A Strand of Hair

“Humans are incapable of accepting the reality even if they know it.”

It was another hot November night and we were having a conversation about things which frankly were of no interest to me. It had been one hour since we had been talking and I had almost given up on deciphering her cryptic intellectual declarations. I nodded, looking at the sky. No stars, but a bright moon.

– Do you know about Poggendorff’s illusion?

She asked, lighting up a cigarette. We were sitting on the grave of a certain Miss Margaret Tannenbaum. Bare bodied. With just pairs of jeans. I personally feel a graveyard is the most interesting place to make love. Most apt. Almost perfect. Silence, Privacy, Open Sky, Thrill and Death. An act of possibly generating a life in a place where it ends. How brilliant. I,

– No

It was my idea to have the intercourse in a graveyard. She never had ideas. I mean, she had ideas – many of them – but she wasn’t allowed to express them unless given the permission. That night, I had given her the permission. So I took the cigarette from her and she,

– Let me show you one thing. Do not look at me or what I am doing unless I say so.
– What?
– Sorry. Please.
– Okay.

She tore open the white box of the Levonorgestrel Pill, which you commonly and stupidly know as Plan-B Pill when most of the time it is your only Plan – Plan A, or even Plan A-plus – to make her ingest the pill after the act, you filthy, filthy man. So she took the torn cover of the pill she had just consumed, rummaged through her bag and started scribbling on it. Tearing of the box, I saw. Rest, I heard. Suddenly she whispered in my ear

– See

– Which of the two lines on the right looks like an extension of the one on the left?

In the moonlight, the metal on her neck glistened. I,

– The upper one.

She plucked one of her hair strands and gave it to me.

– See for yourself.

I placed it straight on the lines and it was the lower one. I returned her the strand of hair. She ate it.

– That can result in appendicitis.
– As if.

And she laughed. She immediately said,

– You know the reality. Now look at it again. Can you now see the lower line as the extension, please?

I couldn’t.

– You know the reality but you are still unable to see it, accept it.

I flicked away the cigarette stub. It must have fallen on another grave. I vaguely remember that at that particular instant of time, I had hoped for one thing – that the cigarette stub must fall on a smoker’s grave.

—

We drove back to my house. We had another conversation in the car of which I remember the following two things –

1. She had a very strong memory of reading a book from which she quoted – “Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.” I do not remember the name of the book, but I do remember the fact that she was deeply moved by it. For most part of our lives, we seek answers to questions and pursuits which either amuse or attract us, and act accordingly. But if you do not know the question or the pursuit, what then? We must act to know what we don’t know we don’t know. The unknown unknowns, she said.

2. She switched the car on auto-mode and played a musical piece by Bach – Das Wolhtemperierte Clavier. To be specific, it was the 13th Prelude & Fugue of Book 1. She said it moved her deeply. (She had been moving deeply a lot, of late) She said it had the elements of both melancholy and mirth. And from mirth, she remembered why it moved her. Birth. When she was born (haah), the Doctor was playing this particular piece.

—

We went to bed at 0400 hrs. I was too tired of her. So, I switched her off. The metal switch on the neck was an absolute masterpiece of an invention. I had bought her 3 years back from the Showroom and let me tell you one thing – she did not come cheap. I, for one, do not share the sentiments that a particular sect of people propagate against the trade of manufactured artificially intelligent quasi-humans – or as the laymen say, machine-clones. After all, they are machines. They’ve been made just to offer their services to us. This female lying next to me – eyes closed, not breathing – was made for the sole purpose of satisfying the carnal desires of humans. Manufactured in batches, by Doctors, in extremely sophisticated facilities, these were made so that men do not go crazy in the current scarcity of women. And just so that the now scarce women are not exposed to uninhibited and unwanted sexual abuse.

However, I felt guilty of exactly three things –
1. I was effectively no different from a sex-abuser.
2. I owned a slave.
3. I had started to love her.

—

7 days later. Year 2421.

I am lying on the grave of Miss Margaret Tannenbaum, all by myself. It’s 0110 hrs. I have a paper with the Poggendorff’s Illusion drawn on it. I might not come across as a sane person, but believe me I am. I know the reality and I accept it too. Morality is not for the world to enforce upon me. Ethics, they can construct but not Morality. Buying her, (ab)using her and trading her off is ethical in today’s world. The lobbyists will present before you innumerable reasons for the same. However, Morality – well that’s for me to decide. So, while these words might not be the last ones originating from my consciousness, these are definitely the last ones coming out from my mouth, my physical embodiment. I am pretty sure about it because I can very well see the pool of blood with its origin at the side of my neck on the grave of Miss Margaret Tannenbaum. If you find this voice recorder and are able to play it, hear these words carefully –

I am fed up with the pretentious humanity and everything human, except of course love. We are extremely proud of the superiority of our race. We have even found another home for us, another Earth. While it may take at least 10 generations to actually make it to that place (possible for, of course, only the wealthier class), we are proud of it. We are proud of not doing the ‘menial’ chore of even cleaning our shoes. For that and many more, we have created multipurpose robots. Menial work, my ass! We have always outperformed ourselves throughout history. We even succeeded in creating lives – artificial lives – and infused programmed consciousness in them. And what for – to rape them without any retaliation? Not allow them to even shed a tear or two for the same? How can they, after all? They have limited amount of fluid and you can turn them off before they even start to think about it. Click. Blank.

I am sorry. I have always been sorry. Every time I switched her off, I switched off a part of my soul. Every bit of my act towards her was immoral, and while this killing of my physical self is in no way an attempt to make up for it, it is definitely indicative of a strand of morality still left in me, like a strand of hair.

—
References –
1. The book referred here is In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rehman.
2. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier – Fugue & Prelude No. 13, Book 1