Lounge

When I travel alone, and I normally don't, I think of you. 

It has something to do with my mind experiencing a void between errands. Not in cabs, of course. Cabs make me nauseous. But when I take the train alone I think of you. 

It's startling, how, after so many moons, you still effortlessly waft back into my thoughts. You perhaps are waiting on the fringes. Forever. I haven't been able to sequester you. Train of thought is surprisingly continuous as well. 

The same happens when I fly alone. Airports that run endless and I end up walking kilometres within. Escalator after escalator. Wide corridors, advertising too bright for my eyes, strangers everywhere. It seems, upon throwing one glance at me, that I am walking with great purpose and urgency. But that's furthest from the truth.

I am all undone from within. My fabric of existence has become threadbare and your memories have penetrated and dishevelled any pretense of order, there was. After walking and walking, I glimpse at screens to course correct, if at all. But I am completely robotic and lost and operating at your disposal.

And then finally when I reach the lounge, the airport lounge that is shelter to lonesome travellers like me, I imagine, I would have you waiting there. My long lost lover. 

Misc: Visiting Cards

The compulsive introvert that I have come to be, for the umpteen reasons that have coaxed me to be so, I cannot make conversation anymore. Not atleast, the kind of conversation I deem to be a conversation. Thus, I have no friends. 

But I work a job. In which I am expected to have certain charisma. A chutzpah would certainly augur my situation here, but beggars can't be choosers. Anyhow, I am to deal with people all the time. I think that's a very basic ask from any job. But for me, it is enormous and taxing. I do not form bonds, my dealings are superficial mostly and I would like to say - transactional. No deeper aspect at all. I do not form any deeper connection with anyone because I am wholly incapable of it. I cannot speak one word extra than what is needed. And when I am not succinct, I go the extreme extent of mental torture that I inflict on myself. Since I am this way, nobody perceives me as friend material. Thus, I have no friends. 

But of those I meet for work, I keep their cards. Visiting cards. Name, where they work, email, contact number, other coordinates and blah. And I have a book of mine within whose polythene flaps I slide in these cards, not in any particular order and for no other purpose, but to look at months and years later. As my only record of human interaction.