Unlike a working professional, days of a week hardly mattered for a seventy year old writer Mr. Singleman. What mattered instead were periods of a day like morning, noon, evening, night and everything in between. Just as a working professional prepares oneself for the weekend long consumption of morsels of 'happiness', Mr. Singleman used to wait for some periods of a day, depending on what he was writing. He believed that different periods of a day had different stimulating effects on his writings. Same events evoked different emotions in him when mused at different periods of a day. Additionally, his writings and characters were attached umbilically to his past experiences and events. Therefore, the notion of disparate interpretations of a single event - that took place on so and so date and time - was equally disturbing and enriching for Mr. Singleman. Since it induced contradictions in Mr. Singleman's works and at the same time enabled Mr. Singleman to tell numerous different tales from the same experience.
Temporal vagaries of interpretations vexed him. He once wrote about his profuse weeping in the morning over a context that exploded him into a laughter frenzy the previous night. Mr. Singleman's characters fed on the concoction of his experiences and memories. And, despite Mr. Singleman's relentless efforts, they bore signs of contradictions. Critics too have charged Mr. Singleman for the same reason. A charge to which Mr. Singleman often responded with his glib talking, citing a certain psychoanalyst by the name of Erik Erikson and his Theory of Eight Development Stages of an individual and how virtues are formed at each stage due to inherent contradictions present in the individual at each stage. "See, contradictions define you" with this line and a triumphant grin, Mr. Singleman used to dispel the charge.
But only Mr. Singleman knew how best he used to avoid the inherent contradictions. Therefore, Mr. Singleman performed his writings with meticulous planning. Always ensuring that particular content and characters were consummated at a particular period of a day. Hence, it was not only a matter of what to write but also of when to write. But, morning in the form of dawn has always encroached upon the night. Whatever be the level of encroachment, the whole writing exercise used to be dauntingly tiring.
Particular characters cohabiting a particular period of a day, spawned a whole habitation of characters, where they were asked to work at a particular time and rest for rest of the time. In a refined sense of speech Mr. Singleman's mind was a city, a walled city, with characters dwelling in them. Mr. Singleman himself once quite disparagingly remarked that his mind is a jail with innumerable cells in it. He cited imprisonment of characters as his compulsion, otherwise there will be a glut of contradictions in his writings. He mentioned that he opens different lock ups at different periods of a day, gets the work done and confines them again within its four walls. Mr. Singleman often boasted that blood and tears of his characters was the ink that he used in his writings.
And quite understandably, Mr. Singleman is loved for his poignant description of pathos inherent in everyday life.
Mr. Singleman died last night. His body was found in the morning. A congealed stream of blood was conspicuous on Mr. Singleman's nose. Mr. Singleman's much awaited work 'The Prisoners' incomplete manuscript was lying on the table. Mr. Singleman's pen with its ink dried was lying nearby. Mr. Singleman's sudden demise has been attributed to brain haemorrhage. Nobody knows the exact cause. I know. I am the jailor of that abattoir. I freed them all.....
