Man Woman & Child

Summer afternoon. There is a drizzle waiting in the air. A patch of golden sky, is visible above the shoulder of the woman. It's reflecting on the window pane, and she's leaning out. Her thighs are oozing out of her shorts. And there's gooey face-pack over her face. She's waiting for it dry. It has dried up in parts, developed cracks and can be scraped off already. The breeze has just gotten cooler.

Unopened boxes lay on the floor. Like someone has just moved in. Or is about to move out. There is dust on the floor. There's some stuff outside too. Some things. Like a rocking chair. Left alone in the corner, all by itself. And there's a scarf tied around one of its arms. A few books. Hardbound, with the author's name fading into an insignificant golden yellow.

Just like the sun that reflects on the window pane. The wind has become virile now. And the window pane bangs harder. It might shatter into shards of glass, tonite.

The woman has moved away, into some deep insides of the house. And there's of course the child, rolling on the floor.

The man however is, invisible. 

Man & Woman

Obviously we rushed in to see the new bride the moment we were told there was one. I must have been tenoreleven. And I hadn't seen a bride till then. All of those got married at night and left before I woke up the morning next. Even the air wore a deserted look after that departure. Crushed petals of rose strewn on the floor where the feast was last night, but no sign of the bride.

So obviously when told there was a bride, we couldn't hold ourselves still. And waited after one of us, tall enough, to reach for the door bell pressed it. I must have wished I was tall enough for my eyes to reach the door eye to look into the house from outside. To catch a glimpse of that burly mass covered in red and gold, beforehand. But they never made see through door eyes then.

When she opened the door in only a starched cotton sari, prim and pleated like she was some housewife in mid life crisis. Only happier. We were disappointed, to say the least. A brief while after, we were told she was the new bride of a man such and such. Who had a slight of a paunch and was old and was balding. Who had more than a couple children, stacked away in distant cities. And an insane first wife who had been shunned. For that woman was as good as dead. To him. To his children. Everyone.

And this new wife was the spinsterish daughter abandoned in a family of lots of other people who definitely had other things to worry about than getting her married off. So her years of youth had passed and settled down as tiny wrinkles on the corners of her eyes. Which always shrank when she smiled, the way she smiled the first time she opened the door to us.

I can recollect. How much their lives felt entwined into each other those days. How she would roast brinjals pricked with garlic for him. Or he would get strands of lilies for her hair.

Of course, back then I wouldn't have deduced what I now deduce. And I realize, it's ridiculously obvious how much man and woman need each other. Notwithstanding.

Now I think about them. And then I think about us.

A kiss on the lips

Have you been there? When the person right next to you, in your bed, wrapped in the same sheets feels like is miles away. And you're somewhere else. You don't particularly wish to be though. But you can't help it. And it feels only natural to be that way. Disconnected. A couple of years ago, you would even wonder if that was ever possible. Emotionally, biologically, rationally, irrationally, whatever.

With time, more than a few tides turn. Innocence leaves. Suddenly, as in almost overnight. Promises recede into oblivion. Particularly those written down on the last pages of school notebooks. If they don't head back stage, sometimes you kill them. In a heinous way you never imagined you could.

A lot of things change. The mind allows layers and layers protective sheaths over itself. Yet we remain the same within. It's funny, how you pretend to be different just to protect your undiluted self.

And one day you wake up with a stranger. Picking up shreds of clothing and not looking each other in the eye. You're not particularly ashamed of what you've done. Life wasn't supposed to be special anyway, and you've learned it the hard way. Nor do you let regret hover anywhere around your conscious. But still there is something, that itches. Could be that person you caged and protected underneath what you've become. And you don't let it torture you anymore.

You put up a bold face in the mirror and behave like nothing much has happened, but the obvious. Like you knew those wishes you fabricated before were juvenile hallucinations or something. Impractical nonsense.

..

