Lumpen things and lumpen thoughts.

Double alliterary whammy. As if that means something.

Loads of shitty things going on everywhere and the brains need to be emptied bowel-like to be fed things again. Amen't I disgusting? But everyone who is anyone does that. And the fear of being stated mad is only fleeting. It is the truth, though. And truth shall set us free. (We all like free)

It is cold as hell. And as I'm rolling around in the deep, deep muck of self-doubt and tangential existential crises (yes, plural) imaginary conversational smartass discussions that are automated every other second in the ever distracted mind of mine, a very Clockwork Orange-like scenario crept up. Where someone's training me as a mere canine (the adorable kind, I admit) to write. And write fast. And loose. And now.

The whole good and evil mini-me shoulder people are getting too crowded with the shades of grey. Oh, I rant so much. But the world has too many straight thinking coherent writings to read. Or I presume. They'll have better things to do that continue here. I cannot help but think how anyone, everyone cannot help but he helpless all the time with everything that goes on. Keeps going on. Unceasingly. That shithouse that this world has become.

Granted, it did provide answers to the other kind of acceptable shit that goes on. (I read somewhere than vulgarity is no alternative to wit but as if I care, not all the time).. Shit that goes on that is acceptable and makes not even a tiny flea-much of a sense to me. Like admirable healthy social lives and sports programmes  and need for giant amounts of connection to every which thing and person and germs around you.

Need to belong to either here or there or to a position where it's acceptable to be while you ponder and debate and deliberate over where to be here or there or to the positions where you yada yada. Yada. The choice to not make a choice of even ambiguity is never seen. Invisibly to the naked blind eyes of the sheeple. Not to be political or anything but it's just a shitty term. (So much hate). Shitty not in its being but attributed to the reason it exists. Oh how the fingers move in misanthropy.

Those madmen make so much sense who sit in a corner observing life and recording counter incantations to be buried deep inside obscurity. Because madhouses are better than shithouses. A lot more entertaining and they stink less. In fact, smell rosy and gay. Gay is always nice. Gay is happy.

What is to be written about is written about too much and done nothing about. I wonder if there was no talk, people would walk the walk. But only zombie-like. And none shall find any brain.

The cursor blinking unfailingly does not fail to remind me of the very legendary American History X and the epic assignment. That died bloody. Oh, kids and guns. How did I not see that. Magic mental connections. Neurons working their asses off bringing up coincidences. I had a whole load of Adam Lanza story essay planned which must be lying in the drafts somewhere. Shall continue on that, I only hope. Because the furore's all fried up.

Like everything that ever exists, it passes.

Sometimes putting feelings into words seems like treachery.

Stuck in a rut between wanting to record and wanting to possess what ethereal emotions come.

Like lying still on a mattress on the floor of an old, old house. All is quiet. And then you're lurched suddenly and the hammock swings leisurely while an utterly blue sky smiles, quietly penetrating those closed eyes and an open smile. While nothing has moved and nothing has happened.

There's hot sand untouched yet emanating a weary drowsiness from the earth, legs splayed trying to touch the ground without trying, a toenail grazing across the grainy texture, stretching out and submerging your feet into the simple welcoming warmth.

On your stomach, under a fuzzy blanket, face dimly lit by the new age candle of pixels stretched across a vast window of tiny words, invisible gestures and minuscule parts of being. Wondering why there are no birds at night. Hovering over orange buttons and yawning into a pillow.

Complete peace and complete chaos. And they wash over you.

Gibran and Gulzar.

There are normal days and then there are Book Fairs. And there are crazy ideas like abstinence. And there are crazier ones called rebellion. Albeit tiny ones. Last year I desired to marry a book fair. I am keeping the mistresses called art museum and uh, others out of the picture right now because, just because.

The ended up with me two books richer. The first is a very very thin volume of Kahlil Gibran's stories and poems called Between Night and Morn and it's about time I did one of those type out a whole of quotes thingamajig. I actually only did that once for Wilde. Dorian Gray.

