Sunday 29 September 2013

The Mirage


It was like any normal day. He was on his way to work, driving across the city, one of the rats waiting their turn to move forward. The newspaper served as company during the long dreary traffic lights and the never ending inches gained each minute, the newsprint telling him the latest news or what passed for news nowadays, in its muted baritone. He almost drove the car on auto pilot, his eyes busy scanning the newspaper. He caught sight of the car ahead moving forward in his peripheral vision and eased his foot off the clutch gently, folding up his paper with one hand. A sudden movement ahead made him jam his leg down hard on the brake. The car jerked to a shuddering standstill and there was a heart stopping thud from behind. He looked again to see the lady who had crossed in front of his car, still walking across, apparently oblivious to what had happened. She was short by any standard but the purpose in her stride more than made up for stature. As she approached the pavement, she turned as if feeling his glance on her, her heart shaped face framed by a halo of hair, her high cheekbones framing the gently upturned lips that gave him a smile and made his heart skip two whole beats.

An insistent pounding on his car window dragged him back like a reluctant cat to his current problem as the irate driver of the car that had bumped into his made it appear that the car had been totaled. The argument see-sawed back and forth and by the time he convinced the other driver that he would be covered by insurance and exchanged cards, he realized that he was going to be late for his meeting. He inched the rest of the way to the office, driving more with the horn and earning nasty stares from passersby. But he did not care, his force field made stronger by his distaste for being late. When he finally made it to his parking slot, he was about half an hour late – an event that was so unusual that it caused a murmur when he entered the floor. He went straight into the meeting, muttering an excuse about an accident.

As he sat in the meeting listening to the client describe their requirements, his mind unraveled and traced its path back to the instant when the cause for his accident had smiled at him. The completely open smile that traveled all the way up to her eyes kept getting replayed in his mind. A sharp tug on his sleeve and a quick whisper of “they are asking us for our approach” blew away his dreams and he stood up and launched into his presentation. The rest of the morning passed predictably without incident, safely tucked away in the meeting room. The client was suitably impressed with his pitch and was ready to sign on the dotted line and only the formalities needed to be completed when he finally rose and shook hands. As he made his way back to his room, concerned colleagues asked him about the accident. Their curiosity was more out of the fact that he was probably the most careful driver around than from their concern for his safety and he soon grew tired of explaining. For some strange reason that he did not care to explain to himself, he left out the lady completely from all his explanations.

The day drew on with a conference call and a review. He grabbed himself a coffee and was making his way back to his room when he suddenly turned to look at the reception for no rhyme or reason. The reception was at the far end of the hall but was clearly visible through the glass paneling. A matron of a lady who was almost as old as the company itself, she was a fixture of the office. And he came to a sudden stop when he saw the “lady” of the accident talking to the receptionist. Without even realizing it, he had changed direction, his mind having directed his feet towards the reception automatically, his eyes fixed on the woman bending down in conversation across the counter. Suddenly, he felt something slamming into his shin and went sprawling on the floor. The cup of coffee had drained itself down his shirt front as he now lay in a pool of loose papers and files that had emptied out of the open filing cabinet he had banged into. When he finally stood up after disentangling himself from the files and papers, the reception was empty save the matron. He ignored the ugly brown stain on his shirt and the stinging gash on his shin as he went up to the receptionist and asked her about the woman who had just been there. Meeting a blank stare, he almost started describing her when he caught the receptionist’s interested looks and stopped himself. It was the second time that day that the lady from the scene had caused him to come completely undone. And he wasn't enjoying the feeling. Neither was he enjoying his obvious interest in her. It wasn't like him at all to be behaving like some lovesick puppy.

