This morning, a handful of strange things happened to me. And when I say a 'handful', I mean a definite number of strange things that if I took the pain (or pleasure) of counting them, would fit exactly within the dimensions of my right palm. So, about the strange things, you'd understand the magnitude of it once I get down to describing them in high-definition quality detail.
So let me begin with the strangest of the lot, and then proceed to less and less alarming things through the course of my discourse. If you are, in the meantime doing anything that's taking a greater part of your attention, I suggest you put it down and read with complete attention. So here we go. I wake up and walk up to my bathroom, and I'm not the kind, you must know, who looks at himself in the mirror the first thing in the morning. It has happened many times before that for a good two or three seconds, I have failed to recognise myself. But lets get back to me in the bathroom, for now. So I trot along into the loo, and I pull off my clothes in an attempt to settle my bottom on the commode, to begin relieving myself. But I begin feeling a strange itch on my palms, and in the stupor that I am in, or rather was in (but since we're talking of me in the act of doing so, I'll go with 'am'). So yeah, I begin to scratch and it itches further. That's my palm I'm talking about, would you believe it? My goddamn palm has the nerve and the artery and what not, to say- "hey i'm feeling a little itchy, would mind giving me a hand, and no pun intended there". So there, I'm scratching my palm, and I'm scratching it, and I feel something odd.
Now if you think about the way our tactile response works, it's a rather complicated science. I mean how in the name of god, or Beelzebub, or whoever you wish the honour, does the right hand know where exactly the left hand is, and how much must it move in order to make the perilous journey to scratch it's laterally inverted twin? And all of this without any visual data from the eyes? So then, like I was saying, the left hand, while it was busy asking to be scratched, also sent up an abnormal tactile response through the right hand into the brain. I sat up! I mean I was already seated on the commode, not that I'd do my job there in a reclining position. And talking of doing it reclining, I wonder how horrible that must feel. A short cut to feeling like a prisoner, perhaps. But then, yes, I sat up. And i scratched again, to receive the exact same tactile response from the left hand. Left palm to be precise. It felt odd. Like some sort of growth on the palm.
Now let me spend a moment talking about my left palm. Or any left palm in general, across any being in this wonderful universe. The palm, is a barren scape. But it is characteristically barren, you might agree. Every palm has a distinct face, and a certain identity- the number of crossed veins you'll see all acorss it. The billions of little fate lines or whatever the curious little demarcations may be all about. But you'll certainly, and most definitely not see any hair! That's right, I'd like the first man, or woman, who claims to have any hair on the palm to give me a hoot, this very moment. Look at your own palm for a moment. Just stop reading this piece of unauthorized prose on trichome growth on human limbs, and look at your own palm. Take a good look at it. Do you see any hair? Yes? Give me a call. No? Continue reading.
Well, so I did quite the same to palm, and for a moment I thought it was a strand of hair from another less defined part of my form that managed to make its way to my palm and had decided to spend a good few moments there before being discovered and being washed off into the nothingness of the drain that is normally its destiny. But I gave it a tug, and I heard a little yelp. The yelp, it surprised me to discover, was from my own mouth. The little tuft of hair seemed to be growing right out of my palm. Under the beginning of the middle finger, at that odd spot where the flesh folds. There was a tuft- about five or so strands of hair in different stages of growth.
I let out another one this time. More like a shriek. I hadn't even begun my business on the commode, so I just pulled up my pyjamas, and went over to the mirror. Now let me also admit, I have absolutely no idea why I went over to the mirror like that. I mean, it's not as if you cant see your palm without looking at it in the mirror, or it's neither as if the reflection would uncover a hidden meaning behind that odd deposition of dead cells there. But then, I think of it as a pretty cinematic moment, that I walked up to the mirror for a moment of introspection. It's that shot in a film where your hero walks up to the mirror and a lone incandescent bulb dangles from the ceiling, hiding his eyes into shadow. And that beautifully photographed shot normally makes it to the posters and a lot of other publicity material. So you know you're signing up to watch an intense film about a guy who's got a mental problem and might end up winning the Kung-fu championship by the end of the debacle.
