The boy looks down at the scale model of the world lying shattered at his feet and thinks, there's that.
The boy reads a newspaper report in which Mad-Eye Moody kills someone. Then it turns out he's not called Mad-Eye anymore, on account of having two perfectly-aligned non-enchanted eyes, and he's spelling his surname differently, too, and he's not killed anyone in recent memory, just given a speech.
Oh, dear, the boy thinks, I've got the wrong man. How now?
The boy reads a newspaper report in which Mad-Eye Moody kills someone. Then it turns out he's not called Mad-Eye anymore, on account of having two perfectly-aligned non-enchanted eyes, and he's spelling his surname differently, too, and he's not killed anyone in recent memory, just given a speech.
Oh, dear, the boy thinks, I've got the wrong man. How now?
He knows the answer to that question and doesn't like it much. He decides, instead, to concentrate on a digression. The digression is this:
In the middling-to-distant past the boys and his friends watch a ludicrous movie about a ludicrous anchorman whose ticks include, among latent bigotry and other not-so-subtle-isms, a tendency to spout incredibly weird and/or inane catechisms in place of the usual tongue twister warm-ups before broadcasts.
How now, brown cow? goes one particularly memorable illogism, and the boy and his friends consider themselves indoctrinated. The phrase (and its informal shortening How now) become near-talismanic, uttered with varying degrees of gusto and wistful nostalgia over almost a decade. It comes to a point where the words themselves grate for repetition, and the group simply copies the anchorman's ludicrous facial contortions instead.
This continues until the oldest member of the gang decides to settle down. Everyone gathers at a swanky resort next to the Atlantic, eats and drinks a bit too much, and during one photo op the boy lumbers onstage to clasp the hands of the newlyweds, working his bearded jaw up-and-down in the old exaggerated fashion.
The bride lets out a high-pitched shriek and faints.
Nobody appends HNBC at the end of an email again.
The boy ponders over the meaning of everything. It's a task made unequal by the incomparable vastness of everything and the fact that the boy's attention-span has often been compared to that of a deceased goldfish.
On the bright side the sequel to the ludicrous anchorman picture is on television.
The boy watches the first fifteen minutes and realizes the only ludicrous thing about this picture is the degree of its awfulness.
Oh dear, the boy thinks, another idol claimed by the twilight. How now?
This time the answer transitions promptly and smoothly:
Better kill myself.
It is only 11 in the morning and the boy knows it's going to be a long day if the answer has already managed to register itself. He sits in front of the TV.
On one channel, not-Moody giving a speech about Mandrakes segues effortlessly into a soliloquy on farmer suicides in the Vidarbha region. What bullshit, the boy thinks. Moody taught Defense Against the Dark Arts, not Herbology. Is even Pottermania not sacrosanct?
Better kill myself.
The internet is no help, either. Most of its information is in the form of blocky white text superimposed upon a rotating roster of the same set of images.
One does not simply stop procrastinating, one reads.
Typical.
Better drink my own piss, suggests another.
Or better yet - kill myself.
Or better yet - kill myself.
He wanders into a neighbouring story to watch a game of Russian roulette. The participants all look suitably rough, suitably dangerous, but none can help looking afraid during the cocking of the hammer, the pulling of the trigger.
What a grand way to miss the point, the boy thinks. He pockets the revolver and leaves before the sixth man can realize his misfortune.
The boy walks until he comes upon the familiar redbrick building of his school, the scrappy countenance now marred by tiling and a glass lobby that is lit 24/7 by bright halogen that must greatly reduce visibility at night.
"Rest if you must but don't you quit!" someone yells from inside the gate.
The boy starts and then moves closer to peer in.
He sees nobody.
"Neatness is next to Godness!" the voice continues. "You are stepping into the best years of your life! Moab is your washpot! The world is your oyster! Please affix poster-size blowup duly attested by a competent authority! Youth once lost is irrecoverable! The transit authority is not responsible for the safety of your belongings! Lefty loosey rightie tightie."
The boy wakes up and realizes he's been sobbing into his pillow.
What a frightful cliché, the boy thinks. Better kill myself.
He doesn't move until the little hand on the clock has crept beyond 4. The big hand hops disdainfully over 2, almost as if it doesn't want to cross the little hand.
The third hand just jerks wildly around the circle, making good time but generally ignored by all else.
The analogy folded in on itself, the boy thinks. Do I kill myself?
He walks to a hall where a stark black-and-white banner draped above the entrance proclaims Orientation.
The boy thinks briefly about Chitrangada Singh and Arjun Rampal, decides his preferences are still in their original configuration, is depressed enough to walk inside.
The man on the lectern is more lucid than the voice in the gateway, but makes even less sense. "School is supposed to groom you and strengthen your understanding of societal norms," he says gravely, "but it is college where you discover your specialization, where you sharpen your focus before cutting through the layer of bullshit that covers all worthwhile opportunities. It is also where you find yourself, where the next phase of your growth occurs. So get out there and find yourself!"
I'd like to find myself, the boy thinks. I bet I can kill that sumbitch too.
Then he realizes he has been standing in one place and looking back too long, that the Orientation happened ten years ago and it's been almost twice as long since that gateway speech was delivered to him in person, that his beard contains enough salt to throw the pepper into sharp relief, that the last of his opportunities withered and died about the time he forgot which way the screws that held him together were fastened. He also realizes that everyone has been speaking to him in clichés, that it has always been his own choice to listen, that he has knocked over a dusty globe that lay on a sill with glue drying in the network of cracks running over its surface.
The boy looks down at the scale model of the world lying shattered at his feet and thinks, there's that.
He can step anywhere on the planet now. Nobody can stop him. He pulls a cocked revolver from his pocket.
So that's what happens when the world is your oyster:
it gets cracked open.
Then he picks up a faded blue shard, holds it to the light, tries to decipher what ocean he's holding, can't.
It's probably the Atlantic, he thinks, and best years my arse, and finally, just in case there are any faint-hearted people in the Orientation crowd, how now, brown cow?
Just in case there is an Orientation crowd.
He puts the gun to his head, closes his eyes, and steals a ride from the sixth man.
I'd like to find myself, the boy thinks. I bet I can kill that sumbitch too.
Then he realizes he has been standing in one place and looking back too long, that the Orientation happened ten years ago and it's been almost twice as long since that gateway speech was delivered to him in person, that his beard contains enough salt to throw the pepper into sharp relief, that the last of his opportunities withered and died about the time he forgot which way the screws that held him together were fastened. He also realizes that everyone has been speaking to him in clichés, that it has always been his own choice to listen, that he has knocked over a dusty globe that lay on a sill with glue drying in the network of cracks running over its surface.
The boy looks down at the scale model of the world lying shattered at his feet and thinks, there's that.
He can step anywhere on the planet now. Nobody can stop him. He pulls a cocked revolver from his pocket.
So that's what happens when the world is your oyster:
it gets cracked open.
Then he picks up a faded blue shard, holds it to the light, tries to decipher what ocean he's holding, can't.
It's probably the Atlantic, he thinks, and best years my arse, and finally, just in case there are any faint-hearted people in the Orientation crowd, how now, brown cow?
Just in case there is an Orientation crowd.
He puts the gun to his head, closes his eyes, and steals a ride from the sixth man.