The way home was uneventful enough, the routine trudge back home. He was scheduled to meet a couple of friends at a pub a short distance away from his apartment and he walked down there. His mind soon switched off the day as he got into the familiar routine of trading stories with his friends over beer. Waves of their laughter washed the day’s events out of his mind like their erasing patterns in the sand on a beach. The place was a favorite of theirs and they were Friday night regulars. After what seemed like a couple of hours of horsing around, he excused himself to go to the washroom. Checking his phone as he walked back to the table, he saw a missed call from a client. He found a quiet place away from the music and called up the client. As he stood there talking, he glanced back at the table and his brain stopped short in mid stride as he saw “her” talking to his friend. He stood there staring blankly for a couple of minutes and then the cogs in his brain started whirring again as he heard a “Hello, hello, hello”. The irritated client had realized he had been speaking to thin air and was trying to reestablish contact. He placated the man and told him that he would sort out the problem soon. He finished the call in a hurry, his eagerness to do so almost bordering on desperation, and he looked up only to find his friend alone. “She” was nowhere in sight. In a mindless panic he ran outside and scanned the street desperately but could not find her.

He went back to the table and sat down, feeling slightly restless. Trying to appear casual, he asked his friend who the lady he had been talking to had been. Faced with a “Which of the ladies are you asking about?” and a guffaw, he simply said “The short one in black trousers”. His friends then started poking fun at him and for the rest of the evening; he became the source of their entertainment for his seemingly apparent attraction to short women in black trousers. So much so that, they would call out to him whenever some woman passed by in trousers, asking him what color he thought it was. When his irritation became visible, they stopped. It was nearly time to wind up anyway and they made their way out after paying. As he waved his good bye and turned to walk back to his apartment, his friend called out “There was no one with black trousers that I spoke to this evening. It must have been the waitress.” He simply shook his head at that and chose not to reply. The walk back was short, the breeze cooling his thinking down and trying to create rational explanations for what had happened. By the time he reached home, he had almost completely succeeded in explaining the whole episode away. His sleep that night was troubled, with visions of smiling eyes framed by high cheek bones and a heart shaped face floating in and out of range.

The next morning, he resolved to put what he now called his stupidity firmly behind him. Reaching office early, he threw himself into a frenzy of work to make sure that he had no time to sit and think, almost afraid that he would start thinking of “her” again. He made sure he was tied up in some meeting or the other and was in company through the day, but was obviously on the edge, losing his temper at small things, growling like the proverbial bear with a thorn in its paw. Most of his team was quite upset to hear his edgy comments, something that they had never experienced before and ensured that they ran clear of him after the first encounter. By about 4 PM, he had completely run out of things to do and was now searching desperately. Some members of his team politely suggested that he take the rest of the day off and faced with the lack of an alternative; he chose to leave office and walk to the nearby cafe and ordered a coffee. While he sat there sipping his coffee and staring out of the window, trying to concentrate on the drink, his mind traveled unbidden to his first sight of the woman and her smile. The path it had to take was by now familiar and it found its way with ease. As he absently sipped the coffee, he tried to imagine who she would be and what she would be doing.

Her dress sense was excellent and the fact that it was a definite work dress would make her a young executive. She wore her hair long, as opposed to most women who cut it short, choosing a soft feminine look over an efficient short style. Her strides seemed to eat the ground up, showing a definite sense of purpose and aggression. He was musing at her name and background when the sour taste of coffee dregs told him that the coffee was long over. He asked for the cheque and happened to look out of the window as he waited for it. And there she was, on the other side of the road, in a white summery dress this time, her hair and the dress softly billowing in the strong evening breeze. The traffic, the crowd, the distance, all melted into nothingness as his entire being suddenly sharply focused on her. She was walking away towards the next intersection, her strides eating up the ground. He had no memory of having got out of the chair and run out of the café but he suddenly found himself at the intersection waiting for the light to turn green. The boy from the café was at his elbow asking him to pay for his coffee and in his hurry, he thrust the first note that he could take out of his wallet into the boy’s hands.

