Cottage

By Hrishit Pandey

The sky shared its palette with yellow which has now completely engulfed it. There existed no other colour in sight. It was the complete dominance of yellow as it enshrined the sky into an endless sea of itself. The horizon can be seen diffused between the shades of light yellow and a hue of dark yellow. Together they still upheld the homogeneity of the sky to match as it appeared closer to the observer. It was a very vast expanse. But it was not throughout.

In its emptiness, the yellow flourished everywhere except the cottage which has indoctrinated its share of void. There swung a cottage somewhere in the sky - luminescent as it didn’t subjugate to the vastness surrounding it. The cottage - a modest 121x121x121 in dimensions - with a divine yellow colour, not clearly visible but not entirely hidden hung from an endless roof to an opaque yellow floor which marked its boundary amidst the omnipresence of yellow.

Many considered the cottage to be in the middle of everything. The sky, the world, the consciousness, the life - each of these lay equidistantly from this cottage. No matter how endless the sky be, there were equal volumes in all directions from this cottage - not just a single point of this cottage, but the entirety of it. Its door, its walls, its roof, its floor, even the small dust particles attached to it lied equidistantly from everything that has ever existed. This used to be a theory some time ago, but now it has become a widely admired fable. It is not a myth, because the cottage still dangles down the sky from nothingness. Nobody can see what is above the cottage. Everything looks alike around the cottage. Direction has no directive as anywhere could be left and anywhere could be right. What gives it meaning is the cottage. Yet, perception matters because the cottage looks alike from every angle. It will be very difficult to mark where east is in absolute. There is no absolute here. Everything exists with respect to them and the cottage. This doesn’t mean that they or the cottage are absolute. The cottage might be - we don’t know about that. What we certainly know is that these are not.

With the existence of the cottage, rest everything becomes insignificant. We cannot talk much about these, or for a matter of fact - myself or this piece of diction. It is all worthless. It cannot be found, since we are all scattered somewhere in this yellowy hollowness. If you feel that you have come across this literature then you are being very selfish to think that way. The definition of ‘you’ here is only conceptual. There is no ‘you’ physically. I call to the reader as and only when they read. Who am I? I am just the voice which is calling the reader. From where am I calling? From this literary piece. Who are we outside this? Nothing. Just thoughts drifting somewhere in a yellowy sea - gazing constantly at the cottage.

There are rumours going around that the cottage has got a chimney at the top. We don’t know what’s coming out of the chimney. Nobody has seen any disturbance in the space surrounding the roof of the cottage. It is not but our sluggish attempt at dragging down the cottage down from the abstract. Since there is a chimney it suggests that there should be someone inside the cottage as well?

Nobody knows the purpose of the cottage. We don’t know who created the cottage or who painted everything yellow. We are afraid to ask these questions, for questioning these means abandoning our trust in the cottage. What are we without the cottage?

The yellow doesn’t fear the palette it serves rather it just accepts it. We have learnt to accept.

Oh! The divine which allows the cottage to hang down the sky. Oh! The divine which gave us the cognition to recognise the cottage. Oh! The divine which reflected our insignificance to us at the face of the cottage. But above all. Oh! The cottage for getting us to acknowledge the divine. Oh! The yellow for letting us to appreciate the beauty. Bless us all.

By Hrishit Pandey