Inertia & the Writer

2006-02-25T13:09:00.000-08:00

Ooh, poetry a mile high. No wonder giddy. No wonder strange. No wonder vicious, thoughtful and decisive.

At that height, it's easy to make decisions staring into the sunset.

VERSES FROM AN AIRPLANE (A series of 5 poems)

IN HIDING

Where were you while
I was screaming for paper?
My child’s mind, like
mine, was tangles in a terrible misery.

I was – here – helplessly
tied behind the
open-like-this-shut-like-that
layer of seat belt
waiting to disappoint
both – you and I.

©Phalguni Desai, February 22nd, 2006.

SEEING-BELIEVING

If you could see what
I have seen and what I
continue to see,
one of us will be infinitely meditative, and perhaps
Zen-Like.
The other would be none
the wiser.

Most likely, the other
would be, me.

©Phalguni Desai, February 22nd, 2006.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTENT

The aisle
and the silent hunk
and the man sweater
is woven in wool & multicoloured shine

are all that stand (metaphorically
perhaps, because currently,
they are seated) between
your bawling, blubbering babe
and certain death.

©Phalguni Desai, February 22nd, 2006.

DOUBT

If the plane
inadvertently tips
to my side,
and seems to be rotating on the axis
of it’s wing,
is it because I am
fat, because
that bird is resting
on that wing?

©Phalguni Desai, February 22nd, 2006.

CONDITIONAL NICETIES

I will wear my seatbelt,
pull my chair upright,
push my luggage under the seat
and fold shut my foldable table
If you promise to
land me gently onto the ground.

©Phalguni Desai, February 22nd, 2006.

Mask

2006-02-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

Standing against the winter sky
Tall and strong against
A sky still cooler than
The ground upon
Which we
Walk
Is a picture of you waving
Cheerfully, as if not a care in
The world could clutter your mind
And no fear could warp your conscience
Into the twisted links of the silver chain that
It resembles.

©Phalguni Desai, February 8th, 2006.

Hide-And-Seek

2006-02-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

A light spills from behind
You face, and you are a
Silhouette, against the
Dark.

I turn, and raise my hand in
An effort to shield my
Eyes, against the
Light.

You would think I could
Then, see your expression
And capture it in memory,
Frozen.

I am no fool, but then
Neither are you.
We both knew it would not be
Easy, playing hide-and-seek
In the dark.

©Phalguni Desai, February 8th, 2006.

Event.

2006-02-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

In the event of
My demise,
I have a request to make of you.
That you forgive your sin against
Me, and cast into my pyre
A single yellow daisy.

©Phalguni Desai, February 8th, 2006.

Over.

2006-02-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

Its true what they say about the light, when you stare at it for too long. It blinds you. You keep staring at it too long, and your eyes hurt. You keep staring at it, and you know you should stop. You keep staring at it, and you can feel your pupils dilate. You can feel that little black circle grow wider, and overpower all the other colours in your eye. Staring at that light, you wish you could see your eye, with the black eating up all that colour. See, it’s like this. It’s a head game. The longer you stare at the light, the more you want to see your eyes stare at it, because you think that it would be so fucking beautiful. Because you’ve seen in a video or two, what an eye looks like up close, and you assumed that that it was perfect, and it had to have a source of light shining it in the face. But the truth is if you keep on staring at that light, looking for that thin thread of tungsten in the bulb, you reach a point when it stops hurting. And you couldn’t care about what your eye looks like. All you’d care about then, is the light. Pretty. Shining. Bright. You want to touch it. You want to hold it, and feel it burn your palm, because that’s the only way you would be the light, because after that long, touching, staring, just won’t be enough. After that long, it’s imperative that you be the light. It’s a matter of a certain urgency that you become one with the light. Almost like love, it is a need you just have to live with.

Or, you can just choose not to look at it.

©Phalguni Desai, February 6th, 2006

Sorry, haven't posted anything in a long, long time. I'm not sure if anyone's reading this anymore. I'll try and post more often, but of late, all the writing has been just that. Writing, and not typing.

