The boy’s toy.

Dear Mr. Invisible Bully,

It is my 4th birthday tomorrow. I am my mum’s favourite son, and my sister is her favourite daughter. It is a happy family. Though the upcoming birthday has filled me with a sense of dread and trepidation.

Now you might blink at my use of such big words, ‘dread’ and ‘trepidation’ while I just said my age to be 4 years (minus one day). It is just that I am syphoning the vocabulary of the future me through a giant black portal with shiny lights all around so as to make this a more cogent narrative.

So making allowance for that teensy bit of creative freedom, let’s get to the root of my dread. I want a Barbie for my birthday. My sister got one and I love it. But she just wouldn’t let me play with it. But my mum is planning to buy me a GI Joe set. Now you might wonder that I am caught up in the midst of childhood genderification. Well, possibly. Or maybe not. But I like what my sister got.

You know, mum got angry the other day when I lingered in the cloth store by a pink frock. I thought it was pretty and asked mum for it. She refused and was visibly disturbed. I notice such things. They think we kids don’t, but I do. Back home, mum had a long heated argument with mum. No, she didn’t speak to self, nor to her mirror reflection. I just got two mums. My mum married my mum. No dad. It’s allowed where we live. It made me no difference. I think. I am open-minded and accepting.

But mum was discussing with mum that maybe I needed a positive role-model. What they actually meant was a model for male-gender role. But they don’t get it. I don’t want to fit in a mould. I want to be me, whatever that may be. Though they are worried that a lack of a male presence at home is hampering my gender-awakening. Woah! I know, big talk, as if that’s even a thing. Is it? Be it what it may, but why need there be one anyway? I want to think thoughts of my own, feel emotions that are mine, be a person that I am to become based on my own individual inclinations. I don’t want to be impressed upon to fit in conventional social schemas. I want to be an original me.

Are you worried this would be the end of civilisation as we know it? All the social anarchy and break in custom such thoughts lead to. Well, don’t. Not all are me, just as I am not all. And I don’t want to be bullied to be like all. I just want to let be. But how do I tell my mums’ that I indeed want the Barbie. It would just spark another fight. I will have to compromise I guess. About time I learnt that trick of the adult.

A bear is cute and soft and fluffy while yet being a boy’s choice isn’t it? Yogi bear is a boy right! I would be allowed to get him as a present rather than that stupid GI Joe where we are meant to imagine battles and clarion calls?! Guess I will ask for a bear. For now. Though someday, I do want that barbie. And mums’, no, I want that regardless of your choice. I don’t think having had a dad would have changed it. But this is me brought up in the absence of dad talking. So who knows. Yet, either way, what’s wrong in wanting a Barbie? Why your guilt? Sister got it. I want it too.

 

She danced.

I watched my sister dance at the funeral of her husband. It wasn’t the frenetic swaying of a delirious mind. Nor was it in measured restraint. It was seamless, fluent, san all conscious effort. It felt the same as the day she danced when I told her that she had become an aunt, her movements sparkling of joy and pride. It was the same as when she got into the grad school for design, her life’s motive, her long-cherished desire. It was the same as when she fell in love and danced to let him know, that while her heart was all his, she couldn’t be. She bowed to her mother’s dying wish and married a guy of her family’s choosing. The guy, today, lying on the funeral pyre, was silenced in death. He didn’t hurt her, nor was he bad. He was a good fellow, kind and gentle. But she couldn’t bear to hold within a love she felt for else. She wrapped it deep within, where it simmered. One fine day, unbeknown of the cause, she cracked. Breaking the calm placid facade shot out the hand, her hand, grasping a knife in a tight clench. A cruel unfaltering slash, it hit an artery in his neck, and he ceased to be, diseased, sliding to the beyond in a gush of blood-red blood spurting from the gash. She was sane, oh yes, rational too. She just broke once, then, and the deed couldn’t be undone. Today, she danced in farewell to the guy, her erstwhile husband, caught in cross-fire of her unrequited love. It’s wasn’t his fault, nor her’s, or her mother’s who died while holding on to the wisdom and custom of the eras bygone. It just happened, and all she could do was to dance resigned to the fates design. She danced. She did.

• 

IITx diaries. Episode-1

He and she were sitting adjacent, actually more proximate, well frankly smothered into the other, on the rear-most step of the Open air theatre in-campus late at night. Let’s step back a moment. Well we do literally need to so as to give them some privacy. Now literal-qualms aside, metaphorically taking a step back to ponder a deep philosophical injunction, why need it be a he and a she?