The light seemed to be taking an eternity to turn green, each second stretching endlessly. He could see that she was already turning into a building. He decided not to wait and made a dash across the road. Cars honked their displeasure and a few jammed their brakes just mere whiskers away from him. But he was past caring. He made it in one piece across and continued to run, making straight for the building which she had entered. He went in and found that it was an office complex of 15 floors. He had no way of knowing which office she had gone into. Riding on an unreasonable flash of inspiration, he decided to take the lift up and simply stop at each floor and look out. He made it into the first lift and to the extreme annoyance of a couple of co-passengers; he pressed the buttons for all 15 floors. The lift was a glass cage and he kept looking upwards through the sides while waiting for the next floor. It seemed to take an hour between each of the floors and at each stop; he stepped out for a moment and looked around on the floor. There was no sign of her. As he crossed the 8th floor, a movement caught his eye. Another elevator was coming down and sure enough, there she was in it, riding the glass cage down like some mythical enchantress of yore.

He got off on the 9th floor and ran down, trying to outrun the elevator. As luck would have it, the elevator did not stop at any floors and was heading straight down. He could not keep pace with it and as he reached the 6th floor, he saw that it had reached the ground level and the woman was heading out of the front door of the complex. She stopped for a moment and asked something of the security guard and then walked out. He continued running down and reached the ground floor, his chest on fire and breathing like a steam locomotive as his lungs screamed their protest at this rough treatment being meted out to them. He ran up to the security guard and tried speaking while the breath wheezed in and out of his throat. When he finally managed to make sense of the question about the woman, the guard simply replied back “What woman in a white dress? No one stopped here or asked me anything.” He thought that the guard was trying to protect information and tried to cajole him but to no avail. After a few minutes of trying he gave up, feeling uneasily that the guard actually was telling him the truth. A question suddenly appeared in the dark recesses of his mind – had he actually seen her or was it just his memory causing hallucinations? He brushed the thought away as instantly as it came, his rational behavior taking over and dismissing the possibility.

He simply decided to go home after that. At home, not wanting to be by himself, he decided to go over to a friend’s place. He spent the evening playing with his friend’s son and making small chat with his friend. He was relieved as he got home, relieved that he had not hallucinated or seen any more visions of “her”. Exhaustion soon took over and he sank into a deep sleep. He woke with a start realizing at once that he had overslept. He hurried through the motions and finally got into his car. Turning the key in the ignition, his heart sank as the engine made a dull thudding sound as it turned over but did not fire up. Several attempts later, he realized that it was not going to start though he could not find anything obviously wrong. A phone call to the service station got him no reply. They were probably not yet open. He walked out into the street and hailed an auto rickshaw. He got in and joined the queue of vehicles, trying to jostle their way down the street, fighting for space at six impossible lanes on what was otherwise a two lane road. About fifteen minutes and a kilometer later, he passed the subway entrance to the metro railway station near his house and realized that it might be much faster than going by road.

It was definitely a good decision though he felt like a complete sardine jammed between a heavy set man in a suit and two teenage boys discussing girls at their school. He wished he were someplace else but had to make do as this seemed to be the only way to reach faster. He reached office on time though he had started a half hour later than normal. But the day seemed destined to go wrong. He lost his presentation for a client, his sales manager called in sick, the laptop ran out of battery in the middle of the client meeting, lunch was cold sandwiches that dripped mayonnaise making a nice white patch on his pants and the package he had been expecting was delayed. By afternoon, he was one bundle of nerves, expecting the sky to fall on his head. As he sat there with his head in his hands wondering why all this was happening to him, a heart shaped face with a heartwarming smile floated in his mind. With a visible effort, he shook the thought out of his head and stood up, wanting to simply get out of there. The cafe seemed to be a good idea and he headed out to it. He got there and found himself surprising hungry and ordered himself a sandwich. He chose to sit in the same seat as yesterday and stared outside the same window. He told himself that he was just looking outside but there was a small voice inside that mocked at him and insisted that he was searching for her, hoping that she would turn up today as well.

Half way through the sandwich, he turned around to look for the waiter and was shocked to see the very lady sitting at the table behind him. As the initial shock of discovery wore off, another thought slowly made its way through to the surface of his thought pool, that maybe he should go up to her and strike a conversation. Just to try and get to know more about her. He ran through various conversation pieces in his mind, rehearsing his lines and trying to anticipate what she might say. He felt very much like a gawky teenager himself at that moment. Finally, his mind made up, he stood up and walked back to her table and asked her if he might join her. She was wearing a pastel shirt and khaki trousers, looking quite like the first time he had seen her. The heart shaped face looked up and smiled, exactly as she had done when she walked across the traffic that day. Taking that to be an invitation, he sat down and introduced himself. Still getting just that disarming smile and no other response as she sipped a tall drink that looked refreshingly chilled, he asked her what she was drinking. Again, that smile which seemed to not reveal anything but also said a whole lot. He decided to not let her silence faze him. After all, she was still smiling, wasn't she?

