3 AM Fever Dream: When Joys Turns Dust

 

3 am that night. I was in a feverish, delirious world. Light was hitting my eyes in pulses. Not one light, but many. Each strobe of light felt hard, changing in colour, intensity, and speed. The dizzying lights also kept striking me repeatedly without choosing a place to land.

A whole strain kept moving through me initially and then went like a mild jolt all over the body. I felt light-headed for a few seconds, and then a great strain again. I tried to turn over then. From one side to the other. But that too felt like a task with too many steps.

I was in a dream, but I also knew I was awake. The two states stood so close together that they shared the same breath, though I could not. 3 am that night. It seemed nothing was blocking me: no hand at my throat, no weight on my chest, and then there was no air to take in too. I was suffocating, shivering.

In those horror-filled minutes, a snapshot arrived too. My entire life, was passing as a reel, in my mind. The good that no longer exists, the bad that has chosen to imprint itself. I felt a door to the inventory of my memories had opened. And I could see a hundred snakes chasing me deep into that room.

The delirium reduced in intensity. And I lay there with my mouth dry.  A glass of water was not far in distance, but felt impossibly far for my body to reach. Although awake, I could not reach. I would not lift. I should not bargain. It was as if someone passed a verdict I could not appeal.

‘Ofloxcin?’

‘Citralka?’

These words passed my mind.

‘No, I am overthinking this. It is just another bad nightmare’, I tell myself.

The respite began slowly. I could almost measure it. A fraction less pressure behind the eyes, a breath that did not feel heavy. I knew. In twenty more minutes probably, my fever would break. Sweat would come. And it would cover me like a new skin. Then like the first floodwater of a river running through land that has been dry for a year, a mild energy would rush in. I knew it would. I have lived this feverish delirium many times before. I only had to hold on a second longer. One more second.

“You cannot. Not anymore,” a voice said from within me.

Another thought rose, not louder, but more stubborn. ‘At least for what you love doing in life. Please hang in there for a few more minutes’ It sounded less like encouragement and more like a small legal argument.

I was now in the room of memories completely. The snakes were no longer behind me. But my phobia of them throbbed in my heart. The door had been open all along in the hallucination, I realized. I had simply never noticed it. Within that room now, I saw the things I am proud of. They felt like a dream. And then, I remembered the things I am ashamed of, too. They responded like real. Pride and, Shame. Both stood there. 

‘Can I look into the things I am proud of and find the strength to survive this night. Just another night?’, I thought. ‘Is there enough joy in the things I loved from my past to give me the strength to carry forward?’

No answer arrived.

The delirium was wearing off faster now. I am now fully awake. The ‘room of memories’, had clear outlines. I could see the memories manifesting before me. And I began to review them. One by one. In that review, I saw moments I had truly, madly loved. People I had believed in with reckless confidence. Joys I had felt so fully that I once thought they could not possibly fade. And yet, here they were all now: present, but somehow bland that night. Not false. Not erased. But simply unable to lift me through that fever. They sat there like photographs that prove something happened but can never ever reproduce its warmth.

In that moment, a realization arrived, sudden and private. It was like a judgement on my entire life. It left me shocked not because the force of that feeling was new, but because I was finally hearing it without distraction.

‘So, this is how it is always going to be Sai', a voice said. 'Every success. Every joy. Every happiness. All of it will mean nothing in time. And they will lose the power to inspire you', it went on. 'You may overcome any pain and suffering and all. You may even find a provocation in arrogantly defeating them. But Sai, can you now see this room and bear the thought that all joys you have ever felt will come to mean nothing in time? In fact, all the joys that are felt truly are nothing over time. Not only for you. But for everyone’

The thought was complete. It merely placed itself inside me. It felt like a rule I had failed to notice all my life and now could not unsee.

The fever had broken. I moved to reach the bottle of water. As I gulped faster than I should, I could still be in the room of memories. ‘So, is this why we do not cling to happiness?’, I began to wonder. ‘Is this why a purpose an illusion too? Because no matter how big, its achievement will fade in time’, I asked of myself, now fully awake.

I looked at my watch. 43-148 bpm. Two high heart rate notifications. I adjusted the pillow, pulled my blanket harder, and shut my eyes tighter. The room of memories was still there. I let the voice in it take over me.

'A sense of purpose is also not enough Sai. You may see meaning today in your passion. But that is to give you a sense of self-importance and save you for today, this hour. You may survive a few months or years for purpose and passion. But with enough time, you see the meaninglessness of purpose too', the voice said. 

‘Is this why detachment is sought then from everything?’, my thoughts raced now. ‘Is that why we have to see ourselves as  just an instrument of good rather than goodness itself? Is that the reason why we focus on just the practice, not the trophy? Is that why we have to be a helper, not a hero? And is that why detachment from both the good and the bad allows us peace? So that we can even enter the room of memories with humility and nothing more than that?' 

Three friends were beside me that night. And there was this urge to wake them and debate this. I wanted someone to say, yes, that is how it is, or no, happiness from the good of the past do not ever fade.  But I wanted them to sleep too, innocent and unreachable. In their own room of memories.

So, I lay under the blanket there with the argument still hot in my head. And then my eyes fell on that one large, open book in the other room

 “

You have a right only to perform your actions,

but never to the fruits of those actions.

Let not the fruits of action be your motive,

nor let your attachment be to inaction.

”

It had said.

To my extreme distress and against every nerve in my body, I understood that the shloka was right. Not because we must never hope for results. But because even the sweetest fruits of our best actions ‘rot’ with time. In the ‘room of memories’, praise fades. Outcomes unravel. Inspiration dies. What once felt like proof of honest work can turn into a footnote, and then into nothing at all.

And if such a decay of good work over a long time is allowed to sadden us into stopping, if it teaches us that goodness is pointless unless it stays shiny, then we will end up doing less good than we otherwise would have.

So detach, even from good, I realized. Detach, not in the sense of becoming indifferent, but in the sense of becoming ‘unbribable’ by happiness for you to do what is necessary. Do the thing that you are capable of and let it pass through you. Let it belong to the world, and not to your identity. That is the only way you can keep yourself from being discouraged, when the world, inevitably, forgets. As it will. And as it should.