No, now don’t get all creative and start imagining plural forms of either or both pronoun. Did you know mélange a trios used to be an accepted, or rather still is, a form of social co-habitation in Europe? I want to go Europe. To see the Eiffel tower ofcourse! What were you thinking? Back to business with the he and the she, why need there be this gender duality in a relationship-duo. Given we are liberals in the 21^st century, we take no issue if it were a he and a he, smooching the life out of the other! Did that scene where the Dementor sucks the life out of Harry’s luscious lips flash in your head? Did I spoil Harry Potter for you forever? Let’s hope not. Or it could as well be a she and a she (giggles!). What? I am no intolerant bigot! Isn’t humor an inexplicable thing? People find humor in death. Well, some do. Crimes-against-humanity did not sell-out for no reason. A she with a she can’t be more ominous than mortis can it?

Now having established it could just as well have been a he with a he, or a she with a she, let’s just contend with the fact that on that particular fateful night, fateful as because we voyeurs trained our telescopes upon them, the them, or grammatically speaking, they, chanced to be a he and a she. And we shall not judge them for sticking, quite cloyingly, to conventional gender duality of the most populous binary relationship-type in society. So what where they doing? They were smooching (giggles!).

They were at it, for quite a while now, and one could almost see that despite the flushed face and bated breath, their lips pressed against were drained of blood and deathly pale. The guy actually wanted to just hold hands and peer into her eyes, the gateway to her soul (sigh, clichéd, I know!), but the girl wouldn’t hear of it. She was a progressive she said, whatever it meant, and she wanted this thing, which for reasons of propriety and censorship shall not be juicily detailed. But it suffices to say that it involved lips, tongue, and human saliva- a slightly alkaline fluid of pH-7.4, that aids in deglutition (fancy term for swallowing) and got amylase (an enzyme aka biocatalyst) that initiates digestion of starch. But she wanted it, she was bossy and a feminist, both traits totally unrelated, and he being a gentleman listened and complied with shocking readiness.

The pale lips in due course got numb, not unsurprisingly as anyone with experience would know (do I smell pride? Envy? Disgust? hey, its fiction remember). And with numbness comes an irking lack of satisfaction and that concomitant veil of boredom. The guy wants to go back to his room now. He got to study electron wave function for the quantum electrodynamics test the next day. But he can’t tell her that. She was too cool, and above all, was a girl. He knew given his brilliant track-record with people who carried two X chromosomes, the probability of he getting within two feet of another women in his lifetime was slim at best, and non-existent on a more conservative estimate. Does this make him desperate? Aren’t we all desperate for love (emphatic pause for effect!)?

(After an unnecessary split of paragraph to exacerbate the pause!) He wondered what if she was the one, that it was meant to be. Just then the girl does something unexpected. Why, because the narrative required something dramatic to happen. It had gotten into a slog for a while now. The dramatic thing, yes, the girl does it. She picks up her phone, takes a pic, and sends him a copy. She doesn’t upload it with a string of cheesy cheery charming smiley’s on the social media, which is enormously unexpected and a tad dramatic. Less significantly, she says, remember me, and she disappears in a blink.

Too dramatic? Well, who’s to say. What, you? Give it a break. What happened of creative freedom, free speech, tolerance at least? Let’s stick with the fact. And the fact was, as we now shall believe, she disappears. Poof! And the guy blinks. Well, the girl disappears in a blink too. Whether she blinked at that precise moment she disappeared stands to reason. Given it isn’t of any importance, her blink, as much as the guy’s blink, let’s let it slide. (Disclaimer- No, we are not giving any less importance to the girl’s blink because she is a woman. She just was so super-awesome-adroit-quick-skilled in blinking that we couldn’t record if she blinked.)

Guy blinks, girl disappears. Let’s replay, the guy blinks, he notices a stern rap on his shoulder. No, it’s not parallel universes. We abhor the multiverse hypothesis. The two needn’t necessarily be mutually-exclusive in the same universe (pardon the double negative, I know it’s a crime. I should be hanged! maybe after am dead)- he blinks, she disappears, and he notices a stern rap on his shoulder. The next moment, he’s up, wiping the copious drool from the corner of his mouth, the left cheek, in fact his entire face, and from the notebook with the half-scribbled quantum wave equation, staring back at him in dreadful disarray.