Seen Unseen

It's spring already. And I have a bevy of reasons, for why you wouldn't even think of loving me. Because I have this subtle quality to merge into the backgroud. The hem of my clothes must look like the edge of a weird piece of furniture. And my hair must look like wool. Or a tree. Perfectly overlookable. I must be almost invisible. Or completely invisible. And you wouldn't know until I scream that I am. That I am absolutely taking advantage of my invisibility to relish your every move. Every single movement that your muscles make. Absorbing each pause between your laughs. Understanding whom you be. And feast on the slight delights of the man you are.

I am almost proud,of how you wouldn't screech to a halt even if I rain dance right past your eyes. Or run hither and thither. Or use worn out archaic English for that matter. Because you are married to everything I am not. For you, I could at best be a non-existent no-body. Or in the very least, be like the lone girl at the next table in a restaurant you're at with someone else. You're only probably faintly aware of my presence and couldn't practically care any less.
..
Spring is almost over. And the first phase of Summer is breaking itself upon us by intermittent afternoon thundershowers. And I count that as first rain. In which today I got drenched. Bulbous drops tripped on my head and broke apart on my shoulders. And I felt like flinging away my hands and let virgin rain seep in. Wild waves made inroads into my mind. And dreams that would never be dropped in hints that they could be only if you had raised your eyes once. And looked at me,crouching, right next to you. Staring at you already, and waiting to be seen. Merely seen.

Adam

Being influenced comes easy. Even now. Books, even books drive me nuts. Movies addict me. To almost a point of no return. That point of no return, where onward I begin to worship, believe in, and love, without reason. Such love, attraction and intoxication is an insult to my intelligence, shouldn't deny. And books and the like apart, you are a man.

You could a bimbo. And I could love you only for the assumptions I have of you. Without considering who you are for real. You look alright to me. Good rather. And I love your smile. God, I adore your smile. I adore it so much that it makes my inner being beam. In the few seconds your face flexes into a smile, it's like each and every bit of you is happy. Oozing with joy. In those few seconds, I wonder, how could anyone, ever impersonate such honest an emotion. Your smile is so pure, it makes me want to tell you how I feel about it. Like I said, it drives me crazy. But in a good way though.

And I should be shameless to feel anything like this about anyone. Now. After everything. It's almost embarrassing. And I wish I could get help. You could be a bimbo after all. And not the person of my dreams. Not the man I see behind the face, the gentle humility. And all that. But seriously, you're like a delicious slice of chocolate pastry. I find you too sweet to swallow because I am already floored the moment you touch the tip of my tongue. Quite non-literally.

It couldn't be the naughty teenage infatuation. It shouldn't. Because that would mean I have regressed. Or I haven't evolved. At all. But I wonder if we ever do. I still feel like that butterfly-in-my-heart seventeen year old. In the few seconds I just stand there to see you smile.

Adam. Adam Adam

The Mating Game

This post is supposed to bring back the magic. And announce, aloud, the return of fiction. The return of romance. To this blog. After a year of an almost continuous typed out sequence of psychobabble. And remind us after all, of those days when this thing was read.


Ideally, this post should have been named after the inglorious series 'Men in My Life' . But then that's too cheesy, so lets skip that, should we. Because ideally a lot of things should have happened, which never did, do, will. Hence.

In a crowded room, full of strangers, when the only man I knew failed to give me the attention I thought was due, he had absolutely no idea what game of mutual humiliation he had just begun. Because I had walked down to say hi, totally endowed with the knowledge that he was an ass, after all. And he snapped it back right in my face. How crazy was I to overestimate his skills at being human. Affable and chivalrous, be at bay.

But anyway, we get used to shrugging and walking away. In due course of time, in life, we all do. I assumed that episode never happened. And settled down with a drink. Inside my mind.

Later that evening, things changed. It was getting pretty late. And I stood by the road, trying to hail a cab. But all the cabbies, as usual, hated the place where I stayed. They raised their noses and drove off. And there he was. Shirt tucked out. Tie-less. Loitering. And assuming I wasn't there.

