Above
Above, he felt the rock roll by, occasionally thrusted forward by a slight kick of a pair of slightly heavy, suede men’s shoes. Their pace was hurried and jumpy, indicating a certain excited temperament that comes with longing for the person they’re walking towards. To the side, he felt the powerful wave that emerged from a fleet of automobiles proceeding at a breakneck speed. He said a silent prayer, thankful that he was a pavement and not a road. He never saw himself as brave enough to face the indomitable vehicles. Immersed in his thoughts as he was, he almost missed the sensation of the rock being kicked no more. The pair of slightly heavy, suede men’s shoes were standing still, beside each other. He felt a slight twinge on his skin of tar as they turned sharply, and began walking in the opposite direction with none of their initial vigor. 58 seconds apart, he felt the weight of dainty feminine pumps seemingly struggling to maintain a hasty pace, but failing by much. Sensing failure, they stopped with frustration and the pavement likes to imagine that expletives ensued. Fellow pavements strongly believed that the word “infidelity” was used in multitudes. But then again, who knew for sure.
Further away, a pavement felt angry footsteps of slightly heavy, suede men’s shoes hastily descend stairs that led to a home. A home where slightly heavy, suede men’s shoes, dainty feminine pumps and tiny squeaky rubber floaters were once placed neatly by the door. The familiar angry footsteps continued to be angry footsteps for a mile, after which they turned mellow, tired, and sad even. At one point, they stopped at an indecisive angle. They remained in that indecisive angle for a considerable amount of time as the legs above the shoes trembled. Restlessness was palpable through the faint — yet unquestionably noticeable to the intently listening pavement — shifting of weight between one shoe to the other. There was a sudden stiffness, comparable to the body’s reaction to an epiphany.
“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive”, wrote John Green. The shoes turned around and slowly retraced their steps.
Gems
Shades of grey clouded over the usually pinkish-yellow sky. A sea of faces turned upward and faced a similar sea of drops. The varied expressions returned to their work, preparing in their own little way for the storm that was brewing. Suddenly, a loud crackle sounded and down poured the hued precipitation of chocolate candies onto the parched earth. Down below, there was a scuttle among the people as they reacted asymmetrically to the downpour.
Hardened candy struck concrete and burst unfulfilled into pieces. Upon it fell the eyes of the beggar who scrambled frantically to collect as much as possible in his limited bags. He felt a strange sense of loss as the ones that never belonged to him fell to their death against the pavement. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? As the beggar returned to his lowly shed, he braced himself against the harsh view of the wealthy. There he sat, cozy within his mansion as he instructed his servants to sweep away that that could have fed a family off his front porch with characteristic disregard. As the porch was being cleaned, discarded candy fell upon the working man. He brushed it off with disdain and proceeded towards a shop where packaged candy was being sold at an accepted price. As he purchased said candy with satisfaction, behind the shop falling candy was being packaged and processed by unwitting pawns. The beggar turned and faced the shop with incomparable longing.
Seeing this, the poet sat back in his chair and wept. He went on to write about a different time. He imagined an age when all that fell from the skies was water, the essential. A few hours hence he deemed his idea unworthy and there, in the dustbin, lay the seed of change.
Fifty-six windows
Fifty six windows, eight rows and seven columns shone in the dead of the night. Assorted coloured lights were visible, owing to the colours of the various curtains. Somewhere in the corner of a seemingly inconsequential window sat a man with an incomparably harrowed look on his face. On the floor lay an abundance of papers, photographs and hydrogen peroxide. Sporadically, a drop of blood was spotted here and there, but almost all of it consisted of illegible notes. His face looked like that of a man living with a disease; he had the eyes of bedlam. He looked at the back of his room where there was a creepy, once crawling, dead insect. He thought about the joy he felt while killing it. He sighed, and his sigh spelled Dacnomania.
He awoke late in the afternoon with a jerk, and once his eyes adjusted to the light, he felt a bone-crushing weight on his heart. His hands began to tremble, but on touching a cold metal object, they calmed down. He looked towards the slightly ajar door of his room and recognized a female shadow that he loved. He knew he loved her, but that’s how the world is, isn’t it? They don’t say ‘Man kills the one thing he loves the most’ for nothing. He got out of bed and pulled the trigger of the cold metal object.
The setting sun saw a fleeing female image leave a dark house. A suicide and killer was found dead in his bedroom in the morning.
White
Between those four silent walls, she couldn’t help but hear herself think. Her surroundings no longer comforted her. In fact, nothing could comfort her anymore. Misunderstandings can ruin lives, and even though she was innocent, for the next 5 to 10 years, within those four walls she would remain. She felt helpless and angered at a level only few might understand. She relived each moment as often as she could. Gifted as she was, her ability to Shift struck her as nothing but a curse. Familiar with the process, she shut her eyes and was transported back to the place where white turned red. A masochist, some might say.
Grey clouds, grey buildings, grey clothes. Everything was grey as she walked away in a fury. They had just had a fuming fight and she was in no mood to converse with the boy following her cautiously. Out of the blue, he stopped abruptly and took a sharp turn and walked away. Fighting her disappointment of no longer being pursued, she continued to walk. Suddenly, she felt her pocket and realized that she had left her iPod with him. Partly relieved that they weren’t going to part on such a bad note, she turned around and began walking in the direction in which he had left. Her legs carried her towards him faster than she had anticipated, fueled by a vague sense of helplessness mixed with attachment. And just then, he came into her field of vision…
Red clouds, red buildings, red clothes. It all happened in what felt like a fraction of a second. Their eyes met, and sirens blared. Except, those sirens weren’t the usual ones in her head, they were actual sirens. Suddenly, he vanished, dropping something on the ground. Momentarily letting her curiosity get the better of her, she walked to pick up that package. The sirens were now deafening.
Transporting a little further into time, she paused as her eyes fell upon the packet, now within police custody. As her pupil focused onto that object, she felt the familiar crushing rush of an epiphany; too little, too late. And as she looked out of the window, she seemed to pass by a lifetime; she loved the word morphology, he loved the word methamphetamine.
Rest
There’s something to be said about the autumn wind.
Red hot ambition, amber embers of doubt, orange bouts of passion
set fire to a leafy footpath
And the twilit sky draws forth like a starry curtain.
Purple simmering desire, imperial indigo denial, crumbling coal black longing
smear themselves onto an indecisive sky
But what of the summer warmth that blooms and blossoms
And the flowers and fishes that follow
And what of the moonlit field that calms and chills
And the leaves and lakesides that linger
It’s the journey, they say
And that might be true
But it’s the oases that make it worth the while
You don’t have to be in transition to be incandescent
And maybe today, you can be some place and just be
And the train will land and the flight will halt at a station
And the caterpillar on the ground
can allow itself
to rest
Originally Published for Malhar — St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.