No, he wasn’t dreaming. We shall not have an anticlimactic clichéd end. It wasn’t a dream. She was real, she disappeared, and as he blinked, he was teleported through time-and-space into the quantum electrodynamics exam next day. You doubt it? Think it’s too convenient? Consider this. For the sake of sanity, he checks his phone and there she is, with him beside, in the pic she had shared. Convinced? At least he was, and a foolish smug smile lights up on his face. He looks at the test paper again. Matter is a particle and a wave. The pitiful Schrodinger’s cat is dead, and is alive. The probability distribution for an electron at all points outside nucleus is non-zero, even for large distances, though howsoever infinitesimally small the probability gets. Disappearing, poof, in a blink, while unheard-of, could be extant. As could teleportation, with no device or wand or Dumbledore’s watch. Beyond all, there is a non-zero probability, howsoever close to zero on the numberline, of him having a girl who would walk along by his side, be-it-may by chance, for at least the measure of a good long 2 feet. Having said that, he could totally nail the smooch. The pic proves that he did.  The bell rings. Exams over. The probability of him flunking the test is 1 (definitive!). He strides to the door, gets out the hall, and blinks at the bright sunlight, just as a hand appears, linking its fingers with his, and the body attached to that hand is the girl in the pic. Sure thing, quantum doesn’t make sense. And here is why, it needn’t!

All she did was Twirl!

Remember the moment in movies when the girl and the guy look into each other’s eyes and the world slows around. It’s when they realize they love the other. While filmy, it got an element of realism in it for I too had one such moment. We were over the water-tank on her terrace and she twirled around for some reason. Am sitting here looking at the city-lights, and she stands up and makes a 360 degree twirl- an innocuous innocent though immensely feminine gesture. Now I haven’t seen a guy do the twirl, less still admire it on the brawnier sex. But as when she did as then, for some inexplicable reason that I just couldn’t fathom, she became an alluring goddess inside my head.

No, it is not love at first-sight. I knew her for over a year then. Also it wasn’t a case wherein the silly cupid does his thing insidiously for one to not notice it as when his arrow slowly pierces your warm beating heart. It was this single precise moment in time, the twirl, and I was smitten.

Now some may consider this a tad shallow of me. If I had fallen for her for something more vague and ill-defined like because she is good-natured, or warm and caring, everything would have been fine. Better still would have been if it was for something like intelligence, sense of humor, or world-wise; as if these are measurable traits that could be quantified and plotted on a graph to figure the percentile standing to any reasonable extent of precision. But no, it was just one single feminine awe-inspiring twirl.

Now social derision as because of the physicality of the attribute that seemed the deciding vote here rather than an intellectual one doesn’t override the fact which remains- I fell for her. But who is to say moving over two dozen muscles in a set pattern that given the sheer enormity of the number of variables involved in the execution of task, is not to accord a personalized version of itself to the person executing it. That her twirl spoke more about her than could any of the decision-making in charged pressing moments would have. I am not trying to de-signify the latter, but what is to say the former is completely without taste or basis. Who is to say, the twirl doesn’t say as much about her, as would her bearing in social situations that requires her to exercise her higher cognitive capabilities.

Be it what it may, I was smitten, she was standing tall, having successfully finished with the flawless execution of that jaw-dropping twirl, and I shifted my gaze from her toward my girlfriend at  my left. I sighed for I knew how it was going to pan out. The girlfriend became an ex, and the twirling beauty the next, and never did the two ever exchange a word again, curiously enough.

Alone time

On the Sunday morning of the Orionid meteor shower, the young bloke, our protagonist, was sitting in a sweet sunlit spot at the local café. He was cradling a hot steaming cup of coffee. After a delicious sip of the fresh brew, he lets his ink-pen glide with delight over the crisp roughness of his journal page. A fleeting glimpse of the day’s entry before he turned the page read,

“Off today. Might go for a ride up the hill. Life’s a little mellow. And yes, ex got married, and brother’s having a daughter.”

He took another sip, wondering if he got anything more to write. You could almost see that he wanted the idyll to stretch a moment longer- the morning, coffee, journal entry. But his mind couldn’t thread thoughts any further and a lugubrious silence seemed to falls within. He closed his journal and looked afar, lost in thought while thinking nothing. A voice beckoned him to the present, to which he heard himself reply, ‘of course’. The owner of the voice, a girl, sat across and opened her book titled ‘The unbearable lightness of being’.

