At my grand-dad's knee

I hate to break it to you, but, yes, it's true. There was a piggy by the railway who was picking up stones (foolish little piggy). Unfortunately for him a train came along and broke all of his bones (as was only to be expected, really). With his dying breath, the little piggy gasps that it wasn't fair (maybe alluding to the brevity of his lifespan) and then the engine driver who had gotten out of the train by now and was staring down at the dying piggy with a sneer, sniffed and expressed his total lack of feeling on the matter. Moral of the story clearly is to fear and respect engine drivers.

Talking about piggies, one has to mention that Orson Scott Card is an excellent story maker even if a rather poor story teller. And so, I do him the justice of recognising that just like my grand-daddy (who seldom made up stories but was an excellent raconteur) he would have never suggested that the piggies with the twig and hay houses fled to their more fortunate brother of the brick house. No, certainly not. They were eaten by the wolf. Wolves are not simpletons. Any wolf worth his salt would eat up any piggy who was foolish enough to build houses out of hay and any wolf who had the persistence to blow stick houses down is a wolf worth his salt. Moral of this story, give the Ender trilogy a shot. You might enjoy it. I did.

Talking about wolves, there's the other classic wolf story. The one where the pretty little girl with the red hood goes jauntering through the forest and sells her grand-mum down the river to the big, bad, definitely male wolf. The wolf then proceeds to kill the grand-mum and feed the little girl the remains (that's the way *I* heard it, at least). The woodman comes along and saves the girl but I never heard tell of the grand-mum's rescue until much later (my grand-dad was a formidable man and I think he was trying to make a point there (he was also endowed with much foresight and it must have seemed like a good idea to him at the time to tell his grand daughter about the evils of the world in general and male wolves in particular)). The moral of that story was quite clear, I always thought. Get yourself into any kind of trouble and it's your family that'll pay. And additionally, pretty girls and wolves are fatally intertwined.

Talking of pretty girls, you must have heard of the wandering spirit who snuck into her lady's chamber and finding an old man in there, picked him up by his left leg and threw him down the stairs. While this might very well be a reference to Cromwellian supporters or King Henry or priestholes, the moral could be only one thing. For pity's sake don't let strange creatures liable to grab people and hurl them down staircases wander around your house. Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber. Ugh. Creepy.

A Ship In A Bottle Set Sail

She sat on her bed staring at the photographs stuck up haphazardly on her closet walls. And she didn't even like photographs. She would tell people gravely that it was because she believed like the Africans that each time the camera clicked at you it took a piece of your soul away. Because it was easier to laugh at their expressions when she said that than to confess that she hated the hypocrisy of it. The fake arms around you, the insistence of the camera that you be happy. Now. But then here she was staring at photographs. All those smiling faces. Her people.

She sighed and picked up the duster from the floor. She always missed home on spring-cleaning days.

No points for guessing the song :)

Saturday Morning Blues

She woke up. Images of large cans of water glistening on the outside with condensed droplets flooded her mind. She removed the covers to get out of bed and stumbled. She frowned. She hated waking up drunk. This is why you shouldn't eat nothing all day and then chug down beers like it's the last supper. You are such an idiot. She got back into bed and waited for her roomie to wake up. On cue she heard bare feet padding to her room across the wooden floor of the living room. Her roomie flounced in, fell on to her bed and looked at her accusingly. "What?", she asked her. "Why didn't you tell me you had a crush on him?" "On who?.... Whom?" "That chap who's in your class, whatshisface?" "I don't have a crush on anyone from our class!!" Her roomie looked at her consideringly for two whole minutes before she started giggling. Hysterically. "Then why did you tell him you did last night?" Sometimes if you close your eyes things just go away and pretend like they never happened.

Sea Spilled from a Cup

Three spotlessly white steps lead up to the entrance of the Children's Cancer Center. How innocent words sound. Today dappling sunshine's making an unexpected appearance on the steps. A guest role. Not bright, cheery yellow sunbeams but mysteriously grey, convalescent sunshine. Struggling to recover from a bout of clouds.