And I know how un-feminist it sounds, but just his being there made me feel safe.Our world is so small, it's too hard not to know people. Most of who I know, fall somewhere between being a friend and an acquaintance. With distinct loyalties towards being the latter. Because sometimes, I don't let them in, and sometimes they run away. But as long as the guy is in between the points, there is a probability, and a few may-be's. The hope of a possibility.

Clinging to that possibility, when he walked up to me, that night, I has an 'apology accepted' written on my face. Somehow, I knew we had been put up in the same hotel. It was honestly, very comforting to know that  now, being the man, he would hail us a cab. So, I stopped screaming for one. And we got talking.

Unbelievable as it sounds. We never ran out of words. It was obviously getting late. But nothing seemed to matter. I assumed that happened, because we had lived similar lives till then. Only at different places. With different set of people. Etc.

But what irritated me was that he wasn't looking for a cab at all. I mean, of course conversations could be taken to other places. Two minutes later, I found out that he wasn't headed to the damn hotel after all. Shock gripped me hard, I wanted to hit him with a hammer. Why did he waste so much of my time if he wasn't going to get me a cab. Ugh.

Some sanity must have dawned on him, and he dropped me at my hotel, before heading to wherever he was headed. And it was a goodnight after all.

Today, he is not someone I barely know. I mean I guess I know him well. Rather well. He assumes I am a friend. I assume he is an acquaintance. And I also assume, he isn't reading this right now.

The End

The way they show it in movies. There's a sad ending. Colors disappear and the screen goes black and white. The ending often has some or the other huge message behind it. And your eyes are about to well up. Deep inside, you must be touched by this poignance. Because there is some beauty in it. Or may be you see glimpses of your life in the movie, etc.

Sometimes, after that moist climax, they bring up the beginning. The beginning that they din't show earlier. Just a couple of glimpses. During the movie those moments of the beginning must have been referred to many a time. Making you imagine how must have they gone for real. Arousing related general curiosity. So you wonder, a couple of times. About those happy moments. When our story began. And strangers held on to the eyes of other strangers. For a little longer than the usual stretch of time for which memories are involuntarily erased.

You then travel to the other end to see the beginning for real.

And then you can connect the dots. The beginning after the end. All the blanks are filled. Everything falls into place. And you are relieved, at least there was this happy beginning.

Now assume that movie is life indeed. And you feel like you are fast approaching the climax. The sad ending. Because you really don't know why, your sense of loss keeps getting deeper and deeper. And colors disappear. You begin to think, you must be somewhere very very close to The End. A closure must be in the offing.

And you are trapped in amnesia. You can't remember how long you have been walking. Incessantly. Panting for breath, half in tears. But most of all, you can't remember the happy beginning. The one they show in the movie. In the end, after the end. No matter how hard you try, you just cannot remember. What the beginning felt like. And you're not sure if it was a happy one. So that must not have been the beginning after all. So you keep going back in memory. And yet there is nothing in your hands. Probably, there was no happy beginning after all. And all your life has been this way. Dis-satisfactory and flooded with ennui.

Drawing parallels, between the movie and life, you never stop wishing. For a miracle that could bring back in a flash, the memory of the first few happy moments before the drama began. For any Closure, other than this, would be unfair

Chronic mental congestion

A shaky fingertip on the button of the remote. Impatient, ready to flick any moment. And skip this one to see what's on the next channel. Then wait for a few seconds, and repeat. Merging such seconds into minutes, minutes collapsing into hours. Spent with nothing done. Nothing gained or lost. Time consumed as if it hadn't even been there. Just the mind, more unsettled.

Looking. For something unknown. Probably. Aimlessly, loitering in shady corridors of an abandoned apartment. Weekdays gone by, weekends apart. Two days of pain. And Television is no consolation. Neither is the paper. Sheet after sheet of gibberish. Unread. Stacked under the bed. Crosswords, lost at. Peace, flung into pieces. Just so you know, time doesn't pass on its own anymore.

