Samsāra

Chapter Twenty-nine

Bhalla dreamed of darkness. He was imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, chained to the jagged rocks jutting from the soil, their pointed edges piercing his skin. They were everywhere and no matter where he shifted, they were there; piercing and cutting through. It was agony; the pain from his wounds, his lifeblood seeping into the hungry earth that sustained itself off of him, the hunger pangs that hollowed in his stomach and cheeks and combined with his unbounded wounds turned him into a dessicated shell of his former self. What was worst wasn't the hunger neither was it the pain, but the dense blackness pressing in on his eyeballs and senses, turning him mad. 

He had no idea how many days have passed, minutes? Eons? He no longer remembered a time before this; he no longer remembered the sun or its warmth or the songs of the songbirds, he no longer remembered what it meant to be free. He had no sense of self again. He was nothing but food for the greedy earth.

The cavern he was in suddenly rumbled, slashing into the cold silence he was imposed in. About him, the walls of his prison crumbled and fell to the floor, smashing the pointed teeth of the greedy earth. Then there was a searing pain unlike anything he'd ever felt, burning deep into his eyes for the first time since he could remember, he was looking into the blinding radiance of the sun. It was too much, it would burn his eyes to ashes but he couldn't look away as the sun burned away the darkness. It filled the cavern from everywhere, enveloping him in light that had gentled to soft warmth and the light of hope unfurled in his heart.

Then, all of a sudden, the light and warmth began retreating. The golden beams curling in on itself, rolling up quickly until it was gone and the walls of his prison rebuilt itself, shutting the light away. Hope decayed in his chest as the chains and sharp rocks claimed him again, this time drawing him deeper still into a place where light could never reach.

Bhalla woke to the scent of jasmine in his nose. The side of his face was lightly pressed on something smooth and warm, and his arms were wrapped about someone warm and soft. He came fully awake, a bit puzzled and his mouth dry. The first thing he saw was the giant wooden bed posts with scenes carved into the mahogany. Bhalla concentrated on it until he remembered some of the scenes came from Sakuntala by Kalidasa. Others came from Krishna's youthful exploits with the milkmaids and lord Kandarpa wielding his sugarcane bow. Bhalla had never read the epic Sakuntala himself but Bheema had spouted off about it sometime ago in an effort to woo a court lady. There was a part that he, Bhalla, unintentionally committed to memory:

Thy heart, indeed, I know not:
but mine, oh! cruel, love
warms by day and by night;
and all my faculties are centered on thee.
Thee, O slender maid,
love only warms;
but me he burns;
as the day-star only stifles the fragrance of the night-flower,
but quenches the very orb of the moon.
This heart of mine,
oh thou who art of all things the dearest to it,
will have no object but thee.

If Bhalla was a poetic man, he'd have recited the stanza to Ajiona, crooning her awake but he wasn't. What he wanted to do was drape her with jewels, maybe they would speak on his behalf the depths of his feelings. Bhalla skimmed his knuckles along the bare shoulder and down the arm of the sleeping woman in his embrace, imagining how she would look covered in flashing rubies or fat gleaming freshwater pearls; thin strings of gold. Or would emerald suit her the most? Would it make her green eyes flash even more? His knuckles drew a line from her shoulder to her collarbone as he thought of the jewels his father had bestowed his mother in the early days of their marriage. According to his father, they had cost more than the jewels in Amravati and they belonged to his mother.

As he twined his fingers with Ajiona's, Bhalla wondered if his mother would give him some of those heirlooms to gift to Ajiona. But he wouldn't do so, Bhalla wanted to buy her the jewels himself, one he personally chose for her. He lifted the hand twined with his to the pale dawn light creeping into the room with long fingers and marveled on how perfect she was and how, for the first time in his life, he felt completely at peace, as though all was right with his world. There were no expectations of him, no talks of dharma, just him and what he wanted.