Already getting lost and dreamy nostalgicising. So I open up a random page and it's all filled with the slot machine quality where I read three words and three pages of brand new blog material crap oozes out of me, sprinting and whizzing around in my brain with no exits around. I'm hoping the thoughts don't die of exhaustion while I copy word to word of the awesomeness I just read.

The story is called the Tempest and this is the excerpt which will show our fiery red spark of love and how he had me at the No.

"No, my brother, I did not seek solitude for religious purposes, but solely to avoid the people and their laws, their teachings and their traditions, their ideas and their clamour and their wailing.

I sought solitude in order to keep from seeing the faces of men who sell themselves and buy with the same price that which is lower than they are, spiritually and materially.

I sought solitude in order that I might not encounter the women who walk proudly, with one thousand smiles upon their lips, which in the depths of their thousands of hearts there is one purpose.

I sought solitude in order to conceal myself from those self-satisfied individuals who see the spectre of knowledge in their dreams and believe that they have attained their goal.

I fled from society to avoid those who see but the phantom of truth in their awakening, and shout to the world that they have acquired completely the essence of truth.

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

I sought solitude because my soul wearied of association with those who believed that the sun and moon and stars do not rise save from their coffers, and do not set except in their gardens.

I ran from the office-seekers who shatter the earthly fate of the people while throwing into their eyes golden dust and filling their ears with sounds of meaningless talk.

I departed from the ministers who do not live according to their sermons, and who demand of the people that which they do not solicit of themselves.

I sought solitude because I loathe that great and terrible institution which the people call civilization - that symmetrical monstrosity erected upon the perpetual misery of human kinds."

And I fell for a madman. Another part from where he's explaining the difference or a lack thereof between the east and the west:

"Hypocrisy will always remain, even if her finger tips are coloured and polished; and Deceit will never change even if her touch becomes soft and delicate; and Falsehood will never turn into Truth even if you dress her up with silken robes and place her in the palace; and Greed will not become Contentment; no will Crime become Virtue. And Eternal Slavery to teachings, to custom, and to history will remain Slavery even when she paints her face and disguises her voice. Slavery in all her horrible form, even if she calls herself Liberty."

And thus, momentarily life was complete. And fleetingly love was felt again. And the decision to reclusify myself was cemented. This book was bought for a total of TEN Indian Rupees and a translation of Gulzar's poems is another which I have not yet opened except when I read through one too many poems standing at the stall, smiling like a doofus. Lines of love in the next installment.

Such happiness.

Tonight's the night.

Except being an allusion to just the awesomest lines in TV history, the words actually mean something. When the scholastic sword and swinging dangerously over your head and it's always a reminder of what actually should be done. Shamelessly blog about it and everything under the sun. And the black clouds, and the sun again, then clouds.. oh hell.

Constant use of public transport makes you question a lot of things and then curse still more. Going by the words of  Shaw, all great truths are first blasphemies or something in that line, I happen to realise as it so happens (in a very dictatorial leaning).. that the "right" to give birth should be reserved for a certain section of people. Perhaps it comes from the idea that homosexuals do not really partner up to make little people. Just like the setting up of the institution of marriage, there's a certain sense of duty/ responsibility or a necessity traditionally, to make children. While it can be argued that it's more biological than social, human nature does not really put up a brave fight in the face of social construct.

A lot of psychological leetspeak can be stuffed here but when it comes to being squashed against strangers in a lurching metro train, I'd take evil dictatorial misanthropic thoughts any day. The criteria for this "privilege" to have children can be various. But it always comes to who's gonna decide. I could put in a lot of hogwash but only in theory. Applying it might only be possible post-apocalypse. Perhaps in a novel of the Utopian sort.