One has to make it glide by. Slowly and slowly. But without break. One has to try to ensure that time hasn't gotten stuck. Somewhere it was. Hours ago. And that it has moved on, relentlessly. You've grown older. Just the way you deserved. And you do it whatever way you want. No body cares. Stare mind-fucked at the TV. Stash away unread newspaper, assuming you read them. Paint your nails. Un-paint them. And then paint them again. Turn sides on the couch. Look out of the window. Write. Delete. Try to forget. And then try to remember. Or cry. No body cares what you do. As long as you try to keep your mind busy when time takes its own sweet time and moves on in the background.

These subtle distractions are indeed the drug. Because save them, there is nothing. There is nothing that can numb you. And make bearable the merging of seconds into minutes, and that of minutes collapsing into hours. When nothing meaningful is gained or lost. When time hasn't passed for a cause.

Blocks of the day, filled in with utter useless acts as such. Voids, sewed up. So that they don't stare open mouthed and breathe in anymore air. Wounds, unexposed. You abandon the remote, and hold the nib of a pen in one hand and dictionary in another. Braving to begin solving the next crossword of the day.

Unlike

Due to the certain degree of harmless guilt associated with narcissism and for the fear of dying alone with black cats on an arm chair, I couldn't restrain my affections for the one who was me. But he was too much me, staring at him felt like looking into the mirror. And anyway, nobody likes the mirror for long. Does she.

Nothing, absolutely nothing else makes two people more alike than sharing the same insecurities. That makes those two one from within. When the deep set fears seem to freeze, there are a dozen common fatalities to blame. The chemistry must have begun right there.

In retrospect, it occurs to me that the thing that scared me the most about him was that he knew me. That he knew exactly what I was so wary of. My well kept secrets were out there, right in front of his eyes. It ceased to matter that I too knew his secrets. Which, then of course, became our secrets. That should be kept from every third person. Just in between the two of us. But the burden of those secrets shrank my shoulders.

Sometimes loving him felt like narcissism. Sometimes, it felt beneath me. Like a last resort. Must have been the most carnal need to look for a dissimilar set of qualities in a mate, because our minds like to diversify. Stretch beyond who we have been. I left him. 

Summer

One summer many summers ago. Was spent walking between rows of gulmohar. And feline infested jungles. Or so we believed. Slept in sweaty dorms. With half a dozen stranger women. Dozed off till midnight by the sea with brackish water and no waves. Licked ice cream on our way back. Our slippers went missing. Walked bare-feet again. Between rows of gulmohar. Kicking amuck heaps of yellow petals. Stacked together by sweepers. Who would surprise us between wee hours and dawn. If we were woken up by a random incessant nightmare. Staring down from the top floor window grille of a near ancient girls' hostel. In whose bathrooms we sat and wept. When we PMS-ed. Or smoked. And the gardens on whose grass we lay. Biting off the ends of grilled cheese sandwiches. Soiled with ketchup. Right in the mid of May. Haggling with public transport, for the last rupee. Which wasn't hard earned then. We knit stories. Sans climaxes. For we couldn't see the end. The end, right then. Assumed that that Summer would go on forever. 

Somehow, the aftertaste of infinite freedom hasn't dwindled off my tongue yet. Even though many more summers have been by.

Separated

And then there is that stage. The optional one. Not everyone sees it through but a few. Punctuation-wise it wouldn't be a comma, it's not a pause. Not a semi-colon, because I don't think so. Not a full stop at all, that would be too rude. And too un-affordable an assumption. It could be a conjunction of spaces. Because minds haunted by the said stage develop voids within.Or not. Sometimes it's not even a stage, it could last a forever. And it seems to last one anyway.

Talking about Separation. Lovers separated. Do you get how polished that sounds. We're not together. Not broken up. We're separated.  For now. For a while now. Could be a while longer. Or forever. But we're no more in love. Or may be we are. And we don't care. Because the by products of this affair are too much to take. And the stakes are high.

