The Other Me

I was on a long road called Denial and not for the first time when I suddenly bumped into someone familiar. It was the other me. The one who likes to dance to the rhythm of the wind and run around on grass, yelling like a madwoman on a night when the moon is blurred by clouds. It was the me who shivered at the thought of lonely nights and gushed at the sight of a setting sun. My hopes and aspirations bundled into a tiny pill floating in outer space. It was nice to meet the other me and to open the windows wide enough to let the world come in. It was cold and frightening to meet the other me in Denial for I haven't met her in years. I wanted to hold her hand and lead her in a dance together. My eyes bulged in my head, weary of all the endless dreary days and hers were aglow with a fire, warm and kindled long ago. It was nice to scream into the night about all the dreams that had dreamed their last and to look into the fog without the familiar nausea of fear. I felt free. She was my liberator. Viva la vida!

The Boy and The Sun

There was a little boy
A dreamy little boy
Without a lot of friends.

There was a yellow star
A funny yellow star
The master of all ends.

The dreamy little boy
And the funny yellow star
Spent their time together.

The funny yellow star
And the dreamy little boy
Separated forever.

The dreamy little boy
With dreamy little eyes
Cried "This is hardly fair"

"You leave when you please
Whenever you please
Without the slightest care."

Said the funny yellow star
In a funny little voice
"I cannot never go."

"I'm bound in a way
In a clever, cruel way
That you will never know."

The dreamy little boy
Built a dreamy yellow ship
That flew above the sea

His funny yellow friend
Saw the dreamy yellow ship
"This looks just like me!"

The dreamy little boy
And the funny yellow star
Sailed the skies together.

The funny yellow star
And the dreamy little boy
Entangled forever.

Till the dreamy little boy
Became an old little man
And grew tired of the sky.

The funny yellow star
Stayed a funny yellow star
And saw him slowly die.

The old little man
The rickety little man
Said to his lonely friend

"This time I'll leave
I'll suddenly leave
And you will stay to see the end."

The old little man
Saw his funny yellow friend
Unknown to loss as yet.

The funny yellow star
Was a fading yellow star
For his friend had finally set.

A Meeting

The sun was rolling towards the west when I finally reached the station. I was tired and hungry, and the green-gold shadows cast by the stunted trees of the city I was about to leave forever reminded me of the cool, grey cloister of my childhood home. I am not given to nostalgia. I thought of that distant time as a convenience lost. Children are never tired or hungry for long. 

I checked the announcements and noticed, with a relieved sigh, that my train had already arrived at the platform. Dragging my dead-weight suitcase with renewed vigour, I cut through the bustle quickly. Crowds repel me, The customary checklist switched on in my brain: find seat, ensure suitcase is safe, slump. I was fast asleep long before the train started moving.

...

It had always seemed natural for me to associate sound with colour. A short sharp whistle was a burst of white, dizzy humming a swirly van Gogh blue, the wind a smudge of green. I was eight years old, indomitable and invincible, carrying the bruises like the war wounds of a hero. The house had a dark, eerie character to it and when the rain splattered on the glass windows, I imagined it to be drops of red. It was a bloody day. The rain was whispering secrets that I wanted to know and I was sitting with my ear stuck to the big, glass window, listening, The colours were blurred by my breath and someone was approaching the house. A red shadow, dripping, grinning and SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH..

I woke with a start. The train had come to a halt at a small station. Embarrassed for no particular reason, I was glad that my co-passengers had decided to go for a walk. I scrutinized their luggage-- large, flowery bags, baby food, a briefcase. A family of three, then. Suddenly, I felt strangely cramped. Stretching out my arms and legs, I decided to go out, itching for a smoke. 

The station was small but important. It had all the tiny shops that major stations boast of. I made a beeline for the store selling cigarettes, bought a packet and some matches. Looking for a quiet place I could smoke alone in, my eyes caught sight of a little bench at the edge of the platform. It lay just beyond the penumbra of the arc of station lights and I barely noticed the other person in the shadows when I lit a cigarette.

The smoke curled upwards in slow circles, burning each turn of the paper hanging from my mouth.