Money always comes first when such things are thought of. But inherently flawed and perfect at the same time, since whatever criteria is set, in the end it will be wealth. I think that arranged marriage is such an antithesis to the process of natural selection (which is dead anyway, but a girl can dream), but gazing stoically at the gluey couples who don't let me read in peace, chattering away to marriage, my heart cries sinking a little bit lower that when mediocrity meets mediocrity, nothing's gonna matter.

This sense of personal liberty that everyone enjoys over their bodies, personal lives and whatever the hell they do all the time, it is just wrong. But the do gooder earthling in me tip toes on the fence among hate and the centuries of struggle the world has gone through to achieve such personal liberty. Sigh. Only in books, that is all. And films. And just the best thing to hit mainstream television. When it is fifteen days later, I shall be home and I shall feel being home in the way it was intended. It will be the night when things don't matter and only a godlike will to kill shall reign. Very, very sexily. Dexter.

This would probably feel a lot more psychopathetic if it wasn't for him, so thank you. Selfishly, Yours Truly.

 Another calm.

What have we here, laddie? Mysterious scribblings? A secret code? Noo, poems, no less. Poems, everybody. That laddie's making himself a poet.

Money gets back

I'm all right Jack

Keep your hands

Off my stack

New car

Caviar

Four star

Day dream

Think I'll buy me

A football team.

Absurd rubbish, laddie. Get on with your work. Repeat after me.

After a million times of listening to this over the years. And revisiting this after the end of time.

I discover I live here.

To some this doesn't belong but in a parallel universe I'd be belting this out drunk karaoke thinking it my own and only mine.

I think this is just going very chronologically. I cannot will not make sure because this is not the time of day when I google things. I just rant and linkblog. Ditto pitchy karaoke.

I realise I cannot completely relate to all the lyrics of this song. I think yet. And I hope, I just hope not, that I end up making it my own any time in the future, distant or tomorrow. I can sometimes superficially and semi angstify it as me.

And this just because. It's funny and I was in love with it once. And it's a random happy moment.
The whip. And because Hugh Grant is perfection. And it's the 80s.

If we're on the topic of love. It is not topical. I knew when I found surreality. 

Inspired a poem and a blog which only has two posts of promise.

And nothing else.

For when two people on this earth was enough. My version, my time. My own. If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world? (We know the answer to that, don't we?)

Forget what we're told. BEFORE WE GET TOO OLD.

Show me a garden that's bursting into life.

Let's waste time. Chasing cars. Around our heads.

I need your grace. To remind me. To find my own.

All that I am. All that I ever was. Is here in your perfect eyes. They're all I can see.

I don't know when. Confused about how as well. Just know that these things will never change for us at all.

Because sometime somewhere in my mind it meant something. A little something.

Somewhere along in the bitterness.

And to the meat and potatoes of the grand dinner that is life, let us clink some wedding glasses against each other and kill the bride. This is it.

First in a line of who knows how many.

Makes your brain explode in a million and one shards of melted orgasmic happiness. Came across this live video where Vinnie Paul became my 20th birthday hero during the last few minutes of this epic gruesomely awesome fest of blissful hit repeat nights. Pantera has always been one hell of a pseudo mommy band figure where the sweet lullabies blaring on otherwise fine-ish but those occasionally musically drunk nights where it they are incredibly inadequate and you want to snatch the music and while it's oozing through your fingers, slam it on to your ears and pet it down hard and hope it just fuses into your being.

"Phil: This next song goes out to everybody that got fucked over on some BS that u should never have gotten fucked over on. And I know that most everybody in here. If ur livin today u got fucked over somewhere or another. You know what im saying? answer me, u know wtf im sayin? I wanna hear u sing but most of all I wanna see u move around. The more u stand still the more it looks like shit, ur better than that infact ur better than most of these audiences. Next songs called Im broken" Credits to ActinLikeaRobot in reply to Ango360 1 year ago 37 thumbs up. Well, thank you, because I started looking for a written for what wise words Phil dishes out :)

What is weird is that I'm saying this all monologue wise in an Australian accent which is not bad at all. Usually happens when there are big huge exams coming up and there's too much to read. But I think birthdays come right up there, mate.

