By Radha
Before you ask, my friend, you are not dreaming anymore. You are wide awake, as you
shall understand before I finish this sentence. See? Right where you fell asleep. Oh, I am in the
corner – just over there – yes! You have spotted me. Very good. I should remind you that it was
you who asked for this chat. You may not remember this, but you were talking to me last night.
And that was before you started dreaming.
Your dream, if I recall it correctly, involved – no, do not panic, do not panic! I am not
here to hurt you. I am only here to talk. Do not leave. You are searching for the keys. You locked
your door last night, and have forgotten where you left the keys. Can you remember what you
were thinking then? Can you remember why you have brought yourself here? Do not trouble
yourself, it does not matter. Call it a dream if you like. Yes, a dream, if that’s what it takes to
convince you. You people are so easily deceived by your senses. But I am a lampshade, you see,
and am not confined as you are by wriggling words or blurry visions. You see only half of it, yet
believe yourself fit to imagine the whole. How very wrong you often are. But I am a lampshade,
and my duty is to harbour light. Contain it, anchor it, tame it – and sometimes, you must admit,
give it away. Sit down, if you please. It is much more comfortable that way.
I already know you; we are past introductions. We met for the first time last night, yet a
mere glimpse was enough to tell me all about you. But I am a different matter. I am the
lampshade for the world around me – yes, and the world is my lamp. This one rather placidly,
almost dully, luminous. Your world. A narrow slice of reality, yet it is all you know. And a mere
sliver of it you choose to look at: the dark and tainted corners, sharpened by shadows and
cobwebs of all sorts. It is not just light I veil: I am also teeming with this darkness. Troublesome
stuff, I am sure, yet your world cannot do without it. Darkness thousands of times more potent
than the measly shadows you cast upon my skin. But it does not bother me. As a lampshade does
its duty, I do mine well. I do not spy on the rawness invited by these uncertain hours. Allow me
to suppose that you are a victim of it too. I have gathered much from your ramblings yesterday.
Do not fret, you are safe to confide in me. Here, I am even returning the honour. Much like a
mirror, perhaps. You sat before it last night. There it is beside you still. But turn to me now: a
mirror reflects that which already resides in you. Yet it also absorbs a fraction of the light
entrusted to it. The universal light, you shall find, bounces off from one mirror to another, for
perpetuity, so long as the yarn of time remains stiff on the spindle.
As a lampshade, you must expect me to remain stiff too. But by the juxtaposition of my
stoical stillness with the frenzy of your world, I have noticed that movement is mandatory. Even
I am often disturbed by your wind – teased and tickled by it, immodestly lilting my delicate
fabric to dance to its tune. But you shall never notice it. It seems that in your continuum of
activity, my rebellious motion is hardly incongruous. But stillness is underrated. I recommend
sitting still to think. You notice a great many things – as you are doing now. This humble
lampshade, I assure you, benefits from your company. It allows me to understand you lot better.
Although I rest in every corner of your lives, we barely pause to communicate. For you, I am
forever frozen behind glass. For you, air is eternally trapped in my throat. You never knew, did
you, how much I yearned to speak?
You, too, must have very much stacked up within you that you long to express. Words
fail to articulate that which must be said the most. Glances are too intangible, touches too
unforgivable. Silence, indeed, speaks the loudest. I see that you have made it your instrument. I
might gently remind you that a monotone is tiresome and hardly pleasing to the ear. Season your
silences, I would advise you. Spice them up with dashes of light and bursts of laughter. Even a
cough would do. Remember the vast palette this world offers you – you may choose to paint
your words with so much more than you bind yourself to.
I, especially, am an advocate for light. For all purposes. You must forgive a little bias. I
am a lampshade, after all. I do not have an easy job of it. I am to mutely witness a billion shades
of existence each day and dependably hold the torch for you. I must be there when the lighthouse
questions the fractious seas, and I must notice no less the waves of hopeless emotion that leap
within you. I must be there to glare at you through each match struck in the dark. I must be
beyond every corner, hanging off every ledge. No edge of the world must escape my sight. You
capricious people only make it harder.
But I am not the light, no. I am the winding staircase and the bicolour shell. I am the stain
and the glass. I am wood and I am phosphor. Indeed, you have seen me as I am, as a thousand
apparitions in your humdrum Everyday. As a lampshade, I am unavoidable. An acquaintance is
inevitable. Forgive me, but you seem to be rather glad to have made mine. You look much
improved. You still believe this is a dream? So be it, friend, because it is a miracle, even to me,
that this is not. Here, in the darkness, all we hear is chatter. And here, I am but an envelope you
are opening. To think that there would exist, in such a heartless void, this remarkable trove of
meaning! It is all because of you lot, however difficult you may be to manage. And see, I am
spitting your reflection back at you! I am rambling, I am unsettled. This light I swaddle, do you
know where most of it comes from? Not from the sun, so mighty and enduring. It comes from
something far more ephemeral. It is the most curious thing in the world. It comes from you
people.
But I am an old and tattered lampshade, and I have a lot to be getting on with. There is a
window to my left – your right – which I am aware of. Can you see the dawn? Yes, I have led
you to daybreak. Our conversation has been most enlightening. I could go on, you know. But I
am choosing to stop here, and falter my voice so that it may be soaked by the surrounding
silence, still unbroken. Then, you may shake yourself and be convinced that you have never
heard me. You will rest your head again (please do, it will do you good) and insist that you were
dreaming all the while. But another moment, please: let me confess that I have been lying to you.
I am the one who has been dreaming. I am the one who stared at the mirror. I am the one who
wanted to talk to you. You, who do not exist beyond the fragile walls of this dream, beyond the
cage of light which is this mirror. I shall be entirely honest now, at our parting: I am blind. I am a
poor lampshade, struggling to contain all the light in the world. Forgive me, but I have deceived
you. I have no right to give light away. I never had any claim to it. It was always meant for you.
Each burning beam of light has your name written on it. This is your light, which has been
entrusted to me. I cannot give it away. Because, you see, you’ve had it all this time. I am a
lampshade, and I earn my living by embracing pockets of light. It is you I have chosen to
embrace, my friend. We are no different, you and I. In the end, all I can offer you is a reflection.
Or, perhaps, a mere flash of that boundless light of yours. Pricks of illumination, limitless streaks
that race towards the distant corners of the world. Behold me as I carry you upon my back, and
you carry me on yours. And together, we share the weight of the cosmos.
Radha is the pen name of Parvathi Raj, an Indian high school student from the state of Kerala.
Hot Pot Magazine 