But yeah, here I am looking at the mirror, wondering what I must ask myself at this auspicious juncture. The day is yet to begin, my morning rituals yet to be attended to, and here I am, standing in front of a mirror, pondering (a rather unalarming sense of pondering there) what I must make of this. I pick up my mobile and dial the first number on the 'last-dialled' list. Again, I normally don't do such things, but the key word here is- normally. So by some stroke of misfortune, the last dialled number happened to be that of my.... (To be continued)
So let me begin with the strangest of the lot, and then proceed to less and less alarming things through the course of my discourse. If you are, in the meantime doing anything that's taking a greater part of your attention, I suggest you put it down and read with complete attention. So here we go. I wake up and walk up to my bathroom, and I'm not the kind, you must know, who looks at himself in the mirror the first thing in the morning. It has happened many times before that for a good two or three seconds, I have failed to recognise myself. But lets get back to me in the bathroom, for now. So I trot along into the loo, and I pull off my clothes in an attempt to settle my bottom on the commode, to begin relieving myself. But I begin feeling a strange itch on my palms, and in the stupor that I am in, or rather was in (but since we're talking of me in the act of doing so, I'll go with 'am'). So yeah, I begin to scratch and it itches further. That's my palm I'm talking about, would you believe it? My goddamn palm has the nerve and the artery and what not, to say- "hey i'm feeling a little itchy, would mind giving me a hand, and no pun intended there". So there, I'm scratching my palm, and I'm scratching it, and I feel something odd.
Now if you think about the way our tactile response works, it's a rather complicated science. I mean how in the name of god, or Beelzebub, or whoever you wish the honour, does the right hand know where exactly the left hand is, and how much must it move in order to make the perilous journey to scratch it's laterally inverted twin? And all of this without any visual data from the eyes? So then, like I was saying, the left hand, while it was busy asking to be scratched, also sent up an abnormal tactile response through the right hand into the brain. I sat up! I mean I was already seated on the commode, not that I'd do my job there in a reclining position. And talking of doing it reclining, I wonder how horrible that must feel. A short cut to feeling like a prisoner, perhaps. But then, yes, I sat up. And i scratched again, to receive the exact same tactile response from the left hand. Left palm to be precise. It felt odd. Like some sort of growth on the palm.
Now let me spend a moment talking about my left palm. Or any left palm in general, across any being in this wonderful universe. The palm, is a barren scape. But it is characteristically barren, you might agree. Every palm has a distinct face, and a certain identity- the number of crossed veins you'll see all acorss it. The billions of little fate lines or whatever the curious little demarcations may be all about. But you'll certainly, and most definitely not see any hair! That's right, I'd like the first man, or woman, who claims to have any hair on the palm to give me a hoot, this very moment. Look at your own palm for a moment. Just stop reading this piece of unauthorized prose on trichome growth on human limbs, and look at your own palm. Take a good look at it. Do you see any hair? Yes? Give me a call. No? Continue reading.
Well, so I did quite the same to palm, and for a moment I thought it was a strand of hair from another less defined part of my form that managed to make its way to my palm and had decided to spend a good few moments there before being discovered and being washed off into the nothingness of the drain that is normally its destiny. But I gave it a tug, and I heard a little yelp. The yelp, it surprised me to discover, was from my own mouth. The little tuft of hair seemed to be growing right out of my palm. Under the beginning of the middle finger, at that odd spot where the flesh folds. There was a tuft- about five or so strands of hair in different stages of growth.
I let out another one this time. More like a shriek. I hadn't even begun my business on the commode, so I just pulled up my pyjamas, and went over to the mirror. Now let me also admit, I have absolutely no idea why I went over to the mirror like that. I mean, it's not as if you cant see your palm without looking at it in the mirror, or it's neither as if the reflection would uncover a hidden meaning behind that odd deposition of dead cells there. But then, I think of it as a pretty cinematic moment, that I walked up to the mirror for a moment of introspection. It's that shot in a film where your hero walks up to the mirror and a lone incandescent bulb dangles from the ceiling, hiding his eyes into shadow. And that beautifully photographed shot normally makes it to the posters and a lot of other publicity material. So you know you're signing up to watch an intense film about a guy who's got a mental problem and might end up winning the Kung-fu championship by the end of the debacle.
But yeah, here I am looking at the mirror, wondering what I must ask myself at this auspicious juncture. The day is yet to begin, my morning rituals yet to be attended to, and here I am, standing in front of a mirror, pondering (a rather unalarming sense of pondering there) what I must make of this. I pick up my mobile and dial the first number on the 'last-dialled' list. Again, I normally don't do such things, but the key word here is- normally. So by some stroke of misfortune, the last dialled number happened to be that of my.... (To be continued)
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