Skip to main content

The Fishpond


Freedom means self-inurement. Upon entering the next country, he was deceived into the illusion that the land was vast, and its horizon stretched towards an unknown eternity. Then he saw a bird, circling about gleefully in mid-air before flitting headlong to the death embrace of its twin self. He realised, that the country had circumambient boundaries, all were composed of mirrors.

Suddenly he saw Him. Tentatively he retreated a step, ready to flee the place. A contemptuous smile appeared at the other side, silently jeering at his cowardice. So horrified by the sight he started scurrying here and there, but everywhere he turned he found no exit. Finally giving up such audacious attempt he sit nursing his wounds under a tree, and there he saw- myriads of glaring eyes, mocking.

Out of frustration, he howled. The earth responded resoundingly in low and faraway echoes. Nature chimed in with rumbling thunders. The bird, terrified, shrieked out her elegy until blood trickled down from her throat, and stained the grasses and flowers. Some time later, the world quieted down, and during this respite a booming voice spoke, full of authority yet by no means threateningly: “My son, why vexed by things that are beyond your control? There are bounds everywhere you go, meeting you face to face at the end of your every journey. You think you are free, you think you can run on a vast land ungoverned, and your unfettered heart is in the form of a pair of flapping wings. But there is always a part of you that is forever prisoned. No key can unlock that tormenting incarceration. Darkness bears down on you, relieved only by momentary starlight that filters through the cracks of the small chamber wherein you are cooped up. You envy the gods. Because they possess the absolute sovereignty of their freedoms, and yours. No man is ever free.”

Ruefully he groaned: “How I wish I were a fish. Swimming as carefree as one were allowed to be in the boundless ocean. With scarcely anything to be afraid of except the predatory sharks.”


Musingly the Father answered: “Contrary to what you supposed, the fish are not totally free either. Because all my fish live in a golden pond.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paintings in Proust: Vesuvius Erupting by J.M.W. Turner

In Proust’s Swann’s Way , the narrator’s grandmother is described as one who inculcates in her grandson a reverence for the “elevated ideals.” Infinitely disdainful of the mechanical nature of replica, when shown photograph of the magnificent Mount Vesuvius his grandmother dismisses it with a lofty query as of whether other more acknowledged artists did paintings of the volcano in the first place. She is having in mind the great J.M.W. Turner, whose depiction of Vesuvius in flame displays, in her view, “a stage higher in the scale of art.” The enduring fascination with volcanoes was especially evident in the 19 th century, which saw an irregularly high frequency of Vesuvius eruptions that, at the time, alarmed many of the imminent cataclysm that a thousand of years before destroyed the city of Pompeii. Turner, according to a number of sources, may not be amongst the first-hand witnesses of those eruptions, but badgered his geologist friends, John MacCulloch and Charles Stoke...
2 comments
Read more

Franz von Stuck, Two Dancers

Dancers can be like jousters. Fear and excitement wring their hearts so into tangled skein. Fluttered air brushes against their skins like chill. In anticipation of a good, likely interminable, fight both cannot be more well-prepared, grimacing to each other some distances afar as menacing demonstration of their unconquerable audacities. Everything is all so punctiliously rehearsed and choreographed. Even when darkness descends and everything is shrouded in utter invisibility, each dancer will know by heart when to put which foot forward, to which direction she will sway elegantly her supple bodice to duck narrowly from her opponent, and when the time is ripe, she will let her skirt billow like an arch of rainbow, the more fiery and colourful the rainbow the likelier the chance the dancer is going to claim the final victory. It is always something with Art Nouveau that, when beholding a piece that epitomises most substantially the essence of the said art mov...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Martin, the Great Day of His Wrath (1853)

The sky is ablaze with burning flames and the earth splits asunder- the image of an impending apocalypse looms. Those paintings are impregnated with forebodings of the demise of all living things, and can be served as memento mori- mostly cautionary tales that remind people of their mortality. Landscape paintings that depict the biblical scenes of eternal damnation (most often the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) are sometimes reinterpreted as prophetic visions of the end of the world. Painters as early as one in the Romantic period, John Martin, conjured up images that continued to awe and frighten the viewers of today. In John Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath (1853) a volcano erupts and its ashes and fire surge towards the air, rendering the sky an infernal red. One can easily establish himself into the painting and feel the quake rumble under his feet. The earth takes a topsy-turvydom, where the ground and sky suddenly become one. There are people in the paintin...
Post a Comment
Read more