Skid Row's Monkey Business is on the same league but it probably is not as guaranteable to make you feel okay. Badass, yes. My god, the image of Dave Sabo after the little chimp, I know for fucking sure, was the epitome of want the girls watching it on tv felt in '91. Cresendo rising in your brain the first 40 seconds remains in the goosebumps which last a lot lot longer. Makes me feel proud of the fact that that was the year I was conceived. Thanks, mum and dad. Truly thankful.

Sebastian Bach is also definitely one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen. To this day, he is right up there at age 44. Eddie Vedder's eyelashes if you've seen the right pictures are as heart beat skippy as the unforgettable guitar riffs. One of the songs which make life what it is is this. Coulda woulda marry that voice.

"Jeremy, The Wicked ruled this world."

I've been watching the other official video before but this one probably translates Jeremy's story better but that one feels like home. More ramblings by this recluse tomorrow. 3:30 am. Checking out.

Just an ordinary updatery.

“ I watched TV for a while. Maybe I could get involved in that world, or else kick in the screen. But this was our TV set, the one we watched, a lamp of sorts, a kind of household deity.” ~ Orhan Pamuk

This one made me guffaw out loud and almost topple over. Not very unlike my twisted views, the TV although not directly targeted, the attack seems obvious enough.

Being out of touch of sorts with the book world, Pamuk was one foreign sounding writer I had to read. The one I was anticipating on stumbling upon was Murakami. But I remembered seeing a picture of Pamuk with his writing desk and it stuck. So I was upon it, snatching and issuing. The desk had looked incredibly cluttered and he sat against a backdrop of a heavily postered wall and a cat for company.

Earlier in the day, while I reclined peacefully in a comfortable car backseat, chatting away amicably with my mother, things struck me bitterly with an unfortunate frequency. And I started upon a grilling mental monologue about everything that’s wrong with the world today along the route we took to get to the place my brother had spent the day at. Although it sounded a lot more hard hitting and world-change-worthy the minute it unadulteratedly rapped itself out on the humongous stage in my head. But now it’s mostly slush mixed into a later flash-back kind of a way with very pleasing guitar riffs and classical vocals for company.

The statements had started with a sufficiently sarcasmic ‘what the hell’ and ended with a question mark like a loud bang, hitting a nail on its head. Having mostly dealt with educational practices, the value of entertainment and existential crap, tangentially touching the previously derided outdated marriage customs, the soliloquy was mostly for discerning audiences, the existence of which is the lone topic of thinkussion there is right now.

Just put in a microchip in my brain with a tiny keyboard where I could save the shit I think. Maybe that’s called memory for normal humans but my ability mostly flew out when I opened my mind a bit too much. Maybe god did that. He also made the world what it is today so I could go on an unending rant on it and not think about the other important stuff, like what I am and are supposed to do with my life. Yes, what. WHAT. Yes, dear people-I-hardly-know-who hang-out-with -my-dad-occasionally, thank you for asking. I’ll send you an email as soon as I’m hit with an epiphany on how to earn money to clothe my poor ass in the future. You’re welcome.

Work on that smile a little more, it’s encouragement and not sympathy. Stop trying to smile while I half give-up half try to explain in a half interested attempt so you understand none at all, concluding that the alphabet in my mind with which I talk to myself is probably centuries ahead of your cuneiformed baked clay. Some long lost artifact which will be found after the hundred and seventeenth apocalypse, offering  hugeass mounds to the salivating futurist archaeologists and the source shall give up unimportant buzz compared to the boom my epics will cause, which hopefully will be conserved in a better and enduring way.

Talk about flights of fancy. But the blog title gives it away. So give it up.

