149
My electric toothbrush shrills in my mouth. Jaime blots toothpaste on to his forefinger and lightly scrubs his teeth. I say goodnight to his reflection and his reflection gives me an awkward reply. I slip into bed in my pyjamas and he goes into the living room in his T-shirt and jeans, to huddle up under the sleeping bag I left out. We had a quick cuppa, messed about with my old guitar which I never learnt to play, and took turns to play each other favourite tracks on YouTube. As our yawns multiplied, he joked, ‘Shall I take your bed while you sleep on the couch?’ and I laughed back: ‘What a gentleman.’
I feel peevish, stupid: have I misunderstood everything, mis-read his interest? Am I too scruffy, too weird, too ugly?
‘Well – goodnight then,’ he calls from the living room.
‘Goodnight.’
‘Sleep tight.’
‘Goodnight.’
I wake in shock, aware of a figure in the flat. I nearly scream, and then I remember. I listen to the tinkle of his pee hitting the bowl. Jaime stumbles back to the living room; he sounds sleepy, hazy and disorientated.
150An hour later, and I’m still awake. Tired of running on the wheel of insomnia, I switch on my light and pick up Vasistha’s Yoga. I open it up at random. Tonight’s story is about the three demons, Dama, Vyala and Kata. Created by the demon Sambara, they are invincible because they have had no previous incarnations. They are free from every other type of mental conditioning. They have no fear; they do not know the meaning of war, victory or defeat. When they fight with the gods, they are often victorious, and leave terrible destruction in their wake. Gradually, however, the demons begin to weaken. They develop the notion of I am. Once this ego-sense arises, they develop desires: for the acquisition of wealth, the prolongation of life in the body. This I am then gives rise to this is my body and this is mine. Objects bring them pleasure, but diminish their freedom, and they begin to lose their courage. They begin to fear that they might die. And so the demons are defeated and take refuge in the nethermost world.
Desires create actions. Actions create experience. Experiences leave latent impressions. Samskaras, the Vedas call them. Samskaras drift in our consciousness: the ache of a love affair cut short; the pang of an interview that never led to a job; the hollow left by a lost parent. With each rebirth, the kaleidoscope twists and casts a fresh pattern, shaping new desires, hungers that promise the illusion of happiness. And so we become trapped in incarnation after incarnation. In Satya Yuga, the Golden Age, our natural state was to fulfil desires with ease. In our current era, Kali Yuga, our desires are constantly thwarted. We puff and grind away at a promotion that is given to the candidate with the right connections; we fall for the lover who warps us. Fulfilling a desire involves either tremendous effort, or else we call it luck and we know that it is 151fleeting, out of character with our time. And so we get stuck in ruts, flailing, aching and praying and conniving and sighing, as the shattered hope of youth gives way to cynicism and resignation.
I hear Jaime in the living room, gently twanging my guitar. I put the book down, and I slip out of bed.
‘Sorry if I woke you, I can’t sleep,’ Jaime says. ‘I could teach you how to play this … If you’re in the same boat, that is?’
He shuffles back, patting the spot in front of him. Armed with the guitar, I sit down stiffly on the lip of the sofa; he curls his arms around me, and his palms envelope my hands. He presses a trio of my fingers against the strings.
‘That’s an A major chord,’ he says in a low voice. The outline of my body feels sharply defined against his. He complains that I’m not focusing properly and I tell him that he must be a very bad teacher. His lips touch the back of my neck. I turn and he gasps, catches a handful of my hair, and pulls me in tight as our lips clash.
Later, he smokes a spliff out of my bedroom window while I lie drowsy on the bed, and he says words into the night: something about how he’d hoped we’d get together but thought I wouldn’t like him because of his – walk? ways? wisdom?
We lie in the double bed. I am acutely aware of his breathing slowing. It is as comforting as the sound of the sea. I look up through a gap in the curtains and the moon pours its silvery 152colours into me. I cannot stop smiling. I had forgotten what it is to feel happy. The distant beat of music from some party, the cry of a reveller, weaves beauty into my heart.
My problems are distant; I am buffered from the real world by hundreds of pages. With every day that passes, people will forget me, and, in forgetting, forgive the wrongs I’ve done. Jaime and I could hang out here for weeks, interrailing through prose. Then a sadness laps against me, for I know that he will return, back to a life rich in love and fulfilment, and how can I blame him? Our ending is inevitable: he will leave and I will shock him with a coward’s goodbye and here I will stay, drifting through books as I grow old alone, seeping into these pages like a watermark.