He was as mysterious as the universe. I could never truly understand him. I wasn’t blessed with enough intellect to understand someone who talked about the profound matters of the universe, about life and the arts. I was never as curious as he was always fearing that the curiosity might somehow kill the cat. I wondered what if it killed my pet cat that I love so much. 

Curiosity kills the cat. He was the one who introduced me to this idiom. But for so many years, I took it in a literal sense. I could never understand what an idiom is and what it implies. I was that naïve who had a very small dream—to build a small house and get married and have three small children. That was it. Beyond that, everything was meaningless to me. So, I was working hard day in and day out to fulfil my dream. 

He spent most of his time in solitude. Sometimes he would stay hungry for days. I would often see him sitting in front of his canvas with the paint brush in one hand and the colour bowl in another, deeply lost in thought. Though we lived in the same apartment, oftentimes I wouldn’t see him for weeks. Sometimes months would pass by without exchanging any words. He would seldom come to my room to talk. And if he happened to come, he would come with a bottle of wine calling for a celebration. And then we would talk for hours and laugh until midnight: he would share his progress in his art, he would talk about his inspirations, dreams, passions, ideas and aims with the fire of excitement burning in his eyes. 

I always wanted to share my opinions on the subject matters he brought forth. However, I would always run out of words and fall into a deep silence as I was devoid of ideas. I could never find the ground where he stood and from where he spoke. No matter how hard I tried to walk and find his ground, it always fell out of my reach.

“Pray, for god’s sake, sometimes dream something other than the house and the family,” he would say jokingly with a sip of wine. 

And I would laugh as if I literally took it as a joke. His words, however, would hit me hard and would shrug my soul. He would always make me realise that I was a person devoid of any passion. I too wish I had a passion but as soon as I wake up, my small dream occupies my small mind for the entire day. I never seemed to have the time to think about arts, music, literature and life like he does. Perhaps, that was my destiny. I was happy on my own. But, whenever I was with him, I would start doubting my happiness. His passionate presence would make me confront my own weakness and limitation. Many questions that never bothered to enter my mind otherwise would start flooding my psyche after listening to his mysterious talk.

“A person devoid of passion is a living corpse,” he said to me once. Ever since then, whenever I was alone, I would ask if I was really a living corpse. What is it that makes a human being alive? Aren’t we already alive? Is there a different and subtle state called aliveness somewhere out there? If yes, where is that aliveness? I never dared to ask such questions to him. I was reluctant, for his mere presence was strong enough for my so-called questions to melt down.

I liked him. I had a great deal of respect for him and his ways of living and thinking. We were childhood friends. Best friends in many ways. As he was a man of different moods and colours, something about him always made me feel uncomfortable. Many times, I have felt utterly lonely in his company. And yet we were friends. Something was truly holding us together. Something more powerful than our minds and personalities. 

One thing that always tortured him was his migraine. “There is a devil inside me that always tortures me,” he would say. “It feels like the devil is drilling the wall of my head and it pains as hell.” Whenever the devil inside him woke up, he went to sleep. Sometimes, he would sleep for many consecutive days. And, that would scare the hell out of me. He wouldn’t open the door nor would he agree to eat. He would just sleep and, whenever I knocked the door to ask about his condition, he would simply mumble, “I am still alive, my friend.”

I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea how to deal with the migraine. I knew that it was a common disease. They are more common in women than men. For many, it is genetic. In my friend’s case, however, I always felt that stress was the cause of his migraine. He used to think a lot. He was a serious person.  Perhaps, his over thinking habit stressed him out which eventually led him to sleep more and eat less. I would see him only after a week or so. After the painful phase of migraine, he looked emaciated; his cheek bones clearly visible. His sulky face, dry lips, deep sunken eyes, thin and long moustache made him look like a very miserable man. Like a man who is constantly fighting with life and death.

Every weekend, we would spend some quality time in our backyard drinking beer, barbecuing and smoking weed. The birds chirping in the nearby tree, the cool evening breeze, melodious instrumental music in the background. That was our ideal way to chill. 

One evening, over the sip of cold beer, he shared his frustration with me through a poem he had written. He loved writing as much as painting.

“I was born with a hole deep in my heart...

?I spent my entire life trying to fill it with every little things I had...

Last night, in the midst of dark silence, 

?I realised, that the hole had 

turned deeper than ever...

?When I die, don’t bother to dig the earth...?

Please bury me in that hole instead…”

I could see tears in his eyes as he finished reading his poem. The poem made me sad too. Suddenly, the birds stopped chirping, the breeze stopped breezing, the music stopped blaring, the beer dried up inside the bottle and the smoked died. I couldn’t believe my ears when he said he was moving out. He wanted to move  upstate, far away from the hustle and bustle of New York City. This city is making me sick, he said. “We all need few friends whom we meet only once in a while. With whom we only share quality time. With whom we only share laughter and joy,” he said; “we need such friends, at least, to create an illusion for them and ourselves that there is indeed someone who is always happy somewhere. Otherwise, the day to day life, the day to day circumstance, the day to day person is damn boring…I want you to be one of those friends. I don’t want you to get fed up with my every day madness.”

It’s been five years since he moved out. But I haven’t heard anything from him. I don’t know where he is actually. I don’t know what he is doing. Sometimes when I come out to my backyard to smoke, I think about him. What happened to all those years of friendship? I wonder. 

Indeed, he was as deep as his imagination. He was as miserable as his migraine. He was as strange as his moustache.  He was as silent as the midnight.