“From the start then,” I tried to maintain my pride as I prepared myself. “It was dark. Dark like I had closed my eyes in the darkest room in the world. Dark like I was trying to picture the dark with my eyes closed in that darkest of all rooms. I could not see if my hands were trembling, I can barely believe that I could feel it. I was trying to picture the dark, trying to unravel it, understand it, know it, see if I could feel it. But the dark was just... dark. It was featureless. Lacked ugly and beauty and known and unknown and time and matter, had none of it. It was too empty to feel that heavy. But heavy it was. And heavy is all it was. Not cold nor silent or noisy or heavy or light.
“And then a voice, a voice that ended the pull. It’s like the tremblings in my hands were a distant dream. It happened so fast I could not even make out the words, its like all the words that have been said were said at once.”
I paused to look back at the Lord of Chains. He was quiet, like a chess player planning their next move. “My eyes sprang open,” I continued, clearing the weight in my throat, “It was the most glorious of reflexes. You know, the knock in your bones, the soul in your joints, kind of reflex? Ones that leave you jolted, like when a big old tree falls just two inches from you and your life flashes before your eyes. It was that reflex that had just sprung my eyes open, that had unraveled this gate of my dam.
“Not to sound like an old writer but when all the waters of my dam had rolled off my skinny chin, and when the dams of my eyes had gone dry, when I could finally sense something, that’s when I got the whiff of a green forest, with trees of apple, guava and shahtut, and I heard the chirps of cheery birds, like they were singing songs, and I saw a fog surrounding me, giving way to blue skies. And as this fog in front of me began to lift, this unfamiliar yet friendly, dull yet kind of glowing fog, as it began dispersing, just the faintest of voice screaming, bury your lord of chains. I leaped for the forest, and I…” I paused.
“You what?” the Lord of Chains whispered. But even then the floors shook. By now though, I had learnt to balance without flinching. I hid my sigh, and continued.
“I fell. And for a moment I blinked and all the empty darkness tried to rush back. And I lay on the ground, feeling this pain in my neck, a pain that bit like vengeance, that left me with only confusion and fear. I tried feeling my neck. But something was there. Like a collar, like a metal tie, like...” No, I thought, he will make me say it. When in the gullies of rome, you dance. And when in the halls of the lord of chains, you bow. So I whispered, “like chains.”
In a spark of a second, it all flooded back. How I was on the ground, panicking, terrorized. How every muscle I moved in panic, how every kick I threw in the air revealed to me more chains. How I saw the lord of chains, this ball of dark metal, gliding violently through the sky. I got up, tried to run, got yanked by the chain on my elbow. Fallen. Sad. Breathing. Calm. Running in the direction of that chain on my elbow. Yanked by the one on my heel. Fallen. Sad. Breathing. Calm. Holding that chain around my belly, walking with it. No more running. No more falling. Taking it where it leads me.
“Chains. They were everywhere. And when I followed them I found,” my eyes were watering, my ears were red and my lips soon would be now that I’d bit on them that hard, “I found them on everyone else. I was chained to my dad, my mom but so were they chained to me. I found myself chained to that rude policeman who left me scared in the streets he’s supposed to protect me in. I was chained to that uncle on the road that gave me and everyone else that snarky look. And then I looked at the sky and the sun had set again, and it was going to be dark again, and I did not want the dark, I did not want it. I would have run from it. I was chained. Everyone was chained.” I was crying now. “Why? I need you to get rid of my chains. I am not leaving.”
The metal ball began spinning. It was seething like boiling water. The floor began to shake as well. The all-consuming dark surrounding us kept her silence. “I mean it,” I declared, rubbing off my face any signs of tears. “I will not leave. Get these chains… off of me.”
“You dare!” the metal ball thundered, “you dare come to the creator demanding him to destroy the very things he forged. I don’t engage in first drafts, writer. And what do you think you will do without chains? What liberation do you dare seek? How will you survive without being chained to food, or live a day without being chained to breathing the air, or looking out for the people in your life? Perhaps I can unchain you from gravity to let you float with your witless ideas.”
The chains clanked as I took a firm step towards him. “I will not leave. Take these off.”
“You are too big for chains? You think any human with an inflated sense of self deserves to be free to do whatever they want? You think you are special for being idle enough to dream of heaven?”
“Take them off.” I was now inches from him. I could feel it in the air that he was vibrating with fury and fear.
“Everything in this world is chained to everything else. You cannot escape chains. To be chained is to be alive. Do you seek death? It comes fast when you don’t cherish your chains.” The air shook so hard, I felt my face beginning to peel away. His thundering anger had him frothing like a thousand explosions. “I was smelted from the blood iron of those who dared to cross me. And I can smell yours getting warmed up with fear”
His was the most extraordinary of all skins. A flowing wind of metal, flawlessly smooth, no ridges, no dents. Like a king of metals, the most pristine. “If there is no escaping chains, o lord,” I asked, staring at my own trembling reflection in him, “where are yours? Why do you dictate without consequence the order of things when you don’t suffer them? Who are you?” He spoke nothing. “Take them off.” He did nothing.
“Very well, as I cannot let you go, great lord, till I am free, I have no choice but to take you with me.” I yanked the slings of my chain together and with the might of all my existence, with the energy of every fat stored in my body and with my eyes shut trying to make a breathless wish, I slammed the chain hard on the lord’s ball, and it gave in. I had to see it to believe it. I could tell by the way the metal ball was shaking that he was displeased. But with the slings firmly lodged into the lord of chains, he was now chained to me.
“Come on then”, I said, tugging the sling. “Let’s get moving, lord of chains. You must be missing the soils.”
* * *
That was decades ago when I was still young enough to bury a lord. A lot has happened since. As you can see, it is shining bright. So bright I could never have known a brightness this bright and sweet could even exist. It was hard thinking of summers with your eyes tight shut. No more. The dark never returns, not even when I blink. And the fog has resided. I know what you’re thinking. But this is exactly what the fog hid. Look at us without chains, isn’t it more beautiful? Doesn’t it feel natural? Normal? Free even? I know what you’re thinking, I can see your concern. But look at the chains all over you, it surely can’t be the right way to be. You have to try, you have to find your lord of chains, and you have to bring him crashing to the ground. You can’t let him float over your head like an eclipse. He belongs down.
Look, the lord of chains is wrong. About everything. Look over there. Do you see the roots? That woman who’s hitting her daughter, do you see how she’s killing the roots? Do you see she’s chopping them? There will be chains there soon. These roots, they’re everywhere buddy, they’ve always been there. Look right here, between my stomach and of that little kid over there in Salem? Look over there, to your left. That lord didn’t know what he was saying. We are not chained to food, maybe we’re chained to hunger. And no one has to be chained to hunger the day we decide so, poof!
He was so wrong. This world doesn’t chain us. We have roots in it. Gravity doesn’t hold us back, it brings us together. It makes us possible. Nature makes us possible. Look around you. Everything since the big bang makes us possible, and only possible in this unique way. It doesn’t mean we’re chained to each other, it doesn’t even mean we are separate. It just means we are there because of everything else. We have roots in everything else, and I guess what I’m trying to say is, if we try to forget these roots, we end up with chains. And they make us heavy, and I don’t know, I don’t like them. Can’t run around in them.
Bring down your lord of chains and cater to your roots, please. There’s no other way out of the fog or the dark.
Come on, now. There you go, you’re finally opening your eyes. Now if you’re anything like me, you couldn’t make out a word I said, maybe you heard everything all at once, maybe you didn’t. Was worth a shot. But you’ll be fine. Alright okay now, run along, buddy. Find your ground, and hey! Don’t forget to bury your lord of chains!