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by Achala Parashar, 1st MPTh

As I rolled up my sleeve to take the third injection against rabies after a recent dog bite, a friend asked, “I don’t get this. Are you sure you did nothing?” And I rolled my eyes as I half-heartedly took this opportunity for redemption. “Yeah, I mean I just winked at it” I muttered. And this morning as I happened to waltz through the garden with hands all over the place I suddenly realised I invaded this dog’s space again. I swear to you, it turned with such angst as it jolted on, it was threatening to get me arrested.  I wondered if some offenders were simply perky and how if I was to be convicted for strange behaviour, I’d rather have a psychiatrist of choice, asking him not to tie me up.

 I would ask for my space.

 Oh? Is that why he hasn’t called back yet? Am I taking too much space?

What is this space business? You know, if the nucleus of an atom was the size of a marble, the orbit of the first electron is as large as a football field. The rest of it is empty!  So if we were to remove all of this space, hypothetically, all 7 billion of us would fit in a matchbox. That makes me question everything.

      However, have you seen something in nature take its space? Apart from the leg space of the other 3 ladies when you’re on the 4th seat, most things in nature seem to poetically converse in spaces. The ones between your breaths when you’re feeling content, or those between your heart beats and fingers and shoulders and tears. Blades of grass, legs of storks, petals of a lotus, ends of lips in playful smiles, or the gracefully stretching dog that bit me, seems like authenticity is perceived through how these things take their space.  

   The fifth element, making most of who I am, is this emptiness. It’s best to make friends with it for as I said, it is a great conversationalist. Speaking in silences, leaving you in tears of all kinds, it can show you the hollowness of nihilism, belittle the existence of anything you can identify with, leave you feeling all by yourself, connected with everything perceivable.    

    I wonder what nature had in mind when it said, this, this human species, is my masterpiece. Birds flying with radar systems, fishes on in-built SONAR, bees carrying blueprints and maps in a brain the size of a grain of sand, a seed carrying the capacity to repopulate the flora on this planet, unafraid to lose its identity as it bursts into a radicle and plumule and then there is me, struggling to find the K-lab cupboard keys because that’s so much extra work. I’m at the top of this evolutionary chain.    

   You know what my best shot at guessing the (un)obvious update that we are carrying is? I think our super feature is choice. You can choose to tell me why your shoulders are droopy and that leg shaking. Why you’re making fists of your palms as you are mindlessly biting your lip. I can choose the rhythm of life. How I sit, breathe, write sonnets or belt rap songs with my heart beats, embrace you or hold your hand as we strut into failing and trying again at skillfully maneuvering our share of the emptiness of this universe.