He called the boy over, the same one that had chased him down the road yesterday for the payment. And he told him to get the same drink that the lady was drinking. The boy looked at him weirdly for a moment and then across at her and then back at him. Then the boy looked uncertain and almost walked away, taking a couple of steps and then inspiration seemed to strike him as he walked across to the next table where there was a couple sitting and looked at what the woman was having. The boy then came back and said that the woman was having a cappuccino. By now, impatience had got the better of him and he almost screamed at the boy, “Not that woman you idiot, I want the same drink that the woman sitting opposite me is having”. The boy now retreated to his manager, clearly confused. The woman was still just sitting there, the smile still playing on her face, almost quizzical and he thought mocking his losing his cool. He could now hear the boy conversing with the manager. The boy was telling the manager “Boss, this is the same guy who gave me Rs 500 for a coffee yesterday. Today he is asking for the same drink as some imaginary woman. He seems to be cuckoo. Should I just give him a coffee and pretend to go along?”

Hearing this was like a dunk in a bucket of cold water and he simply got up, kept a Rs 500 note on the table and left the cafe. He walked out as if in a daze, realizing that the whole episode had been his imagination and he had made a complete fool of himself over some woman who did not even exist. He walked aimlessly for a while not realizing where his feet were taking him and then simply decided to go home, not feeling like working any more. He called up office and told them to lock his cabin and walked into the metro station. As it was not yet rush hour, he was able to get a seat on the train and sat there, still in a complete muddle about what was happening to him. He almost felt betrayed by his own mind for having played such a huge trick on him. The train stopped at each station and passengers got on and off while he was blissfully unaware of them, lost as he was in his own misery, staring at some spot between his shoes, almost boring a hole into the floor of the train with his thought waves. Suddenly his eye fell on a pair of legs in khaki trousers ending in tan heels.

Shock turned into disbelief as he looked upwards to see the same disarming smile, the eyes looking straight at him. For a moment, he responded despite himself, a smile making its way across his face. But just after, the fact that it was just his mind playing tricks sank into the puddle of his conscious and he willed her away. Try as he might, he could not shake her away, she was irrefutably there. He would normally have stood up and given his seat to a woman. But, knowing this was just a hallucination, he did not stir from his seat. He turned his face away and looked around, resolutely ignoring her. An old gentleman in the opposite row stood up and she then sat down in his place. His mind explained this as just a coincidence as the old man proceeded to get off at the next station a couple of minutes later and there was just a couple of people standing in the aisle now. He took out his phone and went through his emails, finding solace in the comfort of his work and trying to shake her from his mind. At the next station, a few boys got onto the train as soon as the doors opened and stood at the doorway. He heard a soft husky voice that was almost ethereal say, “Will you boys excuse me?” He turned his head to see the woman of his vision make her way out of the train and the doors close behind her.

She stood there and looked back at him, the smile still there but tinged with sadness that had crept in, almost as if she was upset at his having ignored her. But that was not possible, his mind screamed. She was just a figment of his imagination, was she not? But then suddenly, a cold thought arose in his head. This was the first time he had actually heard her speak. And the boys had moved to make way for her. A wave of panic rose in his throat as he jumped up and tried to jump through the doors, only succeeding in banging against them to the complete amusement of the boys. He stood at the door watching her recede and shrink in size and then quickly disappear as the train swiftly picked up speed. He stood there by the door and waited for the next station, almost jumping off in a run as the doors opened. He ran out and crossed the road, hailing an auto rickshaw. Telling him to go to the next station, he was met with a quick refusal. Refusing to take no for an answer, he thrust a 100 Re note in the man’s hand and asked him for help as there was an emergency. That was impactful enough and the auto surged forward with a new vigor. It was just a few minutes later, but it seemed like a lifetime later, when they stopped with a screech at the previous station.

