He saw himself in a world that had no depth, no height, no left or right. Everything seemed dimensionless all around. He decided he was dreaming. Obviously where had all his things gone? His room, his house, his table, books… his entire world! Where was it? Whole world now was full of white fog. Or perhaps consisted of it. A uniform fog. He had seen it on hill stations.

He decided he must be dreaming. But he couldn’t be sure, obviously. So to check the theory he raised his hand in front of his face. It was there. He counted fingers one, two, three. He twiddled his thumb. It seemed fine to him. But why was he seeing this white fog all around him? He himself was kind of enveloped in that fog. Everything had vanished, from his vision. All those things that he used in his everyday life, including his cell phone! He couldn’t see it anywhere in his room! He tried to concentrate. But he knew it wasn’t possible. He suddenly heard a voice, “your tea is on the table.” He realized he knew the voice. Yes, this was Meena, his wife. But where was she? With the sound of her voice he noticed that, that was the only sound he heard. Where were all the other sounds! What about the street? The traffic? Birds? Where are they? He tried to figure where was he? Was he in his house, in the middle of a bustling locality, or on a mountain? Everything was white, a fluid white.

He knew it was drastically unreal to lose entire range of ambiant sounds! Next theory emerged that he must have lost his hearing. Or worse his mental balance. But no, he just heard, “your tea is on the table.” He felt a little disturbance in the fog. Something moved towards right. It seemed like a human figure, perhaps. Obviously he wasn’t sure. “Hello”, he asked, “who is there?” “Can you hear me?”

“Are you still asleep? Your tea must have become cold. I am getting out for some vegetables. Open the door for the maid. Ok? Can you say yes or no?”

He heard himself saying “yes, yes.”

Door bell was the next sound he heard. There was an instant reaction to get up and open the door… Slowly the sounds started fading in. All of them. The traffic, the birds. He sat up, took a sip of water from the bottle and walked off like a zombie to open the door.

21 Oct, 2014