Morning Run in A Minor

2005-04-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

The sea went on about its business, sending waves toward the shore, pulling them back. A complex chain of events, he knew, that the moon set in motion every night. A complex chain of events that man and science demystified, the way it struggled to lay bare every act of nature, from the creation of the universe to the moment of truth that was the birth of a child. Still, he had nothing against science. It hardly affected him when he took in nature. He prayed everyday that it would remain so, the wonder, the beauty of what was, despite knowing why it was.

But today, his head pounded along with his feet, that made tracks in the hard sand. Those tracks, he knew, would wash away, when the sea expelled another breath, another wave. He wished his headache would go away too. His headache, which was the direct result of that empty bottle of Old Monk that rested harmlessly in the trash. The pounding in the head coupled with the picture of fingers pounding on the piano, in a seemingly harmless aria from the Marriage of Figaro. The only quiet in the piece, and yet not so quiet in memory. The image played over and over- long, slender fingers moving over the black and white stripes that were the keys. Over and over because he would not let it go. Over and over, because he could not let it go, out of the fear of the remainder of the reflection that he saw in a mirror set deep inside his brain. A mirror that captured images of 32 years of living.

He stumbled on a piece of rock, suddenly jutting out of the sand. And the image changed to those same fingers gliding over those same keys, but gliding, coaxing the massive instrument almost, to sound out the strains of Für Elise. No. he had to be more careful. It could only go downhill from here. He continued running, paying no heed to those fingers, or the music they churned. His feet pounded, one after another after another. His shirt was beginning to get drenched, for even at the seaside, even at six a.m., one could well be drenched with sweat. After all sweating was another mystery explained by science. His feet, enveloped in trendily used Nikes had lost their early morning numbness, and moved onto running numbness. This, he claimed, was the phase where his feet stopped feeling the pain and jerks of gravel/stone/road/hard sand. Sometimes, he felt like he could run for miles. Run the entire coastline. Run over the water, across the ocean and onto a new land that he would discover if he ran long enough, ran hard enough. Of course, that was a childhood dream that he hung on to. At 32, he was quite content to run his stretch of beach, in his blue tracks- and they were always blue-, grey or white t-shirts and the Nikes. Naturally, he reasoned, there were times he wished to keep running and make his discovery, but one should indulge in childlike activities, he always said. Despite all the other thoughts he tried to entertain, his head and the damned piano still pounded.

Some, who had seen him run, said he was quite fanatical about it. Couldn’t live without it. He never robbed them of that myth by telling them of his years in the city where he could never have run anywhere except on the treadmill. Or perhaps the park, which was always crowded with people. Not that he thought of that now. Now, he just concentrated on the fingers caressing the contrasting keys. And yet, his vision broadened to include the forearms attached to the hand that played those keys. It was, like the fingers, skinny, with the dusting of pale hair on it. That hand, it could also turn the pages of the music book kept on the piano. That hand, those arms were wearing a bright red t-shirt. The owner of those hands was a boy, not more than fourteen years old. His eyes shone, as he enticed tunes out of the piano in what seemed to be the parlour of a large house. The air in that house, it smelled musty, yet fresh, and he knew he must be by the sea, in that house by the sea. He saw a face that he knew. He just didn’t want to think of it. That face was smiling at him, the eyes sparkling with unshed tears of pride. Another face, a face younger than the fourteen year olds. Possibly the face was just eleven. Was it eleven? Yes, most definitely, for only an eleven year old would have such awe written all over his face at his brother’s musical genius. Were that face older, it would have held a sneer.

The happy scene continued. It went on as his feet went on. To an audience, it would seem he ran like his life depended on it. To an audience, it would seem he played like his life depended on that music that spiralled out of that great instrument into every corner, every cranny of the house that he played in.

He knew, as he ran, that all was lost. It was no longer about the hands. Who was he kidding. It was no longer about the hands since that phone call. Since that phone call, it was about the person those hands were attached to.

