The Story Jar
Posted by: Vasudha on: May 26, 2009
Yes, let’s.
Hunt for the jar we buried beneath our giant sandcastle. Find it, open it, listen to the stories we hid inside for fear of being accidentally discovered and understood, get it done with. Gaze together at endearing memories of small fingers picking up seashells and tiny feet running towards the sea, memories that don’t fit on anyone else. Because the present doesn’t matter anymore, not with its tedious words and cryptic messages.
(There was an old woman who used to collect sea glass and dreams; — do you remember her? — I ran into her on a rainy day. Remarkable the clarity with which, when I told her my name, she recalled the stray words we used to write in the sand, you and I. To have been her and observed ourselves. To have seen those children playing, making stories, smiling. To have seen it all from a distance.)
Where is that jar? Where is the jar we hid our stories in? They will not exist, like they used to, until they are heard again. And the saddest part is I keep finding bits and pieces of their fading shadows in uncanny corners, staring at me in silent appeal.
20 Responses to "The Story Jar"
I don’t wanna find my jar. I fear what I might have hidden in there. I don’t have a good track record. I hid Maria Sharapova pics under the ludo game, remember? :P
Anyway, jokes apart, I really like this. I would love to find my jar, I would love to relive my childhood and to see how different I was, what my thoughts, dreams and aspirations were. I seem to have changed so much I can’t even remember the younger me anymore.
Ah, the Maria Sharapova pics, yes. How can one forget something like that so easily? :D
I’m glad you liked it. And I hope you find your jar. :)
I know you won’t. I wonder why I keep telling you things and digging my own grave. That said, I really wonder where those Sharapova pics have vanished to. It took a lot of effort, you know. Sneaking newspapers, opening the sports page and cutting those pictures and then explaining how you’re this big Roger Federer fan when your parents find almost every picture under a Tennis related headline cut out of there. :P
Yup, you totally keep digging your own grave.
Hadn’t your mom thrown ‘em away or something? (Should I call her up to ask? :P ) So you told them that you were a Federer fan, eh? Dude, why am I not surprised? :D
I don’t know if she’d thrown them away. She should have confronted me at least once before doing that. But please no, don’t ask. I’ll live without knowing where they are. Maybe somebody found them and is having fun with them..er whatever.
Yea I told them I’m a Federer fan. I am but obviously I wouldn’t be cutting his photos etc, would I? :P
And you know me way too well already to understand that I’m totally capable of doing something like that and hence you’re not surprised. But fikar not, some day I will surpass your expectations and actually surprise you. :P
I’ll be surprised the day you start listening to Missy Elliott. :P
I smashed mine, and swallowed the pieces. So that now I can carry it inside me, in my head.
Um, that’s a very strange thing to do. Anyway, to each his own. :)
Its not. I just didn’t want the zombies to run their hands over it. After all, our dreams, stories define who we are. So I took the liberty of protecting my soul. Didn’t you?
Souls don’t interest zombies. The living, though, can damage your jar.
Succeeded in making my heart heavy, as usual :)
Indeed, all of us have our jars.
Do I want to find my jar?
Do you, Vasudha? Really?
“..for fear of being accidentally discovered and understood”
Have these fears been adequately allayed? And don’t you have another fear that, in the time that followed the burial, you’d walked far away from those stories?
I still have these fears. I want to take my time.
I want to find my jar. I’m still looking for it. I want to listen to my lost stories again.
As far as I’m concerned, the fear of being understood is far greater than the fear of losing my treasure.
Do you think eventually your fears will fade away?
I would like to hear this read out. Far as I can tell, the mannerism in which it is read would make a great deal of difference.
Yes, that’d make a lot of difference. :)
I got the impression you wanted it to be read in a rush, like a transient thought. Was I right?
That’s precisely what I had in mind when I wrote it. The whole story — apart from the words “tedious words and cryptic messages,” which might sound better if one were to pause after “its” and read the rest of the sentence in a whisper fading away into silence — is meant to be read in a rush.
Well you did a damn right job of the punctuation cause that’s exactly how I read it.
“Yes, let’s.” was the trick.
That’s why I had put in that “Yes, let’s.”
And, thanks. :)
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I am an undergrad student pursuing physics at University of Delhi. [...]
1 | Awais Aftab
May 27, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Intriguing metaphor.
Vasudha
May 31, 2009 at 11:40 am
Thanks, Awais.