OF MACBETHS AND INSOMNIA....

The creative prowess of the mind- imagination….
The mind that is terrified to behold its own black reflection.… The mind that would be precise in its operation of tearing out the eyelids so that sleep may find no abode. The mind that waits impatiently at the shore, biting its nails, with vigilant eyes fixed beyond the horizon.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would sleep no more…
And such had been the decree of their minds; iron-fisted, whip-wielding minds marching above, slow and menacing- the rhythmical march of boots on cold cobbled stones...
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had never slept. They have forever been awake, attentive to calls from above, careful to avoid the sharp bites of whiplashes.
They have forever been awake…

Untie the mind, take apart the pieces, gently…what do you see?
Macbeth desires no crown…no! Not the mere expanse of space that the crown encompasses…no! Not that! he desires much more…Desire in Macbeth is a vintage bottle of concoction- a heady blend of naked power and brute domination stifled to silence by the cork; the bottle, moldy at the mouth, frothing and hissing incessantly. He desires to behold shuddering vulnerability staring back at him as he raises the spear of death above the head of his captive…. Yes! Shuddering vulnerability! Lusty vulnerability reflected in the glassy eyes of a helpless nymph in shackles. Dominion it would be for him…the dominion over the inaccessible; the vicious pairing of victory at war and satiation of throbbing lust….force triumphing in both. And his captives would fall at his feet, kiss his boots; their eyes would scream for mercy…and then Macbeth, the King , would descend upon the suffering soil of mortals…he would don the robes of benevolence…the king as protector…All hail the king! They would rejoice….Macbeth shall live forever!

And what of Lady Macbeth, you ask?
What desires does her mind harbor- The desire to be queen, and no more? Or, is it much more than that? Scavenge through the cluttered shelves of her mind…see what keeps her awake.
In Lady Macbeth too, there burns the intense desire for dominion; and yet, has she not dominated enough? Does she not call the ramparts of her husband’s castle ‘my battlements’? Does she not usurp the envisioned murder weapon as ‘my keen knife’? Does she not order Macbeth to put the night’s business into her dispatch? And yet, her dagger shall not pierce Duncan’s heart. The woman shall only beget life, not destroy. So does she desire to be ‘unsexed’….
To be unsexed…a terrible feat would be performed on her being, the womb razed out, left to grope for the last wisps of breath, her sex denied, ridiculed, kicked and smothered in mud. Would she really have that?
No, she would not. And yet, she fears to manifest the deepest desire of her heart. The fiery woman sailing the tide, unburdened hair lashing against her face, etching merciless determination onto her soul with every whiplash…such is her absolute desire. But the combs rush towards her, barring their canines, bunching up the free cascade of her hair, binding it into submission. ‘You are free!’ they assure her, ‘but keep within the circle’, they warn.
So what does she truly crave for? Once again I ask, what keeps her awake?
The answer is desire for feminine power…the power of the most powerful erotic being. Power shall burst forth, anarchic, chaotic; power desired in its barest of manifestations; and power that would enable her to render all things powerless. She also desires the power of visual presence- her presence, and the absence of all action. The mental capacity of all beings shall shrink to the mere space of her body. Yet, nowhere does she exude the slightest wisps of eroticism…but such is her misery….the bottled up desires frothing at the mouth, the desires that she dare not mouth. She desires for that which she does not have. No, she would not be content with the mere crown of queen. She would represent the queen as an icon of desire….unattainable desire translating into awe and willful subservience.

And now, their desires would be joined….unbridled desires shall pour forth. The potters-wheel has been summoned, wet clay lies ready…the process of sculpting to life the abstract eddies of desire would now begin. Now they would spill an enormous drop of ink right at the centre of the barren canvas and drag the tips of their pens from within that gleaming pool of ink, outwards, like words spilling out of a single drop of blood…...