Frances Hodgson Burnett is most definitely one of the geniuses to rise up after the last Ice Age. The two books I read, probably exactly a decade ago are childhood defining worthy. Thankfully I cannot find if it’s that very exact timing I assumed or my mind would be blown. And I need to keep with me mind howevermuch I can. The Secret Garden and The Little Princess were my very first favourite classics. Long before I realized not every classic is as good as they make them out to be. I could not go beyond the first chapter of some. That is small Dickens to some others.

Such beautiful, beautiful writing. And now that I revisit it after eons, the little Sarah Crewe seems uncannily like little Myself. Aww. And scary. Well, yeah. Another books I got hold of today is a collection of the writings of Woody Allen. Something of a genius himself. Think Match Point. I’m only thinking that because it’s the one I remember. The ones I caught of him that he acted in I couldn’t continue myself to watch. But fragments of some scenes stay. What is hard to imagine is how Lost in Translation was directed by a woman. Sofia Coppola also directed the Virgin Suicides. The former it is hard to swallow. For some silly reason which evades me.

So  I guess I’m now going to click forward some scenes in the movie and definitely watch the one in which she stares at the Buddhist monks, after she chances upon a wedding, and feels NOTHING. The big BIG emotional scare of a popular culture inspired romantic. But is there any other kind? They show Japan as so bland WITH the plethora of bright neons. It’s staggering. And kudos to the woman for the exceptional direction. Bill Murray exceedingly funny with every little twitch of an eyebrow.

It has some immensely well directed scenes, the one in the very beginning maybe. By the way, the view from the skyscraper. Whoa. Gets me everytime. Wait, I think I’ll pause my incessant typing and rewatch. YES. Eyebliss time.

The whole movie is one big example of existential rut. The first world white person superstar problems. Minus the superstar, what else is there generally? In major league cinema, that is. Rewinding from weird commentary, there is a moment where the sleepy middle of the night guy pulls her in a failure of a cuddle to sleep while she is still in insomniac thinking about everything stupor. And then he snores.  (While she pulls away and sits up to badass bokeh. Yes, I get pulled back to it.) Speaks an encyclopedia much. 

The cook your own sushi making scene and the epitome of strange unnamable relationships. 

"Well, she (the wife) is closer to your age.You could talk about things you have in common, like um, growing up in the '50s, maybe she liked the movies you were making in the '70s, when you were still making movies."

"Wasn't there anyone else there to lavish you with attention?"

 And this.

 

“ Why do you have to defend  her?”

“Well, why do you have to prove how stupid everybody is all the time?”

“ I thought it was funny. Forget it.”

Catharsis.

A good night's sleep.

Eyelids prickling, from the edges to the corner..

Overflowing.

That it was a living organism which flared up and died down.

That you plummet deep into it and fly up towards its zenith at once.

And feeling it icy warm against your skin.

Stunned and surrendered.

And it's still.

Till you wake up

Again. 

Little things.

Nothing like an unclutttered desk and a screen 20 inches away from your face to help you write. And of course, space under an actual desk to stretch your legs. And intense sessions of people watching. And a dire desire to have words on digital paper. To let it be there so tomorrow buttons can be clicked and things can be recounted. And reminisced. And rendered in restfulness. So there are anchors in the sea of existantial ennui.

Being reminded of the bridge over Nile that I crossed countless times which vibrated comfortingly whenever a car rushed past me. Random stranger coming up to ask me if I need directions to somewhere. And discovering that I don't speak Arabic, going back to his friends and coming back to me to ask in English. And smilingly going away when I thanked him and turned away.

Sitting on the stairs going up to the second fllor of the college building and feeling it vibrate slightly as people rushed past me for their classes. Grabbing the railing and being transported back to the railings on the Qasr el Nil. Remembering how placing the camera on the ledge to get a clear picture of the neon lights of the boats didn't seem so scary at the time. Giant lions at the end of the bridge.

