NONESUCH PALACE

Have you ever heard of Nonesuch Palace? I don’t think so.

It was Henry the Eighth’s brainchild. His pet project. His more artistic contribution to history. It was built with so much grandeur, flash, and art; and that was why Henry the Eighth called it Nonesuch Palace. There was none such palace built before him and there would be none such palace built after him. That was his reasoning and intent. That was his reason for choosing the name.

Funny that his cousin and heir’s grandson’s wife should raise it to the ground almost a century later; for cash. For centuries she ensured that Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace was just a rumour. She made sure, till 1959, that there was none such palace in the memory of the world.

But that is how it is meant to be.

Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace wasn’t for England, Scotland, or Ireland. It wasn’t meant to be revered by the great realms of Spain, Italy, or France. It wasn’t meant to be passed down through his heirs to Queen Elizabeth the Second. It wasn’t meant for you or me. It was meant for him.

Fact is, it was built to rival the French King, Francis the First’s palace.

Rumour is, it was built to be King Henry the Eighth’s solace. The one place he could go and put up a banner that said “Fuck the world.” That’s why it was meant for him and him alone. And that’s why that gambling bitch, Barbara Villiers, who raised it to the ground, did him a favour.

Nonesuch Palace. None such palace ever built and none such palace in the memory of the world. These two conflicting, yet complementary ideas form such a brilliant ambiguity that I don’t think can be found in such a short phrase ever again.

There’s this place I go when I’m tired of the world. It’s a land in my imagination. I can stay there for hours just lying down on my bed smiling at the ceiling. It’s kinda like that thing in that movie Avatar. My body’s here, but my soul is there. In this place, I have everything I want. I do everything I want to do, and perhaps everyone I want to do. There is no anger, hate, confusion or any other dark emotion in this place. But there is jealousy; from others toward me. But even that is in short supply because in this world, I gather only those that can make me happy around me. Here I am invincible. Here, I am not a king, I am THE king. Here all problems are solved. Here, I am at peace.

Here is in the future; for there is nothing that resembles such serenity in my life in the present.

I go there all the time. More than you think. I’ve been doing this for at least a decade. I could be talking to you here, but dude I’m really there. I used to be ashamed of it, and I have never spoken to anyone of it. But now that I have learnt of Henry the Eighth’s Nonesuch Palace, I find that I can give this place in my mind a name. For truly, there is none such palace or place in the world.

It is not in the world, it is in my mind. Even in the world of minds, there is none such palace in the world.

This is the first thing

I have understood:

Time is the echo of an axe

Within a wood.

- Philip Larkin.

Be the wood. Be the log of wood. Close your eyes and open up all your other senses. Your hearing, your feel, your taste, and your smelling. Be the log of wood and close your eyes. Hear the rush of the wind as the axe comes down with furious velocity. Feel the wind as it breaks on your skin; your bark. Taste the little pieces of wood scattering from the brunt of the axe as they fall into your mouth. Smell the pain of the blow before it hits you. Close your eyes and be the log of wood. Then let the axe hit you; don’t move. Feel the force and the pain. Hear the sound of the axe hitting your bark. Taste the pain; smell your fear and smell the pleasure of the axe. Lastly feel the waves of the blow as they reverberate through you. Be the log of wood. Feel those semi-circular waves as they move semi-concentrically and very slowly from the point where the axe hits you, through your body. Feel the waves as they are conducted atom by atom through your body. Feel the echo from that one blow. Be the log of wood.

In my Nonesuch Palace, I ride on that echo. And as I pass through my body, atom by atom, riding on the waves of the force of the blow of the axe, like the Silver Surfer, I can control what I feel. I can control what happens, I can control what happens to me and what happens to you. I can make the weather whatever I want it to be. I can wear whatever I want. I can buy whatever I want. I can say whatever the fuck I want to say. I can murder and I can steal. I can bring back to life and I can give back. I can be wherever I want to be. I can create life and I can take it away. I can make you beautiful or I can make you ugly. As my pleasure commands.

