The speed of everything flashing by was making Raju nauseous. The rocking and swaying of his own body was unsettling and he had the uneasy feeling of everything being completely out of his control. He was strapped in, unable to focus and there was nothing he could do to make it stop or go away, nobody who could help. The scenery was ever-changing and there were sharp, shooting lights which tore through him and left gaping holes in his chest. The experience of being swept along was getting faster and more intense by the second. The Whites had now split up into frequencies way beyond the visible VIBGYOR spectrum but Raju could still see them, these new colours! Spectral shapes took on human form from within the swirling, spinning lights and hands reached forward to pull him up and away. Raju passed out.
When he came to, Raju found himself sitting on the edge of a bridge, legs hanging down over the muddy churning waters of a river some three hundred feet below. Sitting left alongside was his father. This, although strange enough as his father had been dead for over three decades, did not seem in the moment to be so very strange to Raju. He rubbed his eyes and gathered his senses.
Raju's father seemed to be talking to someone even though there was nobody else around. He was gesticulating emphatically but his tone of voice was measured. Raju looked up and saw that his father was using some sort of futuristic wear-on technology that he couldn't quite discern and there were soft circles of colourful light cascading psychedelically through the words he spoke. Occasionally a set of binary numbers would appear for a moment - in mid air around his person, and then disappear. “Weird”, thought Raju to himself, “Dad died well before the digital age came about!”
“That's correct, three and a half synergies of Compassionate Discovery and I'd also like a couple of your finest Historical Overviews if you please”, continued Raju's dad to his invisible interlocutor, “I'll pick them up in a minute”.
Raju's father then turned to face him and smiled. Raju noticed that his eyes were bright and lucid, features soft and relaxed. The scars of his illness; the marks of pain; the lines of worry, had all been erased. “You're OK, you can see, really see!” exclaimed Raju in astonishment.
Instead of replying, his father's smile broadened and he reached into a side pocket with his right hand. As he did he remarked as if to nobody in particular, “Picking it up now Geoff, thanks for all your help”. Raju wondered what was going on and opened his mouth to ask a question but shut it again immediately.
From his pocket, his father had pulled out an old transistor radio, a Sony TFM-3750W from the early days of consumer microelectronics. It was the very one Dad had brought back from a visit to Japan in the early 1980s Raju was sure of that, he just knew it! Yet this particular radio seemed different somehow. In spite of its appearance it was not analogue, and pulsated with an energy that caused his father's hand to glow as he held it.
Raju didn't know what to say. He remembered the radio and how utterly thrilled he had been as a 10-year old when his father had presented it to him, saying he had something that would “Blow Your Mind”. He remembered the delight of turning it on - 'click' - and tuning in to the different stations, hearing voices and singing in different languages and accents, strange musical cultures and ways of life brought to him by the little magicbox that was his alone, small enough to easily carry around. He remembered just how joyful and happy he had been.
He also recalled the incident, just a few short weeks later, when it had all ended.
Raju smashed the radio in a fit of uncontrollable temper and rage. He hammered this precious gift repeatedly with his fist until there was nothing left of either fist or radio, blood-soaked debris pointing to the death and destruction scattered everywhere. His father said nothing, he did not react. Instead he picked up the shards of plastic and electronic circuitry, cleaning up the fragments of shame as Raju sullenly allowed his mother to wash and dress his physical wounds.
But the damage was done! Something fundamental had shifted in the father-son relationship. Until the day his father died, 5 years later, they never once referred to the radio. In fact they never did speak much thereafter, unable to find a way of bridging the gap which had opened up. Nor did Raju ever apologise for his behaviour!
His father's look was tender and forgiving, although no words were forthcoming. He reached forward and placed the little radio in Raju's shirt pocket, trails of light following the transaction and creating an electromagnetic field around Raju's chest, his heart-space. His father placed an arm around Raju's shoulders and gently stroked his head.
Physical contact brought with it a buzzing energy of warmth and comfort. This feeling merged with pleasant energetic vibrations emanating from the radio in his pocket and Raju relaxed, allowing his dad in.
Raju closed his eyes as he re-lived the incident, re-experiencing the past-now-present emotions in his calm mind's eye. He understood now how his rage had been an expression of his own sense of alienation from his father, the feeling of never getting to spend enough time with him and of being pushed away. Out of this unmet need was born Rage and the impulse to symbolically SMASH that which had been denied to him. The radio, his father's inadequate stand-in substitute, had been Raju's scapegoat to blame and destroy when a suitable trigger came along to kickstart the frenzy. Destroying the very thing he loved was his cry of anguish, the megaphone through which he could broadcast his pain to an uncaring world. What he really yearned for but knew not how to request - time, attention, acknowledgement, validation; these were simply not available. What was 'made available' in trickles was never enough to fill the longing or plug the gap. However, this was not for reasons of his father's choosing; he had his own unmet needs that screamed in silent and unacknowledged pain over a lifetime. He simply had no idea how to connect with his son, no idea what was happening with him inside!
Through the cathartic experience of tears Raju heard a voice speaking, but it was no longer that of his father. "Wake up sir, we've arrived. You fell asleep, it often happens. Are you alright?". Raju opened his eyes, nodded his head and slowly unstrapped himself. He stood up shakily, wiped his face and went through the process of gathering his senses for the second time. In front of him, beyond open doors, was a sign that read "Welcome to the 777th floor of the Em-Powa Tower, brought to you by SupaTrip®, the trippiest, speediest viewing elevator in the world - 2020 meters of Ascension in a flash!”
As he stepped out of the elevator and onto the viewing platform with the whole world spread below and around him, Raju touched the inside of his shirt pocket and smiled.
- All images @barge unless otherwise indicated
- TFM-3750W radio (image source)
Thanks for reading 🙏
@barge