Do I Dare?

Alfred Prufrock was sitting in a dimly lit café when a young boy, who was yet to reach adolescence, walked in. The boy looked as inquisitive as Prufrock looked flurried.

‘Hello,’ the boy said. ‘You look so… lonely. And sad too.’

‘Sad? No, not sad. Just… contemplating. I am, as they say, measuring out my life with coffee spoons.’

‘Aw! That’s strange. On my planet, I measure things by sunsets. I love sunsets. How can you measure life with something so small as a coffee spoon?’

‘Did you say “my planet”?’

‘Well, yes. I come from another planet. I’ve been travelling for quite some time, you know. Went to numerous planets and asteroids and met many strange creatures. Quite a lot of them are cranky.’ The boy laughed gently, almost like an adult.

Prufrock looked at the boy with some scepticism and suspicion. He was already having too many worries of his own like whether he should part his hair in the middle and roll up the bottoms of his trousers.

‘They call me Little Prince,’ the boy said. He liked that name, he said, though he was no prince and he didn’t like the kings he met on certain planets. One king on an asteroid had no subjects but he wanted absolute obedience. “You can only yawn when I command you to,” the king told Little Prince [LP]. When LP told him yawning was beyond his control, the king said, “Okay then, I command you to yawn when you like.” Kings are funny people, LP thought. But princes are okay, he hoped.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Prufrock invited the boy. He liked LP now, perhaps the first person whom he liked. LP sat down on the chair opposite Prufrock. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘My pleasure,’ Prufrock replied with a little unease. He never felt comfortable with other people. He thought they all wore masks. The women whom he saw in the club discussed Michelangelo without ever knowing what the swan was doing between the legs of Leda. And the men said every now and then, “That’s not what I meant, that is not it, at all.”

Prufrock felt quite at ease with LP whose smile looked ethereal, angelic. Like Michelangelo smiling at La Pieta, for example.

LP narrated a few of his encounters with creatures on some of the planets he visited. There was this conceited person who wanted nothing from LP but flattery. On another planet was a drunkard who drank to forget how ashamed he was of drinking. There was a businessman on another planet who believed that all the stars in the cosmos were his private property and his frustration was he couldn’t count them.

‘I have a rose on my planet,’ LP said for a change. The rose grew up when LP was tired of the baobab weeds which could have engulfed his tiny planet had he not been pulling them out regularly. The rose looked different. Single and beautiful though LP didn’t like the thorns. The thorns were meant to protect the rose from the sheep, someone had told LP. But there were no sheep on LP’s planet.

‘Life is absurd,’ mused LP.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Prufrock. ‘I’m afraid of that absurdity. I’m afraid of people especially. Afraid of growing old, of rejection, of never being understood. I wonder… should I have dared more? Asked more of life?’

‘Dare?’ LP looked at Prufrock curiously. ‘You don’t need permission to ask questions, to love things, or to dare. I love my rose, take care of her, even though she’s difficult sometimes. But that’s what makes her special. It’s the time that I waste with my rose that makes her special. Have you dared to waste your time with someone or something?’

‘No… I wonder… People are absurd… I don’t dare to disturb the universe. It’s safer to remain quiet and unnoticed.’

‘You’re funny,’ LP grinned. ‘You remind me of the lamplighter I met on one of the planets. His job was to light a lamp at sunset and put it out at sunrise. But the gap in between was just a minute because he lived on a tiny little planet. He lit the lamp without understanding why. If only he could love what he was doing, that would make much difference. Just do what makes your heart feel warm.’

Prufrock stared at LP with considerable interest.

‘The heart is what matters, you know,’ LP went on. ‘What is essential is invisible to the eye.’

Prufrock got up from his seat and knelt down beside LP. He took the boy’s hand in his own and planted a gentle kiss on it. The kiss had a warmth that rushed to LP’s heart.

‘I think I can leave you now,’ LP said with his angelic smile.

PS. Alfred Prufrock is the protagonist of T S Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. Little Prince comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novella by the same title.

PPS. With this my Blogchatter Half-Marathon comes to an end. You can read the previous posts in this series below.

1. Heights of Evil

2. Pip Learns the Essential Lessons

3. Delusions and Ironies of Love

4. Good Old Days without meetings

5. Finding Enlightenment

6. An Oracle Gives up his Goddess

7. The Ruler Matters

8. The Agony of Ivan Karamazov

9. Live Life Fully