lineage

His room was protected by glass panes. The deputy stood on my arrival and when he read my name, I could see his convulsions on his face, which was laborious for him to hide. He and his partner spoke for a couple of minutes before acknowledging me to offer the audience to the sovereign crown. How could he decline to let me see the prince, his exclusive cousin breathing at this point? Moreover, think more, his mother and my mother had the ideal connection between two sisters ...

Did I see the daze in their eyes and the deathlike handshake when I became acquainted with them? Maybe it was my imagination. I was not in the soundest physique. I had all the maladroitness of a clown and that strange strabismus that isolated me from any association. From time to time it was my shield to make footprints in a direction opposite to undesirable people. Sometimes, it's to my divestment .......

Damo, my sovereign cousin, and the next ruler. Since boyhood, I have hated these trickeries and disputes, these seemingly big matters, that have no soul and in the rush to get it, one earns avaricious imprints that are hard to shed later. Damo also had similar responses, maybe in an extreme tone and never sought the position of honor, neither for his own sake nor for any future scheme. But the conditions were created in such a manner that they needed to recognize the grand will that governs those territories and charities...

When we met, he cried. He called me and sobbed like a child. As if to retreat to our adolescent moments together, first ... "Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow ... And yet, Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of them". He quoted the Scripture. How did you get this knowledge? What erudition for a young guy! … I cried too. Maybe I'm reflecting on my mother or his own mother or those optimistic ages of adolescence, sans cares and cunning......

What is his life now? Who really loves him? Has his better half that youthful enthusiasm and adores him from the heart? Could he, who is nothing but a bunch of bones, keep his faculties clear amidst all the public enterprises? From the profusion of sycophants that surround him for momentary triumphs, is he able to discern the real and maintain all the mental acuity, which was once a storehouse of generosity, and good faith? Not very likely.Damo tells me that today he is the luckiest of the fellows to see me. He said he would mark this day in his diary with the picture of the roses attached .........

Mother got Seesha Hall, an old residence with a closed stance that is known for backwoods and tiny trees and populated by peacocks. My father drove me to the point in a jeep and it was an enchanting site, even though quite remote. My mother was forced to fight a couple of court suits to seize possession of it. Later, she offered it to a network of hotel industry that aimed interstate guests........

My cousin's mother loved me so much and once we went to her house in the country after an hour's journey. The stream that started from nearby Sierra was so full since it was monsoon season. Small, well-formed cobbles were collected and later used as paperweights. We were obliged to risk our lives on a boat without machinery. The trip was with an adequate dose of perils that paved the way to lasting memories ...

Damo stayed in the lower story of the mansion and Vasetta, his distant cousin who was focusing the cases at Fort's court, occupied the upper room. His cabin had a distinctive fetor of old volumes of juridical texts which he crammed day and night.He was in the preparatory eras of clientele and had to memorize each lecture. There was a brace of stairs. One led to Damo's bedroom. And the other to a private pantry, where he supped at a petite table, sitting on an old chair and experimenting his culinary talents. Camunni has come recently after seeing the carnival in the city. He was all praise for the artists. He had never seen ladies in such elegant attires. He was the boy employed by the family to support the cows. It is a demanding job........

Damo was hard to hear and did not know the right reason. Once went to Kembalure in the company of Venetta and three others. He brought us home in his private taxi ... We stayed in the two sections of the traditional building. Late at night, the lights shone in his mini Alexandrine library. Volumes from Plato to Swapnavasavadattam, half-read and scattered throughout the room, which the librarian organized in the morning. Damo probably read it all. Where did he get energy for all this? His student was discussing another treatise he had learned. Some people in the costumes of the assistants came and went. They stealthily lit the cigarettes in the cell on the corner,...

Damo's irritating behavior upset some who were fair to treat him according to his stature. Hey, he had his minutes without power, something for the people near him could not support and something plain to recognize. In front of a group of young people, he tried to say something close to his heart that the general public thought absurd and inopportune. Meanwhile, Bacchus has enslaved him. The children wanted to get their father back, but it was too late and the disease had spread to another organ ..........

What should I say, my dear friends, just that this Damo does not exist anymore? He was more than a brother, more than a friend to me. When I was away from him, I never felt his absence. Yes, true friends, even though far could communicate with each other perhaps in the same way as when they were on a sofa. Time and distance are illusions like many before I have declared. Love is very strange. Love is so real. This my dear Damo knew it too. But I must admit now that I have no knowledge of his whereabouts. In fact, I'm not interested ...

Now his wife, the unhappy lady enters the necropolis to pay tribute to her life partner. To return to her best valiant self. It may be a sheer waste of time. Not necessarily. Maybe she can have that outlook by staying alone in a cell with no sadder thoughts to endure. She now quotes my dear brother Damo that in life, every moment is a full flower and you being the gardener who told you to steal a flower and claim it your own....... ..

----[From a work of FICTION that is in progress]

THE MEETING WAS MOST UNEXPECTED