. Why couldn't I have these thoughts then which is now for the younger me? I know now that the moon is a shameless 'being' and has no scruples about shining in a light that is not its own and it will come out, if not today but tomorrow definitely. I realize that it is not the overhanging black clouds that are ominous but the bright shiny moon, the shameless thief, the unrepentant pillager that is the bearer of bad omen and moonbeams threaten us with a catastrophe. My catafalque will shine in the light of the moon and the dark clouds may try to save me by blocking that ignominy. I love the darkness.

Dhaka, 25th August 2014.