“Dad’s got a heart attack.”

“Dad’s not doing so good.”

“He’s in Intensive Care dude.”

“Let bygones be.”

“Come home”

No. That wasn’t the phone call. That was the one before. The one where he actually went, like the fool that he was. All he got was an unblinking stare. Not a hint of recognition to go with it. And yet, he’d begged, he’d pleaded, he’d tried reason, and logic, and cold hard fact. Science. He was a man of science. There was science in his music. He was just not cut out to be what was asked of him to be. Couldn’t they understand?

And yet, all he got was that unblinking stare, filled with distaste. And he felt like he was this cockroach that the eye was looking at, filled with distaste.

So he came back to the sea-side. And he ran. He kept running. Until a few days back, he heard the music. Chopin’s Funeral March. Solemn, stoic, accepting. Yet all he felt was pure joy. And he wanted to hurt the person who played it so bad that he fled out of the room where he heard it. His head pounded. Continually it pounded. It was still pounding when the phone rang yesterday morning.

“You’d better come home, Dad’s in a coma.”

“I know what he did last time, but he’s not going to make it this time.”

“Please, just come home. For Mama, just come home, ok.”

And so, like the spineless wimp he was, he began packing. He called the airlines, booked his ticket one way. No telling how long this would draw out. He wondered if he should pack in the funeral requisites of white. And rubbished the idea, deciding to pick something up in the city. he called his housekeeper, and told her he’d be gone. He asked her to come by a couple of times a week, just to check on things. Promised her he’s call her as soon as he was back, and assured her they’d discuss her raise. Also told her to water his plants. He called the university, to tell them that an urgent family matter had come up, and he had to leave. He was sorry for the short notice, but he had no choice. And then, realising it was 10 p.m., he poured himself a shot of Old Monk. And then another. All in a bid to stop the pounding in his head. He lay there, on the old hand-crafted chair in his study, immobile. Seemingly asleep. In his head, over the pounding, and over the piano, which was truly unrecognisable just then, more visions.

As his feet sprayed sand in their wake, the vision appeared, almost magically, if one believed in black magic. And no, science couldn’t explain it, he thought. Science couldn’t explain that thundering voice, so difficult to forget. Science couldn’t explain that splotchy face, mottled with anger, that appeared out of nowhere. Science had nothing to do with it. Not last night. Not this morning. And not eighteen years ago.

The boy played on the piano, thrilled that the gentlest touch over the right key could produce sound so magical. He knew, there was science behind it. He knew, that one day, he would learn that science. But right now, he was content playing to the smiles of his mother. Outside, a staccato thwack of an axe hitting wood provided the beat to his music. Mama sat on that little sofa, with his brother at her side. They watched, transfixed, as the fingers played. Charmed the instrument into turning out every note so beautifully. His Mama’s friend called him a prodigy, just yesterday. His performance at the local auditorium had ended to a resounding applause. As he played, he grinned. Even the girls would like him.

The sound of the axe grew faster, ruining his beat. He frowned as he heard his tempo disrupted. And then, they were plunged into silence. The thwack of the axe stopped, and only the piano was heard. And then, the door opened, and there was that face. Splotchy and mottled with a rage beyond his comprehension. His eyes moved away from that face to the rest of the man who owned it. Strong, muscular, almost burly. Holding an axe. Then, mama, cowering behind that delicate sofa, like it would save her from that man with the axe. On the beach, his footsteps increased tempo. In his head, Symphony no. 40 played. Everything returning with a vengeance. Inside the house, at the stroke of twelve, the drink felt bitter in his throat. In the parlour, he stepped back from the piano. Guiltily. His brother ran from the room. His mother whimpered. He just stepped back, until the man was standing next to him at the piano. Then the man, in all his strength pushed him aside. On the beach his footsteps stumbled. In the house, his drink spilled a little. His hand shook. In the parlour, the man dragged the little boy toward his mother, who held on to him like he was her saviour. And then, the man turned, raised his arms, the arms that held the axe like it was an extension. Symphony no. 40 just kept growing louder. The whimpers became pleas, cries for forgiveness. An audience would have thought that man on the beach was running from a man with an....axe? A stranger might have thought that man in that house by the beach was a drunk. Anyone who walked into the parlour would have walked out. Or stood transfixed, as the boy was. The boy, his eyes stunned like the rest of him, big and clear, watched the big burly man lift the axe and bring it down into the magnificent instrument, almost dreamlike, over and over, until the whimpers and pleas of his mother became his own, until he fought free of his mothers cowardly death grip, and scrambled to collect the chips flying in the air, chips of his beloved instrument, the brutality made him breathless. The chips continued to rain, the axe continued to hack, the dying piano continued screaming its tuneless cries for help, and then, suddenly, it all stopped. The axe, the whimpers, the mad scramble for the wooden pieces, the run, the shaking, Mozart’s 40^th, the headache. All that remained was the sound of the sea, continuing its age old ebb and flow of waves.