There's always people milling around in the little green oasis that surrounds the white steps. Sometimes nurses, sometimes white-coated professionals. Doctors, lab technicians, gardeners, service men, sales men. Actually, more sales women than men. Maybe because women can be trusted to sell death machines in much softer voices. More appropriate, perhaps. Who knows these things? And then of course the patients and their assorted family members. Always a different group of patients. This part of the hospital has a lot of flux. From one reason or another. Mostly one reason, though.

One of the patients allowed out today is obviously a rebel. Disregarding any semblance of shelter, he sits in his wheelchair in the single patch of lawn with a hope of direct sunlight. Atleast he looks like a he. Sometimes it's hard to tell. All hair shaved away from the head. Because even one extra strand will obviously be too heavy a burden for what remains. Fragile skeleton that can be seen so clearly straining against the skin at the neck. Delicate features lifted up to the straggling sun rays. Even diluted sunlight shines right through the skin. Maybe that's why his knobbly wrist is tagged. In case the sun melts him completely away. The little tag atleast will be left behind. As evidence. The shapeless hospital gown flattens against a puff of wind. Macabre uniform.

He turns to his mum standing next to him and removes his oxygen mask to say something. They both smile. The mum lifts her right hand up again, rhythmically, almost automatically, rests the elbow in her left palm. Old school. Breathe in, breathe out. Puffs of smoke coiling into the air. She says something back to the kid, through the smoke. The kid nods in agreement, accepting her words as truth, cocooned in smoke and trust.

Maybe we all need a sign. A big, fat, smokin, fire-engine red 'No Stupidity' sign.

Look All Around, There's Nothing

She switched the conditioner on to full blast. Ice cold air hitting her face. She stuck the cigarette between her lips, bent forward towards the steering wheel and lit it with a practiced click of the lighter. She lowered the window down a crack, letting pent-up wind rush in. Turned up the volume to drown out the noise of the freeway. Speedo touched 70. The sun shone gently, approving the Sunday morning. Half a weekend gone. Blown away with ciggie smoking, sucked down with cheap Scotch. A lot of talking, a lot of keemah, a lot of pipe-dreaming. The feeling of content that was blowing in with the wind spread through the car, invading space ruthlessly. Johnny Nash, "I can see clearly now the rain is gone". She turned the volume up even higher and sang along, her fingers tapping time on the wheel.

It's funny how these moments happen when you least expect them, moments of descending peace, things falling into focus or rather falling out of focus, perspective reigning for a brief interim. And then just like that, a click of the fingers, a blaring of horns, a confusion of impressions, reality leaps back and it's over.

The cops filed the report. A summary of her life, a briefly telling epitaph, a three-letter-long fullstop. DUI. Shit happens. Shoulders shrug.

Hearts on sleeves aren't in vogue anymore. Keep yours safe.

Perspectives VIII: More Dark Room Adventures

She revolves the revolving door closed. Smiles happily as the darkness, womb-like, engulfs her. Couching her in watered-down red light. As she starts taking the film out to develop it, her iPod sounds the familiar starting chords of River of Dreams. "In the middle of the night..." with its inevitable rhythm fills every corner of her head. As she feeds the film to the developing solution her toes start tapping. Irresistibly, as she dips the film in the fixer, she's nodding her head in time with Billy. While she waits for the film to dry, an impromptu little dance breaks out. Involuntary, like a rash. "In the middle of the night", Billy finishes up all too soon in grandly circular style. She regretfully gathers up the this-and-that she came in with and turns to leave, slightly breathless. The white-coated, bespectacled, white-bearded Russian professor from the neighboring lab stands just inside the door, washed a faint pink, looking at her. She (fortunately?) can't see his expression. His glasses glint meaningfully, though. "When did he come in?", she wonders, a little embarrassed, flushed cheeks flushing a shade brighter. Then with a toss of her hair, she walks past, revolving herself out. He can't possibly be startled.

"How can anyone *not* dance in a dark room?"


