Kiran Subbaiah / Texts by KS / Conviction in Suspense

You are in a room by yourself, surrounded by four white walls with no windows or doors in them. You look up and see the walls extend upwards as far as your vision allows, not revealing whether the room has a roof to it or not.

In one corner of the floor is a dark hole - a miniature abyss, about 3 inches wide, depth unknown - into which a single trickle of water drips from above like a silent metronome. The water tastes sweet.

When you are hungry you look up and a little parachute comes gently floating down with a modest yet palatable meal hanging from it. The parachute too is edible.

The floor is of regular gray concrete. Lying around on it is an assortment of objects: a slightly crooked stick, a single long sock, a rubber ball, an unused toothbrush in its factory packing, a length of rope bearing an assortment of sailor’s knots, a cracked yet functional bowl.., and so on.

After a while, indeed, you want to get out, but how? How did you get there in the first place? That, you have not been told nor are you able to recollect. So, for a while, you spend time thinking about how you are to get out of the room and carry out possible experiments with the things at your disposal to see if they can be of assistance.

Then one day you lay aside the idea of escaping and imagine other things and carry out other experiments with the objects, the given room and yourself, until by and by the exercises evolve into a complex, all-absorbing pursuit.

You are aware of neither a triggering motive nor aspired end for the pursuit. Probably nothing is to be achieved from it. But it does not matter. It just unravels its frugal, thread-like path through an apparently expansive territory. You wander.

Then again, another day, a rope is lowered from above with a large empty basket tied to it. The basket lands and bounces around the floor to draw your attention. You signal it to wait awhile - so you might wind up your activity with the objects in the room, for the time being, and leave things in order, so as to continue again soon - before climbing into the basket.

Kiran Subbaiah / Texts by KS / Conviction in Suspense