Death

I want to talk about an issue tonight which I have been forcibly trying to push at the back of my mind ever since I created this blog. Call it soul-bearing if you will, but it is impossible that any human being wouldn't have thought of it.
Death it is, in case you are wondering what exactly I have in my mind. We all have our little brushes with it. Some, like me, have died quite a few times before the heart actually stops pumping. Clinical death, if compared to the one I am talking about, would at those precise moments come as a relief!
However, I am going to concern myself with death as it is. Shorn of all adjectives, adverbs, introductions, epilogues and monologues. To me death is just that. Period.
It has always fascinated me, ever since I was a child, to think about death. What happens at the very moment when we realise we are dying? What thoughts cross our mind? Or is it just what I think it is, no thoughts... no conjectures, just a plain and simple struggle for the next breath? I have done a fair bit of research on death. But nearly all the answers have been metaphorical when all I need is a very objective one. Part of the problem, I guess, is the fact that there isn't anyone to talk about it.
Whatever I am doing right now, quarrelling, abusing, living, loving, fighting, writing another pointless blog, I am aware of my presence. It is My hand that touches the keyboard, My brain that dictates me what to write, My eyes that see what has been written. What happens to ME??? Who is this I am talking about? I become so utterly confused.
How would I react when it would dawn on me that I am dying...? When I think very hardly about it, I shudder. A cold, cold wave goes down my spine. I struggle to breathe. And I stop thinking about it...
Death has never left me. It has been bugging me like those insurance agents all through my life. I can't go away from it. I can't run from it. Even during the most crucial moments, death has been just around the corner, smiling that toothless smile. Reminding me that the interview that I just cleared, the girl that I just married, the woman that I am eyeing at the metro, the new pair of shoes that I am longing for, the gala dinner that has been laid out for me, is nothing more than a mere passing phase. Come to me, it says with arms wide outstretched... I take to my heels...

Office

Bitchy hushes in the pink corner. Low laughter rings like a metal, sonorous and crystal clear. The swishing of a pair of bell-bottom denims, the sudden gust of Chanel 9 air melts into the tippetty-tappetty of the Dell keyboards. The cell phones cry out in myriad tunes, high-pitched voices drown the soft murmurs of a nearby coffee corner. L tries to concentrate hard on the monitor. The screen flickers into life in the same monotone. Little voices within her head makes her cast a sideways glance onto the next cubicle. A's busy with his work, a little too busy perhaps, feels L. The remnants of a half-eaten role stares back at her. Chicken eyes thickly wrapped in stir-fried capsicum.
'D's wearing the top at least three sizes small,' muses L with a thin smile. She starts sifting through the spams in her mailbox. One gets a little tired, doing the same thing over and over and over again in a mechanical, routinous way. Oddly, the way she throws her chappals after logging in, the left one kissing the tip of the right always at the same angle, is a small miracle taking place with an almost boring regularity.
Some feat, this, thinks L. To be able to do things with such precision without even thinking about them! Perfectly commonplace, mind you, but there they are. The mouse always held with the last three fingers, the other two lying in casual abandon. The cell phone kept at 45 degrees, landline 15 centimetres to her right, legs crossed with the left resting ever so lightly over the right, the spams which promise millions of dollars in an African bank, unclaimed, waiting to be picked up, the boss barking in the same moronic voice, colleagues conspiring, hating, teaming up, falling apart, cuddling close, licking off tears, slapping the back — the sameness of an eternal cycle spinning round a sphere... Even the flirty glances of casual eyes brings a sense of Deja Vu.
It's very easy to read about great men who have broken away from the dumbing down-ness of a ghetto. K recently threw away his job for a career in music. S loves trekking, so she took a two-month leave and never returned. G wears g-strings under the matronly suit. P threw the R-letter at his boss for bad-mouthing him. Great men, women, peers. But L loves being roasted in her own juices. Of recalling what a mistake it had been to join the job. A bit like scratching a mole. Truth is, the moribund existence of a ghetto-ised life promises a security that seems dangerously elusive outside it.
L snaps back into the words that are forming into sentences as if all on their own. The office crackles into life with the sure, heavy footsteps of confident men who have neither the time nor the intention of lazing away, day-dreaming with words. L smiles, inwardly. It's good to be human.

