BUANASENI

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A MAN CALLED JOHAN. He was in his apartment feeling bored out of his mind. He did all the usual things to kill boredom but it was one of those nights where it was looming larger than it usually does. Leaning back against his grey sofa he started blowing ring smokes from his favourite Sampoerna cigarette. Suddenly one of the ring smokes grew bigger and Bigger and it grew so big it was the size of the ceiling of his living room and colours and sounds started emerging from the ring smoke. He stared at it feeling fascinated yet fearful, when it suddenly descended upon him and everything in the apartment changed to a purple tinge. Even his skin glowed with a hint of purple and the smell of lavender overpowered his senses. He looked at his hands and started feeling his face as it he had an odd sensation. Something had drastically changed. Running over to the mirror he looked at himself and didn’t recognise himself for a moment. His crazy curls were no longer there and was replaced by dead straight hair but everything else remained the same and the purple tinge was gone.

He was struggling to remember what he was thinking about just before that and memories he never knew he had started emerging in his mind. In this alternate universe he was a rock star, never been married, never been in love,  never wanted kids and all he ever wanted to do and ever did was write songs that made the world sing. All memories of the other universe melted into the background and without realising it, he embraced this new reality, and the days went on as if he never lived the other life. And then one day, he was on his private jet on the way to one of his tour. The jet suddenly stalled, smoke came out of the engine and the pilot was frantically telling him to buckle up as they had to make an emergency landing. By some miracle the pilot managed to land the jet on a remote island of the coast of some country. Johan couldn’t even figure out where they were cause he was too high. He was always high on something. He never knew where he was or who he was sleeping with. He only knew that he had to get up on stage and rock his heart out when his manager told him to. 

His manager was passed out on the galley as he had knocked his head against the overhead compartment as he didn’t manage to buckle in. For the first time in his life as Johan the rock star, his mind became crystal clear and a sense of fear took over him. He looked into the cockpit and the pilot was passed out too. He stumbled over his manager at the sight of blood on the co-pilot's head and reached for the door and opened it. They barely made it and he was suddenly for the first time in his life glad to be alive. The sun was beginning to set and the dying rays of the day made everything look like it was showered in rays of gold and amber. He squinted his eyes not believing what he saw before him. It was a man who looked exactly like him but much much older. His flowing locks snow white with age wearing a top hat and holding a red Fender guitar. Johan opened his mouth to say something but the old man just held up his hand to silence him and started playing the guitar. It was a melody that he never heard of. It was so beautiful that he could see all the notes forming images of everything that ever came to his crazy imagination: flying pigs, and ox smoking with a top hat; and an alien in the guise of a human save for the shape of her skull that was bellied by the hair that was ever growing at an alarming rate.

The old man kept playing and playing one mystical song after another. The hours went by until dawn is about to break. Johan stood there hypnotised and finally the old man played his final song. So, as his fingers danced furiously across the red Fender, the notes wrapped around Johan and he suddenly started remembering his other life. Everything that he went through, the beautiful, the bad, the ugly, the happiness and the loneliness. He finally understood the meaning of life and that even with the heartbreaks he went through he would rather have that as it brought him with it the good that he never got in this universe like memories of drawing with his son. He would have given anything to return back to his former life. He cried for his losses but he cried even more as he now realised those losses were nothing compared to what he still had in his life and he took it all for granted. The tears were so overwhelming it started to blend with the tides and the old man started walking towards the sea and Johan followed him. They kept on walking into the sea until it reached their necks but they still kept on walking and Johan could no longer tell if the saltiness came from the waves of the sea or the tears in his eyes.

They still walked on even though they had to struggle against the waves that were growing larger and larger until the sea filled their lungs, their ears and their eyes. With salt water in his mouth and lungs, Johan coughed violently but still kept on walking into the oceans arms. Drowning, he couldn’t stop coughing. He was coughing so hard that he woke up with a start. He was back on his sofa feeling the burn of the cigarette on his fingers. He could still feel the tears running down his face but now they were no longer tears of loneliness. He was just happier than he ever had been before. He went to look in the mirror - his eyes were bloodshot but his crazy curls were back. He finally understood the meaning of his life and why he had to go through everything that he had and was counting the days when the weekend comes for him to see his boys back again.

~~~ THE END ~~~