And When We Talk

He said to me...

Mrs. Crookshanks says hi to you. She is my imaginary cat. I lie on her lap as I type this. She cut her paw nails last night for me. She is worried that I may forget her some day. Deeply. She is not married, she just likes the prefix after reading about Mrs. Dalloway somewhere.

She is asking me to pause everything, buy a small flat or even a terrace-room, become financially independent, get a huge, comfortable olive green couch and lie on it and watch movies and tv all day with her. She wouldn't like a flat screen. She wants the big box to be there so that the tv feels real like her. She wants an old school telephone that goes tring tring and an answering machine.

We would do all this when I go to sleep now and perhaps on some windy winter day three years later. Sophia and you are welcome anytime. She'll prepare fish curry for you and I'll make you some coffee and give it it to you in an aana pictured mug that we bought you last night after reading all you wrote.

And I replied...

I love it! I see it in my head. There will be a thick rug, the colour of sunset, in a corner. And three, large, mismatched cushions with hippy patterns. One of them have a large coffee stain from the last time you had me over and I broke the pot. It's still there.
The cactus sits on the sill, alone. You've been meaning to get Eleanor a partner. But can't decide between a fern or another cactus. The only time she gets company is when you go to the window with your morning coffee. But the view below distracts you, and you watch the World come to life from your corner. And you smile, like you know a dirty secret.
I'm not quite the cat person, though Mrs. Crookshanks is lovely. She is a wonderful cook, and makes sure she uses generous doses of tabasco. Just the way I like it.
I'm on the bus back home, and I have the window seat. It rained all day, yesterday and today, and tomorrow. And the water drops on the pane have made a pattern. And when the light shines through it does a kaleidoscopic dance. I wish I could bottle it up to show you.
Isn't Sophia lovely. Send me your postal address.

Changing Pavements

Eternity. That's how long it has rained and drizzled and sprayed and sprinkled. It is a grey day but it also is a happy day. From the warmth of where I'm sitting the world is poetry. But of course, from the warmth of where I'm sitting, it's easy to be poetic.
The rain has become a drizzle. The windows are freckled with a gazillion drops. And when I try to look out, my view is distorted by the hundreds of tiny fish eye illusions they create.
I try to count them, but they outnumber my fingers and toes. So I refresh and start afresh, but my fingers and toes are still outnumbered.
Trees have lost leaves, and wholes have lost halves . If you ask me it is the season. Autumn brings with it a need to shed the old and grow the new. Play-lists will change, new wallpaper and curtains, long locks will become short crops, even your bathing soap changes - classic menthol remains classic menthol.
Somethings never change. And some, will take a part of you with it while on its way out. You revel in that space it leaves behind. It's the warm afterglow of closure. It's like the poetry around me right now.
And when you're home and watching the rain from under the warmth of a patchwork quilt, you realise - the void has been filled by the plain Jane wonders of your distorted world.

A Little Dream

Last night I dreamt I climbed up a jungle gym, hooked my legs on the bars and hung upside down. I saw the world upside down and it was beautiful.
There were cracks in the earth, and they spelled your name. My eyes widened, as the blood rushed to my head. I trembled with delight, and in that moment of perfection I knew such happiness.
I distinctly remember a light summer breeze, I also remember thinking it was strange because it is monsoon, you know. The air smelled strongly of peppermint and slightly of warm sweat, and I swung to the marching tune of a brass band. My fingers tried to clutch at something intangible and I struggled so hard to find it even after the dream was over. And now that the dream is over I feel rather hollow, like I left something behind. 

The Window Seat

There are things that make me happy, and some more that make me sad. But if I had a seat by the window everything would be happy, sunny mornings, even on melancholic, rainy evenings.
If I had a seat by the window I would write an ode and dedicate it to every bird that came to rest on my sill. And if I had a seat by the window I would keep count of the leaves on the trees and name every single one of them, so that they were never lost.
By the window I would sing for weary passers, and watch the rain pour down as it does right now. Everyday would be Versace and Armani even if it was only gunny and old paper bags. From my window I would dance for the marching band and follow the flight of the bumble bee. All for that seat by the window.
And when life would be a kidney stone I would slide through the crack in my window. And walk barefoot on the roof. And when life would truly be pustular I would simply sit on the sill and let the sunshine carry me home.