Streetcar

I finally got a car last week. Before you turn the page over in disgust, let me tell you my earlier statement is untrue. I didn't get a car. It got me instead.
Well, the streetcar looked cushy, comfortable and didn't tug too much at my purse-strings... I sat on the driver's chair... I remember I wanted to pick up something from the New Market.
The throbbing, pulsating wheel, however, steered me into a lane I hadn't ventured before. An unmitigated, raw desire welled up as if a dam has burst within... The tour de force of it took me completely by surprise.
The corner, which I had turned blindly a thousand times, couple of hundreds while I was sleepwalking, threw open a new angle so blindingly seductive that I became powerless to resist its charms. The flighty temptress seemed too alluring. What started as a casual little drive became a devouring desire as I delved deeper and deeper into its alleys and sub-alleys.
For nine days and nine long agonising nights I thought about deserting the lane for the highway. I do not have to spend my time convincing you that greater mortals than me have lost the battle, so it is almost destined I will lose in the end. Self-destruction, I have to admit, is one hell of an addiction. The fireflies will be able to tell you better how easy it is to jump into the fire than wait in the wings of warm, melting heat. One that skins you alive.
This was becoming too much too handle. I honked the horn in desperation, tried to jam the brakes. The accelerator pressed tightly, I turned the wheel. Or did I?
Let there be fire, someone said, and out broke the inferno that slept within. I became me. I never knew it's so soothing to be roasted alive. Ah life! See you in another time, another space...

Sleepy nights

I am sleepless. It’s weird. The Citi, they say, never sleeps, but not my city. The car zips through the sleepy pavements, downed shutters, curtained windows and random traffic lights. ‘Enough’, laughs Red to the car, ‘I am not going to stop you now’… She dances with Yellow as Green looks on. Green always looks on. It’s his destiny. Not for him the little crook where the short top gives way to the svelte waist. He sees others resting their hands on the slightly bulging desire as their staggering legs fumble to kickstart the bike or get into the car after a heady night. He blinks. Allows the pair to pass. Not that they would have waited for him. Neither do we. Our car leaves behind smelly rubber. With looks of pure disgust, highway dogs give way. Have you ever noticed how black the water becomes at night? Tar. Simmering, shivering in faint wind. Padded bras in place, girls stare at us with bored faces. Anxious eyes. The radio sounds a tad too seedy with the bored DJ trying her best to cheer up sleepless ears. Like us. The humid air sticks to the collar. We carefully ignore desperate commuters waving frantically at us. The dinner is getting cold. The baby’s fast asleep. Sleepy wife shifts uneasily on bed. Whispering sounds fill the air. Another night comes to an end…

Choiceless

The red tape has been sticking up my backside ever since the day I was born… Funny that I thought it won’t be there when I wanted to write a simple blog. Cutting through that swathe is tiring and putting-off.

Now that I have a name, a blog title and have been assured of a global audience (clap, clap) I don’t wish to write any more. But I found out quickly that here too, the elusive Choice has deserted me for the dictionary, residing as it does between Choctaw and Choir. Oh come on! Can’t you be mine? Even for a fleeting moment? ‘Nope’, answers back Choice. ‘Because if I did, you wouldn’t know what to do with me.’

Choice is heartless, as you can no doubt see. So let’s move on…

Let’s talk about raindrops and mittens, and warm woolen kittens. Or is it mittens? I am not too sure. My old fuddy brain keeps on pulling a fast one, every now and then. Layers and layers of repression are hard to clear. They clog the cerebellum and cerebrum like stalactites and stalagmites. I wanted to break free a thousand times, but nowhere seems safe enough. Not even the useful anonymity of a casual blog. There are too many fingerprints to trace me… Hunt me down. Pin me up. Nail me finally to the coffin whose warm bed awaits me. I toss and turn in my earthy bed, light footsteps of a fragile little girl over my grave. She is lost in rain and decides to take shelter near me. Oh God! I am ready to die a thousand deaths just to see her face. But it is not possible, you see. A lifetime that has been spent looking at the legs has condemned the eyes to the cracked sole. A cracked soul too. I become a worm and squirm under her feet. She could have trampled me or stepped aside in disgust. But she takes me in her hands. I worm my way up her face where you can’t tell whether it’s raindrops or tears since she had split. I smell of the sea, oysters and fresh face.