Arrival

The first word is written with great trepidation, as if a wrong word might sicken the paper. Despite innumerous tries, you never are sure. The paper registers whatever you write - an axiom you fail to grasp. Sometimes the words blot, causing the ink to drift towards an untraceable drain.

The second word is written with greater composure. The assurance that the mute paper provides - Thou shall not be spit at - spurs you to write more.

The third and the fourth words are written with an ease that causes you to pause and review the words. Something is wrong. You stop now and ponder. The pen is no more held by the fingers of your left hand. The paper looks at you in askance. Write more, it seems to implore. But all you do is to crumple it and fling it over your head.

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Walk.

Puddles perceptibly dot the streets and hold the light from the lamps along the road. They are almost in a straight line, a discipline that seems alien yet local to the surroundings. Slush of the brown non snow variety; the cloth bits heaped outside the tailor's; the stink from the just emptied green bins, the refuse gorged by the bin truck moving away, its sides dripping liquid waste; the flower stalls, their owners spinning and readying garlands of rose, jevanthi and jasmine, flowers whose fragrance are a great antidote to the stink of the aforementioned truck, flowers which seem bathed and fresh and willing to be woven over a string, at such a feverish pace that you feel invigorated, despite the odd hours, despite the fact that you are returning from work; the curvy bits of tomatoes and onions that seem to stream from the chop worked by the steady hand of the bakery help; the watchman outside the ATM whose snore is as content as that of a man disdainful of the money held within the machine; the attendant asleep on the bench under the awning of a 24 hour clinic, the green curtain outside the doctor's cabin buffeted by the air from the table fan beside the empty chair of the doctor.

You turn left, clamber up the stairs of a house you often hesitate to call your home, change to your night clothes and try and fall asleep as the sun is dutifully awakened by the rooster's call.

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She threatens to slip from your dreams onto your reality through the tiny sliver that memories and hope tear open.

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