I can do anything I want to do as I ride the waves. I can be wherever I want. I can. Only in this place; only in Nonesuch Palace. Time is nothing here because of that echo. Generations of shit can happen in one-normal-world-hour in Nonesuch Palace. It is a place of impossible timeless possibilities.

And there is always the theme music. There is always music. As I move through this extra-dimensional world like Doctor Who, riding waves that even I can’t see, I raise my hands to a sky that I can’t see and I close my eyes giving myself into the theme music. Tapping from its power and doing all that I want to do. Tapping from its power and keeping at bay all those forces of evil that are threatening to break through the barrier of my mind and fuck me the fuck up.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

From the outside these forces can hear the boom of the baseline and they back the fuck off. They know that if they enter they will be absorbed through the villa of my walls as easily as I can kill an ant. To fight with me in Nonesuch Palace would be as impossible as a paraplegic killing an ant.

It is needless to say that almost every time I am in Nonesuch Palace, I am high.

It is a world-proof place. Problem-proof. People-proof. Drama-proof. Religion-proof. Depression-proof.

The ironic thing is that it is the world, and problems, and people, and drama, and religion, and depression, that push me into this place.

When I go to Nonesuch Palace, I am lonely, depressed, ravaged by my problems and fucked up beyond reason. It is a solace most needed, and it was built for that purpose only.

Let me give you an example. Yesterday, there came up this depressing topic in my house. Whenever we talk about it, it always leaves me under pressure and depressed. It gets me thinking about how fucked up everything is, and how it has to be me that has to turn all this shit around. It puts me figuratively six feet under the ground. No coffin and alive. No sleep and choking and choking on the sand that fills my body until my body is full of sand and the sand cannot enter my body anymore. All the holes in my body are plugged with sand. I cannot move and I have become part of the earth.

So I procure some weed, I smoke for a while and then I come back home.

I’m back home and everything is depressing still. They are still talking about that depressing thing, but now I cannot hear them. Maybe I hear their words, but their words do not sink in, and for all intents and purposes, it means that I cannot hear them. If I cannot hear them, I cannot be depressed and I find myself smiling in a house where everybody else is depressed and frowning. I am protected by the walls of my Nonesuch Palace. By all the scenarios I imagine and the boom of the baseline of the music that fills the place.

It is a beautiful place.

When I come back, I am a log of wood with an axe stuck in my side. Everything that pushed me into Nonesuch Palace. Loneliness, girl problems, dissatisfaction with my life, family problems, and other such worldly things, they all come rushing back. They gather themselves from all over the place in a whirlpool manner, and gather in one spot to form the sharp, prolonged pain that is the axe in my side.

But every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, and millennium in Nonesuch Palace is worth living to receive that pain. At least it takes the pain away for a while.

I know I am not the only one. There have been millions of us as far back as Henry the Eighth.

That place where you go to rid yourself of all the shit in your life. That place that makes you feel like a dog coming out of the water of life and shaking it all away. That place that numbs the pain of life. That place that gives you serenity and wealth and love and all the things you desire. That place that you have created in your mind.

It is called Nonesuch Palace.

There is and was none such palace like mine and there never will be. There is also none such palace like yours and there never will be.

This is why Nonesuch Palace was meant for Henry the Eighth alone; and even if it was rebuilt, we can never see what he saw in it.

Funny thing was, this Nonesuch Palace that Henry the Eighth built, the greatest, most beautiful and grandest of all his palaces and all palaces, was the one he visited the least. He never really wanted to go there just as I don’t and you don’t. We don’t want to go there because of the reason we go there. We want everything in our life to be good so that we don’t have to go to Nonesuch Palace.

But it will never be so.

So nurture your Nonesuch Palace. Do not be ashamed; bathe it with water and sunlight and let it grow. Because in this life my friend, you will need it.