Also, there's no uncertainty. Only the nausea of a forced peace.

Punctuation-wise, this stage could be an ellipsis. We don't know what words to fill in anymore, so we hold the pen still and let the ink blotch into three dots. Inside our minds we keep asking, what else is there to say. Bewitched by this wordlesness, no one could say if there will be another shore. A few words after the ellipsis. Or some love that survived this separation...

Ode

All the shitty movies you have walked out of, and all the suffocating dresses I have barely gotten into and barely   gotten out of, in trial rooms, whose mirrors I have suspected to be see through sheets o glass. All the summer days and the unreal mirages and real hallucinations. That we've lived through. In all these decades of our lives. Most of your unfinished paintings and my untold stories. Half dead love stories. Walks around the planet. On windy winter evenings. Each time i wore a skirt and shaved my legs. The fresh nailpaint. Cracks under my toes. The women in your life. The beads in your key ring. The letters I swept under your carpet. Letters you never read. Letters you didn't even know existed. The number of times our clocks ran out of batteries. And made us feel so stuck in time. Cozy and far away. Those cold, really cold showers. And everytime the towel fell down from the hanger and wet itself. The big fat moon. Your pictures from far away lands. Post cards rather. Telling me how you've become who you wanted to become. Your fairy tale climax. Yet the growing dark circles around your eyes. The lines on your forehead. My crazy writing. The humble acceptance of loss. The violent middle of the night screams. Screams inside my mind. My peaceful sleep. The books you read and died for. Others that you thought were a farce. The way our minds never met. Your insomnia. Your state of eternal heartache. And how I never got you. Your anger for life. That breath that you squeezed between your lungs and never let out. And other things. Random things that never made sense. To me or you. Or them.

But will always be an Ode. An ode to us. And that we aren't exactly over until we are exactly that. Over 

There is an alternate world. A parallel universe. Running simultaneously as this one. Wherein we are our immaculate selves. And together. Sans the drama. No drama. Yeah, because I totally hate drama. I hate the costs we pay for wanting what we want and not getting it yet. In that world, we're designed to be absolutely who we wish to be. And we're happy. Definitely more content. And our throats are lump-less. Nights, our nights are gaps between lovey-dovey smoothly planned out days, when we wink at each other and take a nap. There's no hanging like a bat in public transport. No calamity. No nail biting death like slow sequences everyday. Most importantly, no heartache. In that parallel universe, we are the same. And everything else is just more perfect.

It's the drunken dream to see that alternate world that still sometimes makes me want to write. Despite the hazard that I have become.

Some tell me my writing has become illegible. It's not that I don't care. I think I must be somewhere between caring and not caring. Fast approaching towards making no sense. But what can we do. It just lets off steam. And writing comes cheaper, than other pernicious self destructive options.

I wonder if writing could buy me some sleep tonite. Right now, may be I am sleepy enough. To turn sides a couple of times and then snap out. But anyway. I make no sense. Nor do I intend to.

So why am I still writing this. Probably because, you're still reading this!

Look at us, what perverts we've become. Seething through time, hiding our mysteries, stealing glances from the mirror, what have we made of ourselves, baby! Long ago, when the day began and we were innocent children, I believed in fairies and stars. That picture is now lost in oblivion. And now, how with years, we have constantly drained that naivety out of our systems, effortlessly, with the lone whim of surpassing petty desires.

Did you ever imagine this? Nor did I. It's scary, how I've become somebody I would've failed to recognize a few years ago. And I have become this, in your shadow. Chasing you, in and out of the light, I have only bought myself so much shame that I cannot bear to look at you, or look away.

This just cannot be true. This is not me. And you're not you. This must be some devil's dream. Because we couldn't sink so beneath ourselves. Sometimes I convince myself so. But then I wake up the next morning, with my mind stepping back into every moment of the ignominy that last night was. And I can't help but lie down, let my shamelessness seep into me as tears would seep out.