He ran outside onto the street and stood there, wildly staring, searching desperately for a sight of her. Finding no trace of her, he suddenly became aware of a never ending line of vehicles that started almost immediately outside the metro station. Acting on a wild hunch, he started walking down the line of vehicles, peeking into taxis and auto rickshaws that stood there, patiently waiting their turn to move. A couple of choice curses from some indignant women and a fist shaken in his face later by an irate boyfriend later, he stood up frustrated. He suddenly felt drained like a sponge that had been squeezed out of every drop of energy. He felt he could not move even a step further and just stood there. Waking out of his reverie as the traffic started moving slowly forward, he slowly walked along the traffic, just desultorily looking around. The vehicles stopped soon enough but he just continued walking, searching for any sign of her.


After about half a kilometer of walking, his legs buckled wearily and he almost fell onto the road. Grabbing vehicles for support, he made his way across to the pavement. He sank down on the edge of the pavement, his head almost sinking on his knees, staring blindly across the road. An auto rickshaw stopped almost in front of him, the driver’s legs blocking his vision.  His eyes automatically moved across to the passenger section and disappointedly moved away. A moment later, his brain registered a heart shaped face looking at him concernedly and his eyes skittered back to the woman he had grown so used to seeing. He almost smiled his relief and the answering smile was like a drug that swam its way across his veins, creating an incredible sense of well being as his world righted itself. She simply moved over in the auto as if she were making space for him to get in. 

Monday 9 September 2013

The Tail Tales - Chapter 4 - The Obsidian Talisman

Andy saw Ael suddenly collapse onto the ground like a limp piece of cloth. He started running forward to her and found himself unable to move his left leg forward to keep up with his right. Looking down, he found that a small tendril of a plant had wrapped itself around his ankle and was drawing itself tight around it. The tendril was a transparent green color almost as if it were a green shadow of something that had no form. Only the tip of it was clearly visible, pulsing darker green and raising its head inquisitively and tentatively now moving up his foot. On any other day, his curiosity would have got the better of him and he would have watched it climb up to see what happened next. But then, he had Ael to attend to. He reached down and tried to pull the tendril from his ankle. It had caught on tight and as he pulled, it seemed to draw even tighter.

He decided to change direction and then tugged at the tendril from where it came out of a clump of branches all bearing orange yellow flowers. As he grew closer, the flowers seemed to smell him and somehow grew larger and more dangerous looking. He did not let himself get distracted by the flowers and focused on the task of pulling the tendril out. He did not see the pollen stalks of the flowers suddenly coming out, much like a cat’s claws come out when it is on the prowl. The stalks now protruded out from the flower, changing in color to a dirty red. Suddenly Andy felt a sting on his cheek and then another on his arm. He thought he had been stung by a mosquito and brushed his cheek. When he bent down to look at his arm, he saw a small red thorn jutting out of his skin. As he looked, a couple more of the stalks shot out from the flower and stuck to his skin. He looked up to see nearly a dozen flowers around sticking their stalks at him like quivers with arrows ready to fly.

He moved fast and put his entire weight behind pulling at the tendril. Suddenly he felt something give way and it came away from the plant in a tearing rush. He fell back onto the grass, as luck would have it. As he fell, he saw a bunch of the stalks shoot out of the flowers to the spot where he had been standing just a second ago. He quickly unwound the tendril from his ankle, noticing that the end which had been torn from the plant was weeping a clear liquid which looked suspiciously like blood. He brushed away what seemed to be a stupid thought, gathered himself and ran towards Ael.
Reaching her, he found that she was lying with her eyes open, looking at the sky. He called out her name to no response. He put his palm below her nostril and felt her breathe, uneven and slow, but she was breathing. It seemed like she knew he was there and that she could hear him call her name but somehow she could not respond. He tried to lift her. But her body was limp and would not rise off the ground, almost as if she were asleep.

