The Wooden Room of my Head

An assignment on a dream sequence in class made me think;
Yes, we dream all the time… at the yellowed sight of dawn and at the pink placidity of dusk… in the cushioned comfort of our beds and in the uncomfortable chaos of the daily bus… but how often do we think about a dream… or rather, think what our dream is…
It is a class on visual design. As a film student I am told to think visually. As a literature student I have always thought visually. But my dream lies in literature and in visuals lies my dream.

So there is this room. Small. Compact. Warm with wood. Lined with shelves. One window. And strangely enough I see no door. My perspective isn’t a 360 degree one. My vision encapsulates three sides. The books in the shelves are hardbound and large…heavy and old… gold embossed… making my heart fill with an inexplicable feeling that it wants to burst and spray out celebratory confetti! But they are not arranged in perfection as I usually like to keep my shelves…in categories and according to sizes… yet they are not carelessly stacked. There is a certain complacent sense of regal laziness in them. They are like old people…looking at me with a vault of wisdom and philosophy. They are alive with knowledge and potent with the power of thought. The peculiar smell of old books that is like incense to me emanates from them…yellowed pages… fading letters…with the old english fonts… ornamental fonts, elaborate fonts… stacked together into exquisite sentences. At the left side corner, is a small table… really small… enough only to fit a huge book, an ink pot, and a lamp. The lamp is glowing, yellow light…incandescent and luminescent. There is no other light in the room. It is daylight but it is dark inside…somewhat reflecting me and my multiple layers of hidden self. The single window is large, it is framed with dark mahogany wood…it has a rich royal maroon curtain that is heavy…it is plain but has a character to it…it is grave, almost profound acting like a barrier against the rest of the busied world.

And I sit at the table… head bent slightly, fingers stained with ink, slightly shivering with the anticipation of hurriedly putting down the next thought on paper before it passes me by… scratching and scribbling…yet in a neat beautiful honest writing… the y’s are a little extended and the t’s are abrupt and stand tall.
Through the window and the curtain… a little space is left open, for the sun to stream in… there is a wide ray that seems to be travelling in from some infinite space…and you can see the little dust particles hopping in that light… but if you look closely, really closely… like strain your eyes to a super humanly capacity…and see that they are not really dust particles after all… they are words… tiny microscopic words… floating and streaming through that ray of light… and entering my wooden room… permeating through its every corner… till I can smell the words and feel it in my breath. And I begin to write again… I don’t know what I am writing, but I am writing…and furiously so… the ink pen is making faint itchy noises…noises that are like manna to my senses and music to my ears… and I am happy…in my closed room, I am content. There is a serene expression in my otherwise obscure and inscrutable brown eyes. I am filled with silent joy.

So I thought of a dream. I dreamt of joy. This, to me, is the only complete joy.