Anesthetized Reality

His hand was going numb. He was slipping away, slowly, he looked up, and the sun was shining but it got hazy as rapidly as he was losing consciousness. He could hear muffled words being uttered, he hoped there were people around him, he hoped they would revive him if he slipped away.
As he lost control of it all, darkness invaded, like the proverbial king, followed by his horsemen. He lost the sense of reality, as he let go. He always hated reality, there was too much drama out there, too much of unwanted human emotions which deterred the progress of humanity, as a whole. He wanted an escape, he didn't know it would come this way, but he welcomed it, with an open heart and an open mind.
The darkness was everywhere, and then, suddenly, he seemed to be waking up. He was on the cold, moistured ground and a cool wind blew across his face, disturbing his already haphazard-by-birth curly hair.
He did not want to set it. He had the least idea where he was, it seemed like he was in a room, badly lit by an unknown source. In fact, he had lost the sense of time. He did not remember his hand going numb nor did he remember the muffled voices. For him, this was the reality.
He walked forward, his footsteps echoing off from the dank walls of the room in which he had woken up. He blinked, and he was on the street, the doorway to the room behind him. All the people shuffled past, but, he could not hear a thing. It seemed like he had gone deaf. He loved every ounce of this.
 Just then, he heard a very familiar voice whispering in his ears, "you forgot your keys", he stood rooted to the spot, as the whisperer's breath tickled his ears.
He felt the keys sliding into his closed fist, as he turned around to look at the whisperer. There was nobody, except the doorway from which he assumed he had emerged onto the street. He turned around, there was his vehicle but the street had just become empty! Glad that it had, he hopped onto the vehicle and hit the gas.
The lights of the city shot past him, and suddenly he was dirt-riding amongst the trees!
The unknown source of light was his only guide. Maybe it was the sun. He didn't know.
The roar of his engine seemed very much hypnotic, it buzzed in his ears, and he seemed to recognize a tune. It was his favourite song! As the realization hit him, it seemed like the music was becoming clearer and clearer! Swaying on his ride with his favourite tune blazing in his ears, he wanted nothing at all, he just wanted to ride till eternity!
Just as he believed his thought, he saw another vehicle in front of him, his palms seemed not to know it, but he did, he was going to crash. His palms did not budge, they twisted the throttle to the maximum and he knew what was coming.
The two vehicles crashed, and he plunged to the ground, he expected pain, which eventually came, it started with his arms, but, there was an added warmth to the so-called pain. He tried opening his eyes, he was under a tree, the source of light directly above him, shining through the trees. The rest of his body felt the pain. He had something in his throat.
He blinked, and the image turned hazy, his ears seemed sharper now, he could hear voices calling "he's coming back", he blinked again, and the trees had disappeared, he saw the operation theatre come into focus, his doctor smiling at him, and worst of all, the noise of reality hit him hard. He hated it, but he had to accept.
As his disoriented brain started its usual chore of " making sense", his memory of the place he had been to, began to wane. All he remembered was that he was happy when he had been there.
That's all he wanted, to feel happy, just once.

Photography by Nishanth Bobbili