A buzz in his pocket reminded him of his cell phone, and chest heaving, he answered a tired Hello.

“Dad’s gone. He’s gone.”

©Phalguni Desai, April 20^th 2005

Trickswitch

2005-04-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat, let me say, this is the result of complete drunkenness. I am drunk out of my mind. Which is possibly why I'm posting this. I might take it off when I come to my senses. It's called Trickswitch.

Trickswitch

In your tongue they call her Madeira.
In her tongue they call her poison.

Sweet wild uninhibited
Where have you
Come?
And where will
You go?
To the highest peak of madness
From the valley of the dancing shadows.

Get out the trickswitch,
Pull it out and
Switch it on.
And then
Then you may call me to
My madness.

The insanity,
The wild that arose
From her consumption.
A deeper darker feral
Intentional insanity he called it
Then he broke it off.
Broke me into two.
Ten.
Fifty.
Five hundred.
I was the currency
And you just made me
Into change.

I’m uncouth.
I’m undone.
I’m the instant flash cervical gratitude
You got out of me.

I am more. I am less.
Switch it off.
That trickswitch is my deception.
Who gave you the fucking authority
To touch
To take
To own.
In my tongue I call you a user.
A non-paying customer.
A paedophile.
A bastard.

And then that tongue
I slip into your lips.
I switch on the trickswitch.

©Phalguni Desai, April 17^th 2005

2005-04-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

What is beautiful? He asked her.

And she said, nothing. Nothing is beautiful.

Nothing? He enquired. Nothing at all?

No. except trees. Horses. My music. Art. All that is not man, but is touched by man… other than that, beauty is an illusion.

What about a smile, he argued? What about the laughter in a persons eyes? And the toothless grin of a child? What about a couple holding hands? And the lonely boat on the horizon?

Everything that is not human is beautiful. That’s why paintings, sculptures, are all beautiful.

What else is?

Death could be beautiful. But that’s an illusion, I suppose. We just like to believe it. But there’s no way to know is there?

But what about the things I mentioned? The things that made you happy once?

Their beauty is another illusion.

How do you know that?

Because it has ripples. Like a mirage has ripples, when it’s there, but its not really there…

But everything goes, and then it comes back. It’s hardly illusion. It’s life, rather.

Yes. But not beautiful. Beauty is merely an illusion, an extension of hat we want to see, as long aw we want to see. We believe it as long as we see it. And then we find another, more appealing illusion. And so it goes, until we run out of them…

We’ll never run out of them. So what if we find something more beautiful? It doesn’t make the earlier thing less beautiful, he concurred.

She said, Optimism. You’re an optimist. And to me, that is beautiful.

©Phalguni Desai, April 13, 2005.
Sorry for not updating earlier...sheer laziness combined with studies, work, etc...

2005-04-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

I've had this poster with me for a long time, but somehow, today, it finally made sense... So maybe it was Rachmaninoff, or maybe, it was just me. I don't know.

Solitude

2005-03-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I felt...unsettled. Yes, that would be the word. Perhaps. And he said to me, you need a dead musician.

