The Last Page of Tarique
By: William Sajid Sultan
Tags: Authors, Short Fiction, Short Story, Imagination

THE LAST PAGE OF TARIQUE

‘Amongst many wretched persons are those who are infinitely imaginative but not able to give their imaginations a shape’. In my opinion, Readers, they are most wretched — Most. It haunts them, repeatedly, makes them desperate creatures, makes them frantic to their end. Tarique is amongst them.

I met Tarique when I was in a Mess — my roommate so to say. After few days his very character impressed me as an eccentric one: every time wearing kurta; long, messy, curly, and untidy hair-headed, with a dream to be a poet in his eyes. He would not speak too much, always would be in silence, even in the presence of us — — always lost in somewhere, that only after two or three attempts he would respond to our calls by batting his head. At night, up to date, he used to sit on his chair with a pen in his right hand, a cigarette in his left hand, and a Diary which he always used to carry with him.

In our chance conversation, he used to make us listen to his poems. I liked a few of them and he would somehow understand that our clappings, appraisal words were false exaggerations of friendship. Then he, leaning against his chair, in a low soft tone, used to say, ‘Someday I will give my masterpiece’. The hours streamed, run one upon the heels of the other, the months flew so quickly that two years passed before I realized it. During those two years, Tarique had widened the kingdom of his imagination making it so large that it would not possible for him to return by four or five big steps; and for this reason, we had to extend our attempts too to five or six calls.

As usual like other nights, that night after our chance conversation, I remember, I found him scribbling on pages, and then ripping them and then throwing them vehemently. The repetition of this act and the restlessness in his gestures, agitating movements of his hands and the outcome of the words, ‘Someday I will give my masterpiece’, in a soft, low, indistinct voice— had you seen this, you would know, how in unease he was! After four or five vain attempts, I yelled at him. When he turned at me, it was horrible —strangely horrible: sweating face, confused, distressed eyes perplexed with an unfamiliar fear and agitation as if this was not his home, we were some alien to him as if he was lost in somewhere far from his own home. Before I would ask him anything, he, in a palpitated manner, aimlessly murmured, ‘you must be alone, if you are a writer. You cannot pretend yourself an everyday human being.’

I asked him in a stupefied manner, ‘are you okay?’

‘No writer is okay until his pages are untidy’, he said with his four days sleepless, confused, agitated eyes, in a chuckling tone. Then he again bent his head on his Diary, played his pen over it a few minutes and then he stopped his eyes at the smoke of his left hand and started in a grave voice, ‘Life is like the smoke, when it will pass out of sight, and where, you will never know’. If you would see him in person, you would know, as I can remember, how bizarre he was!

I went to sleep saying to him, ‘Good night. It’s late night. You should take a sleeping man’. He didn’t say anything immediately. When my eyes were about to embrace sleep, I heard a soft chuckling tone saying, ‘My mind is like a wet plate of a photograph. If I don’t write my brain right now, it will be mixed with new more ideas and then will be in nowhere.’ He took a deep sigh and again uttered the same words, reclining against his chair, nodding his hair, ‘Someday I will give my masterpiece’.

I kept myself wordless and a question, repeatedly, gave a blow to my head, ‘Is every writer or who tries to write, frenzied like him, so utterly disturbed in themselves?’ I didn’t give much time to the question though. When I opened my eyes, it was late morning. I found Tarique bent on his table, his head on the Diary, and his hands stretched carelessly and in his left hand a cigarette butt — quenched. He was asleep, I guessed so. I tried to wake him up several times. He didn’t respond. Then irritated, I gave a soft shout, yet no response was there. Then I jerked him softly and my heart almost jumped out— it throbbed and throbbed. My trembling hands sensed how Cold Tarique was! Appalled, intensely grieved, I was seized with the apprehension that ‘Perhaps he has sailed away in his empire where he always he used to be lost, the depth of which has devoured his boat leaving him no means to return in this tangible world, which never was of him. Or like the smoke, he has passed out of sight into somewhere which can never be mine —perhaps’.

My brain was heavy with loads of such apprehensions. I carefully took out his Diary from under his forehead. I know you will think of me as a trespasser, but there was none to prosecute me. The opened page was blank and wet. I closed it and again with my void eyes went through the pages — some pages were muddled with wounded words; only five of few more words were on some pages; on some pages the repetitions of the line, ‘Someday I will give my masterpiece’. The rest of the pages were blank, blank, blank. Then my eyes fell on the last page. My drought, inquisitive eyes sensed that ‘This page alone has been thankful to the user for its being used on the whole’ — perhaps.

I guess you would not forget the words, as still, I remember those words — every single word of that last page: ‘Every human being has their ideas, words, varieties. They only lack the Spark through which they will lit fire to them. Few, very few are fortunate to have that spark, and they not only have that Spark, they know the subtle process of how to fire with it’. And then after two lines’ gap: ‘Amongst many wretched persons are those who are infinitely imaginative but not able to give their imaginations a shape’.

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William Wss