Walking over to Tahrir and picking up something to eat. The joy of not resenting carnivorous cravings every single day. Boarding alone, the 4 hour train ride to Alexandria and being welcomed by such cruel cold it was worth falling in love for. Being soaked to the skin. And the feeling of walking in ice blocks instead of shoes. Walking slowly along the beach pavement. Meditarranean winds. Following cats and being followed by them. Only them for company. The blue-green of the sky and the sea. And the startling orange of their eyes.

Kicking aside used needles along the benches. Wishing for more koshari that you just finished walking along the road. Wishing for more koshari sitting in the resource lab, typing this. Also, roasted chicken and rice. Also, every little thing. All the little things that make it what it is. Also, funny sounding double meaning words.

Little and big processions at Downtown. Walking around. Getting lost. Loving being lost. Creepy taxi drivers and specially helpful ones. Not being able to read every damn thing in the periphery of my vision. I want to read everything and also point of spelling mistakes gleefully. But mostly everything being rendered to lines which I did not understand. Could not understand.

Floating around everywhere not being understood and not understanding but still being. Trying. And succeeding. And celebrating. Observing how green the grass is on the other side and seeing how it's cut every chance it can be.

Reading inscribed vandalism on the pyramids. And feeling just like home in the warm dry sun and the azure of the clear sky. The shouting colours and the quiet ground. The familiar hubbub of Khan el Khalili and the calls of the salesmen. Too funny to even comment on. When time stretched on and on. And things became more beautiful.

When in the end, everything was in art and will be. Not realising how much time was spent staring at paintings. And how much inside of mazes of the mind. Wishing to live there and be back in my own bed at the same time. Settling into utopia with good food and old movies. Words like old friends. Feelings like warmth against the winter. Being hostelsick instead of homesick.

Being picked up from one frame of perfection to the other. And feeling like a speck of dust against what all is life. As powerful and as tiny. That unmitigated desire to be on a plane for sunrise again.. the vibgyor skyline in nature's flawless geometry. Staring down below at senseless vastness of rocky terrain and grinning wildly at the frozen Jim Carrey on the screen. Missing being up in the air. Literally and otherwise.

Reaching for lost feelings, but not forgotten. And still sighing happily for all that is and will be. 



                                                                                               

Untitled. Makes sense.

Been wondering why.

The need.
Human connection.
Blank faces in
white stares
of brightness.
Dark washes
Still voices
Eternally.

Why not.

Symmetry.
Beauty.
Symbol
ic
Stings
Fornever.
Love
Stern
Succinct
Sold
on soliloquies.
Surmisliced.

Meaningless
Empty.
End.

The mind numbing mediocrity.

This would definitely mean taking that step from passive misanthropy to outright insulting. So I'm not really going to go on about this except the well deserving post title. The definition of an "artist" and the flexibility with which we treat it. Tragic. The banal passivity with which folk tend to treat the world while some spread crap around with an equally ditzy sense of entitlement. I wonder what pushes them to create. And what stops them. That should hopefully happen more.

But the world's a happy place. And people do happy things that make them and other around them happy. The bitchy misanthrope is definitely not everyone's friend. For obvious reasons. I wonder if it's wrong, nurturing in the way that they are loved too much to be good for them. While sometimes it turns out fine, mostly it's a hoard of mediocrity fighting with one another to be their king. I may be seeing this in monochrome but I like to do things like that.

How optimistic is it really, to pine for eternal glory surrounded by millions who want the exact same thing in the exact same way while being the exact same person themselves. The core of people is the same, and while some may think this may help in some way, it has already strangled the spirit of life and we're living in a dead body, thinking that the methane is probably the sweet smell of hope.

Writing such bile is such a release. The weight is finally lifted off the shoulders and onto these blessed pixelated pages. The fleeting moments of joy that intervene the fabulous cynicity of being are welcome, but not welcome to stay. The laughable obscurity that everyone is relegated to is a neverchanging fact. Well, mostly everyone. Which possibly includes you, dear reader. I also like alienating and being crass with opinions that change with the weather but stick around like a bad cold.

After an endless series of unpublished drafts, the orange button will have some fun.