Yes, he had read it. He greatly admired the adroitness with which the author manages to capture subtle emotions and convey with deft nuance ineffable moments. Yet the philosophy touted, he thought were a bit airy. The premise wherein the central character of the novel could continue loving his wife only through his infidelity, for one, was stretching credulity a bit too far. While our guy was having this mini book club discussion inside his head, the girl looks up at him, smiles in acknowledgement, and turns to the next page.

Yes, she was beautiful. Though more than beauty, what caught him in enrapture was the unassuming charm of a beautiful girl who doesn’t yet know how beautiful she is. He longed to listen to her thoughts, see how beautiful they were. But that would require holding an actual conversation. And therein lays the complication. It’s easier to not start a conversation than otherwise, despite the possible merits of the latter. What would he say? How should he start? What if she replies in a monosyllable and the conversation comes to an abrupt uncomfortable end? The sheer enormity of untoward possibilities compelled him to quit the ordeal, finish his coffee, and go fetch his mountain bike. As he was unlocking it, unbeknown to him, the curious gaze of the girl lingered on him awhile. Not looking back, he began to pedal at a brisk pace.

He rode out the city toward the hills. The sun was up and the cold of the night had begun to dispel. He rode taking it all in, the green of the hillside, the blue of the sky, and the springy lightness the memory of the girl from the café seemed to evoke. After a couple hours, he reached the lake with a green grassy mound that seemed the perfect site to pitch his tent. He munches through the sandwich with the quiet of forest and the occasional plop of a frog diving into the water forming a backdrop to the silence in his heart, which lay sober and subdued in his sweaty steaming body. He decided to go for a swim and wash up. The cool wetness of the water felt welcome against his skin. He dries himself and lies down in his tent for a nap.

The Sun makes its day’s sojourn across the sky and nears the horizon. His nap is disturbed by a voice. Yes, it’s the same voice. The one from the cafe. But no, it isn’t addressed to him. In fact, it isn’t anywhere near either. He steps out his tent to find a little party on the opposite shore of the lake, with a bonfire and good old bonhomie. Yes, she was in the midst of the group, and he could catch sight of her smiling face from across the pond. Suddenly he longed for her company. He longed for any company. He wanted to go talk to her. Hear her speak. Hear anyone speak. Having conversations with self makes cracking jokes a difficult if not impossible ordeal. And that intolerable monotony of familiar landscape and known tunes inside one’s head is another minor detail he had come to detest. He wanted to experience the mental landscape of someone else. His mind wavers in uncertainty. He wants to go over, sit by the fire, have a beer, and hang out. He wants to participate in life. He makes up his mind. Gathers his stuff. Ties his tent to the back of his bike and begins to pedal, just when a brilliant streak of pure whiteness flashes across the sky in an arch to disappear in a blip near the horizon. It is soon followed by few more. And then many more. He looks up in awe, in admiration, in happy cheer. It’s the Orionid.

He turns his bike and sets out to ride in the direction of the falling rocks from the very heavens. He doesn’t feel as mellow. He feels fine. In fact, he would attest that he feels happy. Hard to argue when we can see a stupid smile pasted across his face. He knows he is riding opposite to where the girl is. He knows it will get him further away from her. But he is fine with it, for he isn’t unhappy anymore. He doesn’t feel in need for a human connection, at least, this moment. He has a distraction to keep him occupied, the Orionid. And he rides away toward the horizon.

As he is gaining speed, though the girl from the café on the other side of the shore gets smaller and smaller, she just manages to catch a glimpse of the sweet guy from the café, the one who was sipping coffee and scribbling into his journal, now ride away, further from her. She should have spoken to him at the café. When she had the chance. She wanted to. And as the noise of the people gathered around tugs her back to the moment, she returns her gaze to the sky streaked in dazzling white with the Orionid shower. And wonders where he is pedaling away to.

 

That stupid toad!

‘A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets’ said the old feisty Rose in Titanic, as did a girl in my class at high school when I asked her intentions behind putting a toad in my lunch when not more than a week before she had confessed her love to me. Now the quote felt apropos to the moment and I blinked in appreciation which would have lasted for a while longer had the toad not croaked. It was a disgusting little thing, looking all clueless and to be frank, a little frightened. Being an environmentalist myself, I promptly had the toad transported to the biology lab and gave it up for the dissection that was due next week. I did hate to let precious resources go waste.