"Do you mind?" 

I looked up, through the smoke, at an outstretched hand directed at one of mine that held the matches.

"Not at all", I said, hurriedly, offering the matches to the hand.

"Thank you".

The flame illuminated a pair of bright, eager eyes for a moment and then the hand returned the matches to me. We smoked in silence for a while, two dots of red. The sky was a purplish black save for three lines of golden at the western edge of the world. The sun had set.

"The end of a day is unforgivably depressing", said my fellow red dot, almost as if he was quoting a poet. I looked up, startled to find my thoughts mirrored. 

"Yes", I said pensively.

"Except for my son. Night brings aliens to Earth", said the dot, a smile in his voice.

I thought of my own son, living with his mother in a different country.His shoulder barely came to my knees.

"Hmmm", I replied, "Are you travelling on the same train?"

"Yes", was the answer, "I'm travelling to the station two stops before the last."

"I'm going all the way to the end."

"I used to live there when I was very young."

"So did I".

Strange, I thought, to meet someone from the same place so far away.

"I'm going there on business, to sell the old house", I said, offering information.

"I left when I was young and I haven't gone back since".

"There isn't much left of the old place".

"What about the jackfruit tree?"

"What?"

"The jackfruit tree in the backyard of the big house. All the boys went there in the summers when the fruits ripened."

"That is our house, the one I'm going to sell. The tree's gone."

"Oh", said the dot, quivering ever so slightly.

"What is your name? If you knew our house, you'd probably have known me too."

"I don't know about that, I was very young when I left and I didn't have a lot of friends."

"Neither did I."

The dot grew silent. One went out, then another. The train whistled impatiently and my companion and I made our way back to the platform. As we reached the arc of station lights, I turned around to look at his face. Our eyes met and I smiled.

It was a bloody day. The rain was whispering secrets that I wanted to know and I was sitting with my ear stuck to the big, glass window, listening, The colours were blurred by my breath and someone was approaching the house. A red shadow, dripping, grinning. The shadow grew sharper until it was the figure of a young boy. He looked at me through the glass and I looked at him, my reflection. I was listening at the window and he was leaving. Our choices had diverged and we had separated. He was leaving because he had to do everything that I did not: the opposite of my decisions, the mirror of my world. He left with a look of his bright, eager eyes that said our worlds, rightside-up, upside-down, inside out and outside in, would collide again. He left through the rain and I was left, listening.

I smiled at my old friend, at myself. We shook hands and parted once more.

"I see you've done well", he said.

"So have you."

In Admiration

I think what I admire and, more importantly, envy the most about him is all the travelling. I am frightened, conventional and a perpetual Walter Mitty. He is a roamer and a teller. I let him tell me about all the wonderful places he's been, about the azure skies, the topless women, the cool stone walls of a time half forgotten and I let myself drown in a deep slumber of days that I have not lived in myself. I let him draw the foggy outlines of forts and palaces, people and wine, laughter and music till my eyes and ears can hold no more. His monstrous appetite is mine but its satiation is his alone. I tell myself that he must be a poet, an artist, a musician. I want to tell him that there is a little bit of all three hidden in him somewhere and that I am scared of the pragmatism that seems to be enveloping us slowly in a cool grey cloud of fluid, impenetrable to stories and wild imaginings. His strong hands hold the touch of a myriad days that were incandescent like the sea in starlight. When I touch them, I feel the ocean in his throbbing pulse and the caress of lavender in a gust of wind. They are wet from the rains under a gloomy sky and dried in the shade of a gleaming summer. One day, I tell myself, one day I shall travel enough to have my own stories to tell and he shall be the one listening. I whisper a little prayer under my breath, not believing the words that my mouth utters for I am an atheist. I pray for the day to arrive soon, to arrive at my door in a coat and take me away in a cab to the airport. All the while, I do not notice the longing in his eyes. I am dreaming of travelling and he of home. We are a strange pair and our worlds, enlarging and collapsing, come dangerously close without ever actually coinciding. We meet in transit again, separating at the divergence of our orbits.