Quite a botanical description it was, I must say. Now, I ask you again. Have you seen a leaf sprout off a branch? Have you seen it flaunt all shades of green and brown, and fall off the branch without ever making a thumping sound? I guess not. I have. I have witnessed the whole orchestrated fall of leaves—these autumn leaves which, like a well-harmonised orchestra, spring out of the curtains at one point and hide behind those thick curtains at another. The only difference is that the drawing

off of the curtains in an orchestra is followed by thunderous applause, while the fall of the autumn leaves is pierced by a silence, deep and cold silence.

Silence, you would think the silence of it is calm, surreal, in fact. Silence. These days, people strive to attain silence; months, sometimes years go by as people embark on a spiritual journey in the hope that it will lead them to enlightenment. There was this man I knew who went into the deep woods, in a faraway forest where leaves and foliage had been cleared to make space for a multi-storied building. He would hide himself in the silence of the falling leaves, the occasional chirp of migrating birds and the rumble of four-wheelers seemed less distant with each passing year. He would then return home, enlightened, after few days of silence. “I found enlightenment in the depths of silence,” he would say.

If you're among those who do not believe that there is an unspoken enlightenment in silence, you are wrong. Trust me, I've been there myself. The rectangular room—with rows and rows of heads, just like mine—was so silent that I could hear my own breath, feel every drop of blood my little heart pumped out. As I counted my shaky breaths and almost chewed down half a pencil, all I wished was for the bell to ring.

Clank, clank, clank!

The throbbing sound of the bell always filled my heart with plenty of oxygen, which the stillness of a faraway forest couldn't.

Tick tock! Tick tock!

That's the clock ticking in my room. If you ask me what's a man's best friend, then I will say it's a clock. It keeps you company even after everything and everyone else has left you.

Tick tock was all I could hear in the well-lit corridors thronged by people. They were walking so fast, as if they would miss a bus if they didn't, as if they were running farther away from the all-too-existent odour of chloroform. Even the earth started rotating at a faster speed. Everything spun around me. It was like a cyclic loop that circled round and round and round. There was chatter, laughter and thumping feet. But I could only hear the deafening silence. I had just lost my wife and the least you could do was stop the chilling laughter and shatter that silence. My wife, she would have arranged those harrowing sounds and dead silence in the chords of a musical beat with a click of her fingers. But she was gone, and all I wanted was to remember the hum of her voice. But all I could hear was the goddamn clock. Tick tock. After the clock crashed into pieces, I felt I could hear the echo of her long-gone laugh. I felt enlightened for ten seconds. Tick tock…The clock came to life again then.

The clock in my room, it has a nice violet-coloured frame. Ten years ago, it would have been light-years away from being nice. But now I find it nice, soothing, even. As soon as it strikes two, the door creaks open and a young, petite woman enters my room bringing with her the waft of her nice perfume. She always smells nice, a different smell every day. I immerse myself in her fragrance as she brushes the dust off my red couch and the expensive wooden closet the intricate details of which never fail to call her notice. She then reaches for the clock on the wall but gives in. She has a slender, short body. A thick layer of dust must adorn the violet-frame, I think aloud. She then looks at me and smiles.

“Do you need something?” She pauses after she says the word 'something', caught in a battle between choosing the words 'Sir', 'Mr' and 'Uncle'. I respond with the one-syllable word she's grown fond of. “No,” I then smile back. I can easily say yes so that she might linger for a while with her cups and cookies, and her nice smell. But I've grown accustomed to the tick-tock of the violet clock. It is what keeps me company. Besides, she'll be gone anyway

and when my eyelids flutter open at the odd hours of the night, I can always look at my clock and hear the tick-tock. And oh, the violet glows at night.

The clock and its intricately carved numbers, I know every detail of these. There's a little dent on its inner surface which the clock-maker chose to let be. Every time the seconds hand reaches the dent in the course of its periodic rotation, the dent halts its motion for two seconds. I find it amusing, the stopping of time, or so I like to think. When too much of violet hurts my eyes, I look outside. The ceiling-to-floor window gives me clear view of an old tree. It rises high, the round of its canopy covering the sky. The foliage dances with the wind and along to the tick-tocks. The leaves harmonise with the tick-tocks. And I keep a mental record of all the new leaves that sprout and go green and fall.

“It's an oak tree,” the girl with the nice smell tells me. It's just old for me, the bark so brown and the leaves so green. When the leaves decide to let go of the tree and take a plunge down, dancing with the wind, I hold my breath and listen to the tick-tock. It takes eight seconds, give or take, for a leaf to fall. The glory of the leaves is followed by this fall, the inevitable fall. Every time a leaf touches the moist earth, I close my eyes and try to remember the green, the glory it brought to the strength of the tree. Most of the time, I only see the sadder brown the leaves eventually opt to become. Sometimes, I manage to block out the brown and enliven the glorious green that used to be for a few seconds. And then, I listen to the tick-tock. Ten seconds, I feel enlightened for ten seconds.

The crumpled leaves disappear in the crust of the earth, just like everything you love does, your cassette player, your wife. They leave the embrace of your strength and love and opt to be part of a journey unknown. These autumn leaves, my wife and many others, they like the fall. First their colours change, then they lose their smell, and then they take the ultimate fall. All the while you are a witness to their fall and you drown yourself in the silence. And just when you think you might lose your breaths in the whirlpool of silence, the tick-tock brings you back to living sounds and saves you.

There, I now see a brown leaf ready to take the plunge. It falls down gracefully; the whooshing wind orchestrates the downfall. Eight seconds, and it remains still, silent. I hear only the tick-tocks. I try to stand up. If you think my frail legs can't support the weight of my body, then you don't know me. I stand up, bring my hands together, and then the stomping sound, a loud applause.

Clap, clap, clap!