A necklace of memories

How memories are inevitably linked to physical entities. Weird, isn't it? It's like the butterfly effect manifesting itself in your world. You happen to be doing something, and some minute facet of that brings up something totally unrelated, linked to it by merely a hair of the thinnest logic. And yet, you are transported to that freshly raked up memory ever so effortlessly. Without even being aware of this tiny connecting link.

It happened to be a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the fan was on, in full swing to battle the heat. Lunch had bid its goodbye and evening was still a couple of hours away. When this happens on a holiday, people use this golden hour to grab a siesta. My parents were fast asleep, peacefully slumbering away. And then there was me, clutching my kindle at an awkward angle and trying to read. The sun was streaming brightly through the windows, the cool breeze was soothing, and all around was quiet. The only sounds that I could hear were the steady ticking of the decade old clock and the slight creaking of the aging fan. These, you could presume, are the modern day equivalents of a bird chirping and the babbling brook.:P For a minute, I was transported to somewhere outside reality. My problems ceased to exist, and the serenity outside echoed in my heart. I smiled, feeling happy to exist in this moment, letting myself be cocooned in its comforting embrace. The feeling was transcendental. 

And then, just like that, the bead in the necklace moved and I was elsewhere. Fifteen years ago, in a hotel room. The room was aged and warping, yet it had a familiar soothing aura. Like a grandparent's house that you have visited countless times. It was a humid, sultry night and I was a curious kid on a vacation. My parents were again asleep as is typical of tired adults, and somehow sleep eluded me. I looked up at the ceiling, at the ancient fan slowly turning, as if even that was too great a chore for it. For a second, I was seized by a paranoia that the fan would descend straight on my head, and then the feeling passed, like the momentary anxiety when you look down from a height and realize how far below you the ground is. I recalled the tour guide saying that this is the place where Vasco da Gama landed years ago, on his expedition to India. I marveled at that, wondering what it would feel like to be an explorer crossing the seas and landing on a new place. I wondered about all the travelers who had come here on a vacation and stayed in this very room. Who were they? What had they felt like? What were their lives like? If only this room could speak. So many idyllic questions swirled around in my mind. And then, the tiredness of the day crept in on me, and the last thing I remember is the creaking of the fan and the smile on my face.

The glittering emerald stone slid over the thread to where it had been before, and I was back again in the present day. This necklace is my favorite, its non linearity being its predominant virtue. You never know where the next bead is. You find out only by following the thread :)

P.S: What I have described is an elaborate rendition of what transpired in less than a second.