Andy looked around helplessly, searching for something, anything that would help him get Ael up. He saw suddenly that most of the plants surrounding them seemed to have taken an unusual interest in them and appeared to be leaning towards them, their flowers widening as if in anticipation, the pollen stalks quivering as if in eagerness. Somehow, Andy felt that they were dangerous and were threatening him. He took a step back in alarm and then quickly made up his mind. He stooped down and grabbed hold of Ael under her armpits and started dragging her backwards. He stumbled and tripped on plants lying under his feet and fell back, Ael landing on top of him, knocking out his breath. He sat her up and started dragging her once again when he felt something warm, almost hot, in his pocket.

He put his hand in and encountered the shiny smooth surface of the stone that he had been carrying around. Only, where it had so far been cool to touch, it was now heating up. He took it out of his pocket and it seemed to be glowing with a fire deep inside it. The flames were orange yellow with a deep red centre. The surface seemed to be slowly becoming red in color with the rising heat. As he held the stone, it grew so hot in that instant that he had to drop it. It landed amidst the plants and lay there, glowing with its inner light. For a few seconds, the light seemed to grow brighter and then it became a steady glow. Now, the stone seemed to have a strange effect on the plants and especially the flowers around them. The plants moved away, almost as if they were shrinking in fear and the flowers withdrew quickly, nearly closing up against the bright light.

In an instant, everything seemed to go back to normal. The plants were normal plants again and the flowers seemed like colorful wonders of creation. Andy’s stood open mouthed in surprise at what had happened and then looked down at the stone. The glow seemed to be subsiding inside it and for an instant, just a split second; he saw a swishing black movement in the stone. And then it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. The stone was back to its black cool rounded look and he felt he must have imagined all that had happened till then. He bent down to pick up the stone and the only thing that told him the truth was the warmth that was still coming from it. He put his eye close to it and tried to peer into its depths. But there was nothing, just the reflection of his eye staring back at him.

He returned the stone to his pocket and bent down to pick up Ael and to drag her back out of the field. It was slow work, especially since she was no help at all. Luckily, the plants stayed away from them after that episode and so though it was tough going, there were no further attacks. Finally, after what seemed to be hours of dragging her, they reached the edge of the field, at the bottom of the slope down which they had fallen. He made a small space there for Ael and laid her down, her eyes still wide open and staring unseeingly at the sky. He sat beside her and waited for something to happen, for her to wake up. The orange yellow sun travelled across the horizon and was poised to dive into the depths of the horizon leaving the inky black trail of night behind it.

Andy felt hungry. He must have been sitting there for hours and decided to search for some food. He did not want to leave Ael there but had no choice since she had not shown any signs of life at all except for the warmth of her breath whenever he had checked. Finally, for some strange reason, he decided to leave the black stone to stand guard over her. He placed the stone by the side of her head on a mound of grass and then went in search of food. He walked back up the slope to the pool and the plants around it. He was still very watchful of any plants, especially after the last attack. Fortunately, these seemed to be very different plants, with no bright flowers. He searched through them, found some with colorful berries but decided not to pick them, thinking that anything with a lot of color was dangerous. Suddenly, he saw a large dark blue fruit that appeared to be half eaten, like some careless boy had just bitten off a part of it and thrown it away. Andy knelt down to look at it and saw a couple of what appeared to be claw marks on it and a large bite mark. The bite was unlike any he had ever seen, with no teeth marks and a pointy look to it, almost like someone had carefully bitten a conical piece out.

He walked a little distance ahead and saw a largish shrub that had the same blue fruit hanging on it. Andy thought that since something else had eaten this fruit, it would not be dangerous. So, he plucked a few and stuffed them into his pocket. As he turned to go, he heard a sudden shrill cry from somewhere up above. He looked up but could not see anything in the spreading darkness. But he could sense something there, something very large. He turned back and started to run towards the pool. Suddenly, the cry came again, only this time much lower, almost as if it was on top of him. He looked up in fright but could not see anything. The next moment, he went flying as his foot caught in a root protruding from the ground.  As he fell, he heard a “Whoosh” like something had swooped down close above him. His face ached where it had hit something hard on the ground. He saw that it was some kind of a hollow shell and picked it up. He started running back once again and reached the pool in no time. He stopped for just a minute to clean up the shell / bowl and scoop up some water in it.

