Samsaara : Devadoot

A Crow to Pluck

The skin appeared translucent, stretched to its limits, ready to snap with the slightest tug. The blue black decomposed skin all over the body seemed hypnotic and at the same time beautiful. My feeling of disgust changed. I felt compelled to look at it. Within seconds, the thin skin on the neck tore with a sound and the body fell on the ground with its limbs twisted into abnormal positions. Little bits of clotted blood and rotting viscera dripped from the suspended head.

My wrist began to hurt more than I could bear but I continued to stare at the body in a daze. An unbearable urge engulfed my entirety. I just had to go towards the bodies. Ignoring the pain in my hands and the fear in my mind I began moving towards it. I felt nauseated but still continued. I just had to go towards it. My usually tempestuous mind was now a still lake and the only thing I could think of was how beautiful the sight was.

I stood a foot away from the body looking at it without blinking. I raised my hands and let the drops of blood and various rotting fluids drip on my index finger. The mixture of brown, blue and transparent fluids trickled down my hand and left behind gelatinous blobs of flesh that were being ravaged by tiny pristine, white, glossy maggots. They crawled along my finger trying to find any opening or a wound to bury into. I stood there in a daze. My eyes refused to blink and my thoughts refused to budge. I was a slave in my own body. My wrist hurt more than I could tolerate and I wanted to scream, but I couldn't.

My eyes shifted to the head that lay motionless in front of me. I looked at what was once a man. Face swollen and bluing in the hues of death. His half bald head crowned by white hair now lay limp matted under his own blood. Those eyes, those dead lifeless eyes, forced to remain open under the force of the vine that choked the life out of him. They had now sunken deep into the sockets looking almost plastic and hollow.

Visions of this man's mundane life began flooding my mind, from his office frustrations to his sour family life. Right from his birth, I saw all his failures and heartbreaks, I felt how it chipped away at his resolve and eventually he ended his own life: Suicide!

A toy soldier, hollow body,

Nurtures gently blackened breath.

Embers concealed, irrevocably,

Supine crawl to nascent death.

Scrawls nimbly tales of 'nother,

Appeases their summons, unfair!

Recount my ordeals, none bother.

Battered, wherefore do I care?

Marching barefoot to the beat,

For desires of else's greed.

Threshold of defeat, I retreat

My ordeals no one to heed.

Toy soldier, edge of his seat,

Prophesies of the wolf's howl.

Ground down in the brutal heat,

Knuckles white, stomach growled.

Shadows, they asked him pitifully,

'Desire to elude this wretchedness?

We have a key to end this all,

A release from constant distress.'

Fearsome wolves onwards crept,

One of them on his feet slept.

Other glared at his devilish face,

Towards his neck the beast leapt.