"Read me," she said. It was late in the evening and the party was at a grog induced high of lucid extrapolations and focussed intent that plain sobriety could but barely offer. I was going downhill and fast. She was beautiful and her earnest request offered me a chance of solidarity as the feeling that she too was not satisfied by the specious offerings so generously being bandied around. Also, the pleasure one derives from trying to gauge who is further out on the limb aided in halting the slide.

Maybe, alone as I had been would probably find somebody whom I could vibe with. Feeling of superiority, malevolent pleasure and hope of true love jockeyed for position. Of course, helping another human being also slunk somewhere in the background. Ease with which such diverse emotions surface based on merest of comments speak volumes about the heightened sense of awareness of self. Analysing all the thoughts that come up will bring to light the character of the thinker. It will always be fragmented pieces of the good and the bad that merge to form an individual.

"You're self-obsessed and think too much. Lighten up." Words of my shrink echoed in my head and I took his advice. I raised myself to a more upright position befitting a solemn physiognomist and a counseller and leaned forward.

Booze donates a startling clarity to some of the mental processes dealing with introspection and analysis but, as a measure of balance, rescinds the simple gift of memory that stores geo-positioning of the objects around one's self. It was the combination of my chin and the table, that had mysteriously moved from its former position, that broke my fall.

Profanity mixed with savage ululation added more zing to the party and by the looks of it, it did not seem out of place to elicit a second glance. She was remarkably unmoved by the fall, especially someone to whom she had posed such a confounding question. Question that could have been a simple come-on. But I was reading between the lines again---it was a plea to reach deep and understand her---something that others in her life had probably failed to do and she was desperate to be known for what she really was; shorn of the mask we all wear.

Hell! I'll just take it as a come-on, I thought and pox on anything else. "You use these feelings to feed you ego, to make yourself feel good for being more aware and hence, superior to others," shrink's words rang again through the brain. Yeah, he's right, fuck all thoughts and get down to action, if she is still interested.

Somehow, the time elapsed between my show of interest and the fall had not robbed the scene of dramatic tension. She still had the look of eager anticipation of what I would reveal. I, on my part, feeling a little bruised, both in the ego and the body, assumed the stance of the seer again. I looked into her eyes. They were dark and held the promise of great depth and myriad emotions. Eyes that would not or could not camouflage the intensity of desire that rose within her. Windows to the soul as someone had said.

I was close enough to smell her breath that was mixture of wine and nicotine. Her lips were slightly open as if inviting me to them. All noise around me faded and my thoughts acquired a direct communication with my loins. Only sound was the pounding in my veins where the blood diffused with alcohol was making hearty effort to flow at a faster clip. I had to kiss her and she seemed to want it too as she leaned tantalisingly closer. I switched back and forth from her mouth to her eyes that betrayed the desperation to be kissed and her tongue licked her lips. Utter wantonness to give herself to me, I thought, firmament would blaze with fireworks. I closed my eyes and reached for the lips.

Looking for Zoe

When the stars set, their place taken by the bright sun I could remember only pain. Pain that coursed through my nose and hurled shards of amplified nerve pulses announcing more of it thudding into my brain. Throbbing chin completed the complex network of dancing neurones that were racing back and forth covering every micro milimetre of my head.

Bloody woman was drunk or stoned or both. She fell straight on to me. She not only missed my mouth but her head continued in a graceful arc that deviated, only slightly, when it encountered my nose. It being as accommodating as the owner gave way in a shower of blood and splintered bone and allowed the head to continue its downward descent. Weight of the impact and shock of it all sent me crashing backward where the concrete flooring that lay to rest all the lustful aspirations and the twining of two lost souls my noodle was harbouring.

How well, in retrospect, can we piece together our humiliation down to the tiniest detail and that too in slow motion. It was like the breaking news on TV, the scene playing repeatedly accompanied by sense-o-rama in the head, filmed-in-Kodak-for-natural- colours and the interpretations and analyses by the witnesses. Virtual reality.

Sitting in the emergency room with each stab of pain was accompanied by thoughts that were moving through me too fast to grasp and analyse. Random thoughts. Flow of consciousness. Some were happy thoughts and some bad but generally, they were of the kind to which these adjectives did not apply. Junk. But they seemed to string together the ones that did. It was like life itself---made up of the good moments and the bad that were connected by periods whose only purpose seemed to be serve as a passage from one to another. When it becomes apparent that the passage is becoming longer, one tends to seek experiences, mostly good, to increase life's worth.

That was what I was looking for tonight---seek that experience, which after years of obsessing over it I named Zoe, Greek for life. I do not know of what shape or situation it will manifest itself or whether I would even recognise it when it does come. The girl probably seemed like the answer but all I had to show for it was dented ego, broken nose and a huge hospital bill---trophies of the search. I'll stash them with the others and head out tomorrow again to find what/who I am looking for. .

^