Less Dark Room Adventures

Perspectives V: Dreams for an Insomniac

The clock showed 2:01 in urgent red. Panic snatching at her breath. Nightmare-replays. The lonely girl, unwanted, unheeded, curled in the corner of that evil house. She could still taste the bitter-almond smell of neglect in the air. She called him. "I had a nightmare. There's a girl in a house where she isn't wanted. No one loves her." "Babe, it's just a dream." She found her lips curving into a smile at the sleepily calm conviction; reality gingerly tested the waters with a shrinking toe. Anxiety, momentarily vanquished, grimly clawed back over the edge of memory. "But do you think there's a girl somewhere in the world who really feels like that right now? She seemed so sad. And alone." She felt the girl's terror reaching out for her again while he swam through the pause. "But that's not possible. Everyone has someone." That's not true, her brain protested in the instant before reality returned with a splash. Bathed in its warm wave, comfort snuggled back into her bed, waiting for the covers to be pulled up around them. She closed her eyes, a soft "Sleep tight" lingering at the edges of sleep, leaving something silently solid resolutely unexamined in a corner.

Misery, Love Thyself

She looked at him and smiled.

"Whatcha smiling for this time?", he asked idly.

"You make me smile", she said. "Just thinking of you makes me smile."

"Yeah, right!" in amused disbelief. He knew this game. "But you know what they say about people who smile too often", he continued, half grinning.

"That they're mad?" she asked.

A vigorous shake of his head.

"They're happy?"

Another negative shake.

"Maybe only mad people are happy anyway." She knew he'd find that as amusing as she did.

He smiled back.

"They're amused too easily?", the third guess always had to be a good one.

"Nuh-uh."

"So, tell me already."

"They say people who smile the most are often the saddest. That the smile hides their sorrow and lets them pretend they're happy for just a while."

She smiled wryly. Close enough to home to make her wince.

"But what about the people who're really truly sad and don't smile?" she objected.

"I suppose unabashed wallowing in sorrow comes with it's own special joy, no?".

Anonymous

He sat marvelling at the precise beauty of the sunrise. The cold winter morning air wheezed out of his lungs condensing into little smoke clouds as he stared at the horizon. The colors bled into the sky. Shades of orange and pink that he didn't even know names for, maybe they had none. He heard the birds pipe up one after the other. The trees swayed gently in the early morning breeze. The dark of the sky was penetrated and swept out with dainty brush strokes. The air became colder as the sun came into view. Not with the blazing warmth of summer but the more distant, offended brightness of winter. She seemed to disdainfully pick up the sweep of her multicolored skirts and hunch her shoulder at the world. "I want nothing to do with you", she seemed to say with a sniff. He felt a sudden burst of happiness in his heart. Promises of adventure. Stirrings of hope. Today, anything was possible. If the sun could step over the earth's horizon with such effortless ease how could anything be too difficult? He would conquer the earth today. He would make himself a better man. He would be worthy of the chirping birds, the chattering squirrels. He would show the world who he was. He stood up, bursting with purpose. Stooping to pick up his ragbag and holding the fluttering tatters of his shirt together against the cold wind, he shuffled off down the street.

no.mad.ness

Last night, we are happy to report, there was an outbreak of Nomad Wars. Pliss to go check it out. It was much fun. But I think towards the end the only people it made sense to was me and Wiseling :).

Still.

And it's a Work in Progress.

Note: It just occurred to me, that however much you try to stop yourself from thinking of some things, they tend to pop out at you like nasty jack-in-the-boxes when you least expect them to. It's quite tiresome, really.

Intent

It nestled in the subtle hollow of creamy pale skin, winking at him. A dark green that was surprisingly translucent when sunlight touched it. The globular gibbousness of it entranced him. He imagined containing it in his palm. Cold to the touch at first, but warming up quickly. The smoothness of the surface interrupted by the little lines of engraving. Rays of the sun on one hemisphere hallowing a fiercely smiling face; and the intertwined moon and star on the other. She bent down to pick up a fallen piece of paper and it swung free of the bare restraint of her plunging neckline. Its weight perfectly balancing its upswing with the downswing. Was it soapstone? He'd never had much of a head for geology. He wondered if it was a symbol of something. Young people these days adopted new cults with the noble air of giving stray dogs a home. He liked the subtle mysterious green of it. He almost put his hand out to touch it. Just once to roll it between his fingers. He felt her eyes boring into him. He looked up, realisation dawning with a horrified whimper. "No, no, I wasn't.." he protested faintly, hurriedly. She collected her bags and stalked off the bus. Her haughtily stiffening spine luxuriated in the freedom of expected abuse. Please, he wanted to say. Just please.