While this incident sure sounded as a nail stuck into the coffin of our little puppy love, it sure stood out 8 years later when I found self in the same city as this girl from high school. She still owed me an explanation. Not that it would change anything, but mysteries have a characteristic itch about them that compel us feeble folks to have them resolved.

I made sure to get to the café late by half an hour in hope of making a grand entry on the awaiting lady; though my little scheme was squashed by the girl who was a good wholesome hour late. Now I readily forgave her because she had long legs. Everyone has their own set of idiosyncrasies. Call me shallow, but I have a thing for long legs. As a matter of fact, I find girls who think hunky, muscular guys are hot and attractive as incredibly shallow and contemptible. It is just so juvenile and out-dated. It was the alpha males of the Neanderthals. In the today, the alpha males are those with enough wits to sift through the massive amounts of data available and make consequential choices. Rowing back on course from this little but important digression, a pair of long legs brought her to the café and she sat across, crossing them.

With great effort I unhinged my glance from this subconscious fixation on those pair of long, shapely, life-affirming lower limbs, and looked up to meet her gaze. She apparently wasn’t very pleased with the way I had turned out. My nails were dirty, my hair unkempt and longer than appropriate, not to miss the long meandering crease on my shirt that would have made a juicy data-point for any decent computing machine to churn an equation to explain its branching morphology. But I had an arresting smile, killer dimples, and a twinkle in my eyes, as my mother used to say, and didn’t feel too ruffled by her critical censure.

She said she was engaged to Jenny. Yes, it is a girl’s name. I did a quick re-take on the manliness of my killer-dimples from high school! But enough conceit already. I said I was happy for her. While totally a lie, not that I had anything remotely romantic toward this toad-toting long-legged critical feminine fellow Homo sapien,  I just didn’t have it in me to ever be happy for else. Unless that folk was a blood-relative, it evolutionarily didn’t hold water. Though I wasn’t unhappy for her; so all is well I hope. After some small talk on Syrian war, Canadian politics, and quantum entanglement, I asked her about the toad in my Tiffin.

Instead of a straight answer, she asked in return, ‘Was it predictable- that event of me putting that thing beside your sandwiches?’ ‘Hell no!’, said I. Then it was a-causal as far as your reality is concerned, she quipped and smiled. I was well aware of James Gleick’s line from the book Chaos that an inherently unpredictable event need be a-causal. The idea being, had there been a cause to which this event had been an effect, then the occurrence of the cause would have made the event predictable. Well again, another apropos use of someone else’s thesis, remember the Rose’s dialogue, yet, I had misgivings on the ‘inherent’ qualifier to the ‘unpredictability’.

In retrospect, I think that smile she beamed was a wicked one. It feels so not nice to feel out-witted. I promised her to iron my shirt and maybe clean half my nails, which I suppose appealed to what little good there was hidden, deep, in some dark recess within her, and she relented. She said, the toad was her pet, and she wanted to surprise me, while I mercilessly had it given up for dissection. (As against what I had thought, the toad had been dissected the same day, not a week later. They had needed it to demonstrate the electrical nature of sciatic nerve stimulation to cause contraction of the calf).

After a sheepish smile, we paid the bill the Dutch way and left. Though unbeknown to us, one of the students who had observed the nerve stimulation experiment that day had become so fascinated with the whole thing that he now is a neurosurgeon doing well curing folks of epilepsy. Who knew the stupid frog and my generous act would consequent the society such good!

Tempered Steel

The glass was transparent, filled three-fourths with water. The subtle curve of the meniscus caught light from above and glimmered. With my chin resting on the table, I observed her animated face magnified through the liquid. She sat across, wearing blue, with her jet-black locks breaking into waves, one layered over another brushing on her shoulders. She blinked those big scary eyes and moved her head from side-to-side. She was trying to make a point I suppose. Every once-in-a-while, her hands would shoot up, forming words in the air. Yes, she sure was saying something. But blame her peculiar nose, a tad-bit voluminous, and that curious stretch of lips; I felt all my attention being pulled as toward, making it difficult to spare any for the words those moving lips formed.

With time the skin over my chin started to feel numb under the weight of my head and started to sting. I sat upright and leaned on the back-rest. She smiled as if to acknowledge my change in posture while yet continuing with the monolog. I wondered how one smiles while talking. Aren’t the lips already busy in sounding the consonants, particularly the labials – ‘m’, ‘p’ and ‘b’. Possibly one times the smile to that portion of the speech when words do not include these. I felt amazed at how talented their brains need to, to be able to predict beforehand which part of their sentence is devoid of words containing those alphabets so that they may smile at that exact moment. Such an arduous strain on brains micro-circuitry. I blinked in awe of her this gift and tried to smile.