That Evening I Waited.

Again, an article published on the Fountain Pen Guild website and something that I feel belongs here. About time I posted it. A real piece of nostalgia because it actually was written a year ago. And is about a time earlier than that.

That breeze kissed my cheeks gently.. waiting for you. The rectangular piece of garden. With a few roses and the little Jasmine tree right behind the swing. It was quite fragrant at midnight but in the late evening, it was just ordinary. The muddy part right next to it. The perpetual failure of a vegetable garden. The heat was still in the air. Hanging low.. dipping down to my feet and rising up slowly upto my neck. Drenching me in its powerful embrace. I felt drowsy. At peace even. Waiting for that pleasurable sound of the bike coming to a rest right next to the gate. Never too soon. Never too late. Just welcome. Every time. All the time.

Sliding my feet into the soil.. in, in it went. The bald piece of earth beneath the swing where a hundred kicks made it bare. Sad. Poor soil. Pushing my feet into it. My toes covered in dry brown dusty soil. Oh, it was warm. It was nice. Finding place under my toenails, will find a new home with the water that washes it away. Find solace. Companionship. Everyone needs someone. Just someone. Even to wash you away, take you to a different place. Not bad. Not good. Maybe just different. I got up and crumpling the dry withering grass under my feet.. trampling upon the earth.. found myself strolling aimlessly along the imagined little lanes and paths.. the singing tributaries of the dying afternoon sun. The heat hummed in my ears. Buzzed next to my brain.

My mind travelled along the yet unsunken treasures of a life yet unlived. Everything, yet undone. Uncalled for. Unseen.. unseeing. Simple and happy. I hopped on from the crinkly grass to the tarmac. Coarse and hard beneath my feet. So satisfying, specially after the ticklish feeling of the adorable grass. Go on go on. Pseudo smooth cement. Aah. Dust and leaves. Someone should clean you up. And burn you. Those burning people. My eyes fell on my white trousers. Oh now that’s dirty. So glad it doesn’t matter. Hands reach out to the gate. Iron and dust. Thin bars stretching all the way. Used to ride on this poor gate. Hah. Imagine doing it now. I still do. Old things always strong enough. I rest my arms on the gate and bury my head into the little niche made. Oh come on. Please. Quickly.

Feeling the gate creak and groan and then stepping out into the tarmac.. stings. Burying my hands intomy pockets and whistling some lose tune. I go on the road and turn back.. tracing my way back to the garden swing. Step by step, feeling by feeling. Sit on the swing for some while, leaning against one handle, hugging the chain, sighing. Poor child. Unlucky hour. The slow wait. Trundling down the boundaries on the garden, peering down at the shrubs and the little rose buds.. flicking at the overgrow, ripe fluttery roses. Petals falling of. Getting terribly sadistic at one and just leave a lone petal stuck to the centre. Dirty yellow and dark red. Smirking and moving on.

Stepping on the ancient tree trunk right in the middle. Little green shoots coming out from it. So cute. My eyes move up and the wonders never cease.. happiness never exhausts itself working for me. Grinning from ear to ear, jumpy and excited like a little kid. Holding my own hand, squeezing it gently and steadily.. oh God, the long wait. I plan to anchor down at the front gate and give my chin some rest on the corrugated iron.. eyes swimming over everything on level. Smelling the mustiness. One two three minutes. One two three. I feel footsteps next to me. Well, hello, stranger.

Polite unlatching and unhinging. Come ON. Hurried hand snatching and pulling and pushing. Go go go. Not inside. Not yet. Resisting, worn out sports shoes, followed by a pair of bare feet, pushing and shoving and then leading gently by the hand. Come on. Smiles – too knowing and sort of confused.

