Chaidhanya Jayamohan- Midterm Assignment

Prompt 1

The Bringer of Ruin

(Before the Game of Dice, Astinapuri, Yudhishtra’s palace, midnight.)

Why am I so restless? The rustling leaves whisper ‘caution’,
The footprints on the sand scream ‘ruin’ in an unnerving speak.
The Gods stare, their eyes glimmering, from within the pool of darkness,
Into the dimly lit streets, as this great City sleeps.
Tomorrow, the fate of these slumbering thousands is decided.
A throw of dice! How appropriate.
Never, even the all-seeing eyes of the mightiest of Gods, may predict the fall of a dice.
Yes… that is how this must end.

Yet I feel so distant and helpless.
A thick fog obscures my beloved brothers.
Bhima’s spirit wanders somewhere in the gloomy woods;
His blood, poisoned with disdain for me and everything I stand for.
Vijaya looks on from his desolate snowcapped peaks,
From the edge of my world into the piercing silence that lies beyond.
My Queen has withdrawn into herself, and Oh! … Her cold smile
Stays on like it was sculpted into stone a thousand years ago.

“I must protect. I must save them from ruin”
How foolish we mortals are! In this grand Game of Dice we are nothing but pawns.
Empires and civilizations rising and falling
And those awful silences in between them.
At its crescendo, one soul’s shrill treble reaches the void
And the void chimes in.
All of this must wither away; all of us must live and die for that one soul
And the lingering final note of his hymn.
And that will be it.
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This mortal coil

(Arjuna before the great war of Kurukshetra)

One step is all it takes.
I can step off this isle and into the abyss.
One small step and I can forget all of this hatred.
One meager step and I rise above all of them.
But I am bound.
By my blood, by my word…  by His music.
And that moment when my arrow pierces the heart of my mortal enemy;
Our eyes shall meet and a part of me shall die.
I cannot, for all the kingdoms of heaven, walk away from that moment.
Not ever.
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