He then ran down the slope to where Ael lay. He stopped short when he saw her eyes were closed. He put down the bowl and checked her breathing. It was still there, still warm and more regular, like she was sleeping. The black stone was quiet and unmoving next to her, somehow peaceful. He sat down beside her and took out a couple of berries. He found that they tasted like peculiarly like raw berries from back home. In that instant, he wanted to desperately go back. Go back to his mother, her warm comforting hug, her smell of cookies and smoke, her loving voice constantly reminding him of things he had to do and her smile that lit her face up like the sun. Go back to his dad who came home too tired to even say anything but always stooping to kiss Andy on the forehead. Back to his corner of the house where he kept all this things, odds and ends that he had picked up over time.

Breathing a sigh, he brought himself back from his dream, to the reality that he was living through. He wondered what his dad and mom were thinking about him now that he had been gone for so long. They must have gone crazy in their worry for him. But he had no way to get even a message back to them. He wished that somehow they were not scared or worried for him.

He drank a little bit of the water from the shell and then lay down a little away from Ael. By now, the sun had disappeared completely and the dark sky was like a blanket that hid them from everything around. He put his hand out and touched the stone where it lay on the mound of grass. It was cool to touch and strangely reassuring. He breathed deeply and looked up at the sky, searching for stars or any other familiar objects. But the blackness was complete, with not even the slightest light. In fact it was so dark that he could not see his hand when he put it in front of his face. Soon, the tiredness of the day’s adventure caught up with him and his eyes felt heavy. As he dropped off to sleep, his last thought was that the night seemed strangely quiet, with none of the noises that he was used to hearing back home.

He woke up with a start, not sure why he had woken up. It was still very dark. The first thing he noticed was that where before it had seemed quiet, all around them, strange noises had started. The noises seemed hurried and scared. Suddenly, he heard the whoosh of wings, like he had heard before and a gust of air nearly knocked him off his feet. He stepped back in alarm and waited. A few minutes passed and nothing happened. Whatever it was had gone back up into the air again. The noises died down around him and soon it was all quiet again. He sat down and listened, waiting for any noise or any activity. But nothing more happened. He felt around for the stone and it was there, exactly where he had left it. It was not visible in the dark but seemed to be giving off some strange warmth from within. The warmth comforted and soothed his nerves and he slowly relaxed. He couldn’t go back to sleep after all the excitement and just sat there looking out at the darkness, holding onto the stone.

Suddenly, something warm touched his back and he jumped in fright.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

The Way It Is ....


I saw the beggar at the intersection, squinted eyes pleading,
grimy and lined with dirt, his palms open in earnest request,
clothes disheveled, over sized on his thin and scrawny frame,
walking past the cars, peeking in at the windows and begging.

Until he came to mine and in his eyes, the spark of recognition,
of his having been at the same window the previous morning,
but then need overcame his shame and his face visibly steeled,
as he resolutely put forth his hand and repeated the very words.

And in spite of myself, my cynicism took over and I withdrew,
with a curt shake of my head, looking out at nothing in particular,
but didn't miss the hurt look in his eyes at the familiar turn down,
his shoulders slumped even lower in defeat at the cruelty of it all.

And I turned to see him walk away and move on to the next car,
stopping just that instant to steel his heart again for the rejection,
before he stooped and knocked at the window, palms outstretched,
half expecting the turn off even before he completed his request.

And my heart turned cold at what I had done, my instance of hell,
and I stuck my head out and called him back to redeem my sin,
for I realized that in my cynicism, I had overlooked his deep need,
to reduce himself to the possibility of rejection again and again.

As realization dawned that so many of us get deeply hurt at rejection,
but would any of us have a need so rooted to put ourselves out,
again and again to the possibility of that turn off, the cold shoulder,

and if that need could be anything other than just for life itself.