Those eyes. Pandora’s box of happiness. Feeling the grip tighten on my hand.. I have something to showyou. Right there. In that little tree. Next to the old stump. Close now. Tiny droplets of hidden musicsprinkling on to the ground around us. There. A nest. Newly built. I know it wasn’t there a few days ago. I undertake frequent enough explorations of this place. Peering in closer.. see.. little baby eggs. Aww. Little effable clouds of ecstatic muffled laughter. Two pairs of hands. Strange.. they look like one. God.

Happiness reflected in two similar mirrors of refrained indescribable words and wonders. Hands go to mouth. Oh wow. Tilting of heads and looking very closely. We should leave before their mommy comes back, you know. I know.

Creaking of the wooden door, gently slam and latch. That was just simply the best sight I have ever seen. Thank you very much. I know, I so do.

And the world sways gently to the murmur of those who loved.

Once.

Colours.

Also published on the Fountain Pen Guild website.

Her slippered feet subtly slapped on the stairs and her hand dangled with the white mug she held with a finger. The roof was blanketed with a more opaque milky white fog. She stepped on to the slightly dusty light orange floor.

Her sockless feet and bare hands were gripped by the palpable freezing air around her. The prickly icy wind kissed her cheek and pinched her nose. And swiped across her lips, and she shielded her neck to it. But her barely warm fingers felt numb against her neck.

And she stood at the edge for what seemed like a long, long time.

The fog was beginning to fade.. it settled on the periphery. But it was still inside her little bubble of existence. She walked to the edge of the balcony, setting the mug on the table next to her. On her wrist, she noticed a streak of fiery orange. Must have missed it. She tried to rub it away but it had dried. Giving up easily, she breathed out into the chilly air and watched her breath freeze and then become one with the dense fog that was beginning to form closer.

Her eyes stared ahead at the trees swaying against the winter wind but her eyes were still swimming with the image of the canvas. Propped up in front of her, her arm ached dully, but the pain was barely there. She finally felt relieved, but not exactly happy. It was just an absence of the ticking clock in her mind. It had gone quiet. Now everything was too quiet. Peaceful.

Now her mind came around to it and realized that the exhibition was tomorrow. Everything was ready. Except her. Feeling her heart beat quicken, she told herself to relax. The mug was full of steaming coffee now. And she hadn't even noticed. The curtains behind her rustled as she turned around to look. He had left.

When she had come out to be in the open, rather than go to sleep, it wasn't a decision. She just felt like it. She held on to the warm mug in her hands. And pushing all the thoughts away from her.. she turned around to go inside. The room smelled of paint. The reminder of a sleepless night. Like other sleepless nights. Of solitude and silence.

The palette was covered in paint, a multitude of shades and stories. The room, segmented shapes and patterns. Shadows fell on the wall in a series of chains. The blinds needed to be pulled up, a weak sun was starting to shine and she hoped it would get warmer. She sipped on the coffee standing near the window, looking down at the sleepy street below. Company. It always makes you feel.. not alone.

The chai wala on the corner shop was busy with the first customers. And the first rickshaws were beginning to ring their bells and hanker down the street. Her fingers still felt numb from the cold, or was it from keeping that brush between her fingers just way too long.

Hadn't she been told she thinks too much, does too little? Detaching herself from the world while she was engrossed in her work.. going deeper inside. The red light on the answering machine flickered silently, beckoning her closer. Her mind buzzed with words when she looked at the canvas. She hurriedly picked up a cloth and covered it, pushing it back against the wall and picked up her color palette, and moving her fingers across the dry paint, kept it on the countertop.

A variety of images crossed her mind. Her first bicycle, the smooth pebbles on the beach she went to a decade back, the azure of the skies, the monsoon green, the magenta on her mother's sequined bed sheet, the blackness of the skies when she peered into his eyes, the murky depths of the blue-green pond in the garden, the dark red of her room's curtains filtering the golden sunshine that lay captured in the..

A knock on the door woke her up from her reverie. He smiled at her, time to go.

"Give me ten minutes."

"Time to get back to life, right."

"Yes. It's time. To stop this craziness, I guess."

"Ditch the white this time. It's a big day."