Tried to, but couldn’t. This is not the day I smile. It’s a sad sorry day. I broke my coffee mug. Despite the charming presence of her, in near proximity, the ache of the misfortune was too searing to wane. She had given me it. While some might argue the very same ‘she’ is sitting right across the table that seemed to hold a glass of water, two plates, two pairs of spoon, fork and knives, a box of tissues, and a promise of food that was yet to come. Now the latter half of the previous statement in this recital is beside the point, yes, you figured it right. I guess I put it there to shift attention from the unease the former half of the statement had caused within. Yes, the coffee-mug was given by her, but she was that ‘her’ no more. Time leaves indelible insignia of its passage, doesn’t it? Some desirable, while some not. Some tolerable, some not.

Just then, there was a sudden moment of profound quiet. I saw that there were no more ripples in the water in the glass. Her lips had stopped to move as well. I said, ‘yes, I agree’. And she smiled.

Contrary to what you might think, no, this isn’t a failed marriage wherein we just indifferently tolerate the other. In fact, we are not even a couple. It is just that I have something going on. Something that is being a bother. And I can’t tell her that. As to why I can’t tell her, well, I don’t know. Though now I can think and try to come up with reasons in retrospect as to why I can’t tell her; but beforehand I don’t know what made me want to not say and keep it to self. Maybe it just didn’t occur to me to tell her about it. But then isn’t it how we are at times. Inexplicable to self. Not that that mystery can’t be unwoven. It’s just that it would rather be quite a burdensome bother to undertake. And it’s easier side-stepped.

While these philosophical counterpoints subsided inside my head, I noticed that her eyes were downcast and the smile that she had beamed before had turned smug, then sore, and finally sad. It’s incredible how the same stretch of lips could be made to portray such myriad different emotions. A mathematical impossibility if one may. But then, she did, and thus it isn’t an impossibility anymore, is it? So this is that point in the narrative wherein it becomes clear that I have been outstripped in my endeavor to outsmart her. Poor me. Well I don’t actually mean ‘poor me’, but inside my head, I could hear her quip ‘don’t wallow in your own self-pity’ at my that phrase; a nasty retort we had together once discovered in a comic strip. The distraction aside, I felt my heart miss a beat.

Funny that it begins with a series of missed beats, strained breaths and roiled emotions. And this same bunch recurs when you see your better half down and under. ‘better half’ having been used in a literal sense with not too much emphasis on the ‘your’ pronoun that did precede it. Though on a second take, much emphasis has indeed been put on the absence of emphasis on that possessive pronoun. Such a recursive turmoil language adds to the act of living. For what is unsaid is also as affecting as what is said.

I came clean and said, “I dropped that coffee mug you gave on that friendship day”. “The yellow one? The one with a black lid and café coffee day written as upon ?”. “Yes, the same. It fell and broke into a thousand shards of splintered ceramic.” “I knew I should have given you one made of tempered steel!”, and with that, she broke out into her characteristic peal of laughter. I again caught myself gazing at her peculiar nose, admiring, smiling, chuckling as it twitched as she paused for breath between laughs.

Yes, it’s inexplicable; this human contract with its inherent asymmetry of emotional exchange.  In part because we are humans, fallible, with a lifetime spent in cultivating behaviors that are a far cry from ideal. And in part because this portrayal is a consequence of the wistful imagination of a soul reflecting in solitude. Either way, how much harm can come by wishing ‘happy friendship day’, even if the only real aspect of that proposition is ‘day’. Someone said life is a comedy, written by a writer with a tendency to overindulge in the tragic. And given the superlative intellect (quirky smarts, handsomeness, and knightly chivalry) of this ‘someone’, we are bound to concede to his point. As to why his, and not her? Well, it’s apparent I am a guy ain’t it.

Morning chores

I woke up with an ache in my head. The floor was cluttered with empty cans of beer and cigarette stubs. The dank stink of smoke still clung in the air. I opened a window to let the room breathe. On my bed did lay a body, crumpled, with the sheet rising and falling. Her long black hair spread out into a chaos of waves. Her face and body was covered by the sheet, with her bare limbs poking out. I felt a growing tenderness in my heart. She was very dear.