In My Matchbox

In my matchbox we eat wax crayons and cut our clothes out of the ad mags. There is a beautiful beagle up for adoption covering my left breast, and an as good as new automobile, barely been used, price negotiable, on my sleeve. In my matchbox everyone knows the words to La Vie En Rose and nobody goes to work on a rainy morning.
All words are poetry and all toes curl inside the warmth of striped socks. Sometimes we stay awake so the moon won't be alone and sometimes we stay awake because we can.
In my matchbox pop is not a culture, or a song, or an art, or the way the weasel went. In my matchbox don't always have to kick a football, and girls are not waiting to be swept off their feet by Prince Charming.
In my matchbox, the rotten apples eat gunpowder and all seven seas are comfortable. We have vegetable patches to grow gourd and berries and peonies and in our spare time we swing on fairy lights. Shopping lists are written on postcards and epics on post it's. We paint with our fingers and wrap gifts in Turkish carpets.
In my matchbox I am happy, in my matchbox I am also alone.
Come home to my matchbox.

Endless Cups Of Late Night Coffee

You are a victim of desire and determination, so you lie awake revising and accommodating. Drinking endless cups of late night coffee.
You watch the right films, and pretend to watch the right films. You read the right books, and pretend to read some more.
You are shocked at how easily you will allow the contours of your being to be moulded by an outsider. Perpetuating an idea is key. An idea that incestuous, niche groups accept. An idea that air kissing social madames thrill about, and want to bed. There is simply a single rule - never a moment of doubt, never a moment of acceptance of the truth.
Women are dispensable, and men by the dozen. You swirl bitter in your glass and smirk in condescension. You share carnal pleasures with a communist-fire breathing bearded man or a woman with thickly lined eyes and heavy silver jewellery. Promiscuity is the unaffected and undisputed norm. And in the afterglow of air doused in the last dregs of cigarette smoke and sultry panting, you read Beat Literature and discuss politics.
You have fused with the story you created, like a parasitic zygote that attaches itself to the crimson womb.
You write using words like effacing and phrases like sycophantic distortion. You repeat the last word of a well-crafted sentence for a supposedly pointed effect. You cash on being Indian, and hence make more than seldom references to the Casuarina and Jacaranda.
You watch the right films, and are pretty sure you enjoy them now. You read the right books and are almost certain you concur. You have become the regular with a table by the window. You sit with a dog-eared Sartre, handwritten notes in the margin, by your side, and make Kafka-esque observations about sugar sachets.
You are now one of them. You drink expensive whiskey and share partners. Smoke outside theatres and find infinite entertainment in Post-Modernist discussions. And yet sometimes when you are drinking that last cup of late night coffee, you cannot help but admit it to yourself. And although you tell yourself in secret, and you have listened in secret, the world knows. But you stupid, stupid intellectual, the world always knew.
They watch the right films, and pretend to watch the right films. They read the right books, and pretend to read some more. And in secret, over that last cup of late night coffee, they admit it to you.

My Orchard Of Orange

Today I peeled a baby orange. Strange in the middle of June.
I rested the fruit in the palm of my hand and let the citrus goodness permeate through me. I felt it sting the root of my canine and I winced in sour delight.
I sat back and rocked it between my fingers till I found the dent on it's leathery back. Premature. We were in the middle of June.
I dug my nail into the bottle green peel. I carved the letters of my name into the bottle green sheath. The spray stung my eye. It was too early. It was the middle of June.
I hooked my finger beneath the bottle green layer, and slit it open. More spray stung my eye. It was war.
I tore. I tugged. I warred. I won. Time had not moved. Still the middle of June.
The fruit lay inside. Defeated and raw. I glared at the white, pathetic excuse, willing it to be ripe. Change colour I begged, my recent victory forgotten. I had forgotten. I told you - it was the middle of June.

Lemony Snippets: A Series of Fictitious Events - An Introduction

This will be a whole series of short stories, meant to get me started on a dream project. In this series i will pick up a random line from anywhere and try and spin a story around it.This is only because i am too lazy to come up with themes on my own and too shallow to write anything thought provoking and too stupid to write anything intelligent. So, now i shall go scout for a lead, until then...