How deep are we now? In this slur, I can't find my feet. All I can feel is the warm gasps of your breath and tickles of lust that suck me in. And precisely that moment, I give in. To the animal inside. And let go of shame and let me be me. For I have become what I have become.

Rift

I am like that creeper that grows on a tree. Tree, being you. I suck my life out of you. Have no roots of my own. And I am this way not because I chose this over the world. But there is no other way I could be. I am a parasite creeper. And my affection for you oscillates between murderous and suicidal.

You know the state of utter shock when you can't find your feet? Detaching from you feels that way. Feetless. It's like destitution. Estrangement is that impoverished nightmarish state, I wouldn't want to dream about even in my dreams. And you want to make it my reality. Hell!

Heartbreak is a disease. Chronic one. Incurable. It eats into strands of muscles, ends of nerves, scrapes off bones, every single moment of the day. They say. But there is nothing we can do about it.

So I appreciate that we're headed nowhere. And unlike all other instances of our lives, I beg you to hold my hands in this one. Give me sometime. A day more, a fortnight, probably a month. Or a li'l more. To let me let you go.

This is no race. I know you're in a hurry, to move on and move beyond. But don't just walk away. Nothing said. Nothing heard. For the sake of whatever was. You could pity me. Or believe I am simply incapable of weaning myself off you.

Let me sleep over this. Hold my hands while I am asleep. Somehow make me realize I can be without you too. Because I know I can't do this on my own. I can't. Or I don't want to. Whatever.

Wait it out till I step across this rift. So that we can walk away from each other. 

Nay

..Because there is this unstoppable echoing machine inside my head that keeps asking, what's there? These are words I can literally hear. They are as clear as whispers poured into my eardrums. What's there? What else is there? Is there anything at all? Anything that's a tiny bit worth of what I have become in the process of wanting to become a god-knows-what.

It's the uneasy ache I get when I try to sum up reasons for being alive. This is a very ungrateful thing to say, given that we are all expected to appreciate the gift that life is. But somehow I cannot drag this lie any further. I just cannot. Call me selfish, I wish not to see the reason in life you see. Because I just cannot. And pardon my inability.

When I look around, and this is not one of my midnight depressed rants, when I look around, I can't make any sense. There is the absolute pain of not being understood. And then there is the self imposed censure against even waiting to be understood in the first place. Besides, the lie of miracles coming true that we carry around all the time, but which isn't ever gonna happen. I think I should shed that. That lie has been the root of most of my disappointments.

The story is so unending. Obviously. And honestly, after all the deep shit we're in, I feel too fatigued to even call myself a full mouthed disappointment.

So call me insane and persecute me, but, Nay I don't see the so called charm of life.

Irony

May be because I am so afraid of drowning and dying, I love to sit by the sea so much. And wait for waves. Because they don't ditch you. And show up, always. Recede, but come back again. It's more therapeutic, than life in general.

What's more healing is this fellow woman who writes. Sometimes I wish so hard to write like her that it makes me want to quit writing altogether. Sans that, almost everyone on this planet is a jerk. Some are outright jerks, some are more tactful. But then that's about it.

This is not quarter life crisis. I know. I have always been like this. Annoyed. Terrified. On the verge of extinction. My only credibility is that I have made it so far. Crawling, panting, running for life. Besides that there is nothing. And I am totally aware that people who fret a lot and smoke a lot don't live long. Somehow, I just can't relax. This is not just quarter life crisis.

And my life is not a sitcom. And nothing will ever end up fine. But a sitcom is another healer. Every sitcom is like a sensitive, humorous, non cheating, non desperate, tall boy friend that I've had. Also, I have this weird craving, to date a surfer. Once. And live with him in a hut, by the sea.

You see I always come back to the sea. Soon, I will become like one. And I will learn to swim then, or may be surf too.