I set the coffee to brew and put on some light music. The cans clanged as I collected them in a plastic bag and put them in the trash. The toaster made an angry metallic click as the aroma of freshly hot bread filled the room. I applied butter to the toast and sipped some coffee, black. She still lay huddled in the bed. I did not disturb her; didn’t have the heart to.

I was checking my messages when there was a knock at the door. I opened it. My girlfriend was standing outside. She had downcast eyes with a forlorn look. She looked up at me and asked how I was keeping. I said good. She wanted to know why I wasn’t answering her phone calls. I didn’t know how to answer that. I just hadn’t felt like. But then I couldn’t say it, could I. She genuinely cared and I did in turn too. She asked if she could come in. I moved aside to make way.

The room was clean, bright, the bed unoccupied. I looked around to see where she had gone. I could find her nowhere. My girlfriend sat on the bed, looking at my quizzical face. She looked worried. She said, ‘Your mom called. She said you were seeing her again. You know they are hallucinations right. Not real.’ I said that I know. But then, when they happen they do seem real. Is it wrong to see her, feel her presence, even if not real. I did not say any of this. I didn’t want to have her bothered. I sat by her side and said I will eat the medicines. I just wanted some time to feel whole again, with my sister.

She said she understood. She nodded towards the medicine. I went and popped four pills; drowned it with another gulp of coffee. And sat down, beside, on the bed. A little while later there was another knock at the door. I said come in. And my girlfriend entered, looking worried. She wanted to know why I wasn’t taking her calls. Surprised, I turned to the spot on the bed where she was supposed to be sitting. It was empty. I slowly turned again, toward her, still by the doorway, and set out a long painful sigh.

The town fair

The kid was wearing brown boots. His eyes simmered with the kind of hope that only innocence can offer. He had the string of a green hot-air-balloon pinched tight between his thumb and index finger. With the balloon bobbing in the evening breeze, he walked around alone, checking the various curiosities the town fair had to offer.

As he turned round a corner, by the alley behind the tent with the fortune-teller, the kid came across a boy with his tongue in the mouth of a girl. They were definitely kissing, but he thought they were doing it wrong. The lips should touch the cheeks and the tongue definitely stays safely inside one’s own mouth! Lost to the novelty of this gross spectacle, the kid’s grip on the string loosened which sent the balloon flying.

The balloon climbed, first with a sense of immediacy, and then with a lugubrious slowness as the air within began to cool and it reached a height where the air outside was equally dense and it could rise no further. An ambitious sparrow in the hope of setting a new record for highest flight amongst its clan blinked at the green round shiny thing at head-level ahead. It swerved right and gave it a miss. But given its meek nature, it thought better to take the green thing for a predator that inhabits those particular heights and started making a quick descent to inform its clan of this new discovery.

It flew in a straight line, glidding, cutting through the wind, toward the thicket at the end of a bridge over the river that ran north of the town. Arriving at its nesting site, it set a chirrupy chatter that was picked up by a lone bloke standing on the bridge beside, staring down into the water flowing in swirling turbulent eddies. He was tired, despondent with despair. His parrot had died, he had lost his favourite pebble, his parent’s were having a divorce, and his best friend had gone to the fair without him. He felt alone, lost, and weary. Yearning for love but feeling barricaded all around he wanted to jump down the bridge into the water and end it all.

He made up his mind, climbed the safety railing, and looked up to say goodbye to the world just when a green round something glittered in the sky above. Against the orange shade of the evening twilight, the green formed a pretty harmony of colours, and queerly it seemed to grow bigger with time. He let his gaze follow its flight as it descended from the sky, still hovering in the air, moving in slow stutters toward the town.

Forgetting his original intent, the kid got down the railing and broke into a cheery gallop to where the green round shiny thing was to land. He would get it, and will run to his friend to share with him his find.

And thus, there occurred a town fair such, once, afar!

Amidst the chaos of life..

The rain pattered on the leaves, as

through the mutiny of colors, green

brown and nutmeg, blew a chilling breeze.

Drenched, dripping wet, yet

sporting a beaming smile, you stroll

through life, plush with aplomb.

The trees, the beasts, arboreal

volant, fossorial, and piscine,

stir amidst the other.

While in witness, you behold your bounding

heart, that’s beating within with relish

at this nature’s call, and grip tight

The hand, coarse tough rippled with

veins, as you stand testimony to the

chaos of life, together, in harmony.

ᐧ