My canvas, is part color, purple, and hues of violet, copper sulfate, streaks of silver.My canvas is half scratches too, of sketches that were abandoned midway.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about my Right brain. Sitting in the right half of my skull. And how capricious that crazy bitch is. She is one that's pushing me now. Will see me through, till the end.

And oh, happy Valentine's!

Stories from Nowhere-I

Some twelve odd years ago, when these coasts were hit by a demonic cyclone and when she was too young to document anything and too naive to proclaim the insanity of young love, goes back this story. Bottoms of the Indian Ocean conspired a mean depression and the mercury dipped, winds blew away asbestos roofs, coconut trees swayed in drunken fervor, birds were left homeless, and fear gripped her tiny heart. Trunks of mighty old trees uprooted, the roads deserted, no light in sight. It tickled her to imagine that they might run out of food. Though there still were some potatoes quietly sitting near the legs of a rickety ancestral bed. After seven long days that smelt of death, in between nightmarish nights, she survived to get back to school on the eight. By then she must have forgotten those pangs of first love. That afternoon from the last day of school a week ago felt slightly outside the purview of recent memory. That cyclone must have taken it away, as its black waters receded into their mysterious origins.. So, this forgetful, pubescent, sixth grader wondered, if she still loved him after the short hiatus.

Ten years from then and two years before now, a dormant volcano erupted somewhere in the middle of Europe they said.  Air traffic wouldn't be that paralyzed ever again. Soot enveloped clear skies..Days were whiled away in sleepy airport lounges. He could have been on the last flight that flew out of that loveless continent. But he wasn't. Stalled, he sat and mused. That volcano, Satan's  shadow had some uncanny sense of timing. Why else would it now! Only now? And no matter how hard he tried he couldn't not think of the shrewd calculations of fate vis-a-vis the naivety of the woman who waited for him by the sea..

Love and related disasters! 

Inching away

A creek in the sea. Distant lighthouse. Dilapidated..on a receding winter afternoon. An aimless walk, sans any thought/emotion. You know the story.

A gentle reminder of the worthlessness. Besides, the siesta breeze. Blue waves, now a few minutes away. Crashing like mad men on unforgiving rocks. You can hear the failed water, give up in a spray and return.

Lovers in distant ships, must look at the lighthouse. Pity its lifeless existence. While they float away for new shores. No one cares about what's leave behind. That's the remnant.

I feel breathless pants of woe, as you inch away. It hurts so much. I want to shrink into a tiny ball, and disappear.

Because things I can't explain are taking such a toll on me. Because no one can make me understand that this is only for the better. And nothing, nothing at all, can fathom my terror of being this absolutely alone. 

Inconspicuous

I

The beggar woman and her beggar children. One clutched against lose folds of bosom. With a bandaged ankle, still bleeding. Bleeding for the past few days now. I wonder if that's just color. The color of blood. Another, loitering around. In a torn shirt, bottonless. Bottomless. Begging, palms outstretched, everytime any traffic halts. Laughing, in the dark. When no one's is around to see. When I hop cabs. Silently pushing them aside, to cross the road. I see her violet skirt, torn and running on the footpath, from one car to another. Trying to steal sympathy from a home-bound exodus. In that impatient pause at a red light. Red light. Today that ankle-bleeding-kid, held a pair of balloons. Bright pink and dust green. And secretly smiled with famished eyes, looking the other way. Must've.

II

A cabin with scores of watches. Just wrist watches, to be repaired, brought back to life. Too many of them, the wooden-cabin-legs could crumble. Tiny hands. Hours and minutes and seconds, lost in the company of scores of such others. Absolute chaos. All time is literally messed up. One tiny bald man, with tiny hands, sits under yellow bulb, among dozen light-lover-bugs. Concentrates, on the arch between his caterpillar eyebrows, and promises to finish the gargantuan task of inserting alive batteries, replacing scratched glass covers, drilling holes into damaged bands. Bringing back the right pace of time. And placing it back on waiting wrists.

III

..A tiny hole in my heart