So I lay on my bed, filled with despair, seeing doom everywhere, listening to Nick Drake. Going into my solitude. Letting the sunlight, multiplied by the refraction in the window glass, wash over me till I lay there blinded by the constant motion of dust elements dancing to a man singing about another who lived by the river. And this dead man, his music was so beautiful in my solitude, that I saw you there. And he made me see memories of days yet to come, moments I would one day spend. Perhaps with you.

His voice, a perfect summer voice, it melded with the sounds from the street outside, and it seemed so surreal in its reality, that I disappeared back in my soul, and it rained somewhere, in another country maybe. His voice, it sounded like summer, and his music was summer, this dead musician.

He pulled me out, this long ago ghost of days gone by. He jarred me with memories that I could make. And I felt like I were where I once stood long ago, and where I felt like standing with you. And in my solitude, I wondered if you’d come make those memories with me.

©Phalguni Desai, March 7 , 2005.

Moment of Consciousness

2005-02-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

She stopped for a moment, looked into the light, though it wasn’t really shining at her. It had never shone on her anyway. It just stopped those three inches short. It wasn’t like she was not good at it. She was. But she was vague too. And forever lost in the vagaries of her mind, to notice the changes around her. But it wasn’t like she found that a problem, this light stopping short of her. She quite liked it that way. That way, she would be the surprise every now and then, and things were simply not expected to her.

So why was she here really? To step into the light? Her sister had been in it once. It had shone bright and strong over her. On her. Her sister, with the flowing limbs and awkward grace that made her the wonder child and the tiny ballerina that she was known as. The ballerina part wasn’t true though. Her sister had been the soldier and slave to the light. Disciplined and straight as a steel ruler that architect who lived the floor above used. She wondered what the light would be like though, from time to time, she wondered, and wished it would shine on her once, so she would know. Living vicariously could only do so much. Can only do so much. Volumes increasing outside, they would never know she was not that tiny ballerina they were looking for, with the fluttering hands and wandering smiles. They would never know tonight. Tomorrow, the truth would out, and the world would watch the fall of a princess. Theorize and dissect how she went from being flesh and blood to just a translucent shadow. People around her spoke, people around her whispered. They hurried on, flew about, muttered to the things they held in their hands and sometimes to each other. As always she was too lost in those thoughts to realise there were people around at all. All they saw was a clone, not the real thing, but the strength that lost reality had lacked. A clone looking up into light. Into that single beam that bent down onto the flat wooden boards outside. They looked, and they wondered.

He saw her then. A cleaning boy looking at what his mother had called an imitation of the real thing. He wondered too, if the real thing was this real to look at. If it was such flesh and bone and glitter. He knew, if he went close enough, he could smell her, and he knew, the thought would cross, if her sister owned the same scent. He knew she used no perfume tonight. There had been no bottle, no lasting smell. He saw droplets on her skin. Sweat? Would it be salty to taste? Would it be, just to lick it off her skin, as she stood there staring into the light? Someone nudged him from the back, as if to remind him about the bucket of water by his feet and the mop in his hand. Broke his reverie. And he almost growled at them before reminding himself that this was his work. Still, as he mopped, he shuffled closer to where she stood. She looked like a statue. An angel carved out of stone, the essence of steady fires that burn and warm. But he knew her eyes would be cold as the icicle they called her. A seraphim. A fire angel. Riding on the breath of the wind. And he saw her, lying among rubies, her eyes shining like the fires of hell and her body cold as ice. And shivered. Dropped the mop he held and created a stunned kind of silence that felt like the outing of a sin. Clangs and clatters went unnoticed sometimes, but not when everyone’s nerves were frayed and stretched. He understood that. Yet, he looked into the nineteen pairs of eyes that stared at him with challenge that was not answered. Then he picked up the mop and began working on the floor again. The pricking of hair on his back told him she was looking at him now. He wondered if the thought that made him shiver would affect her. She wasn’t that old; just nine years older.

The sound of the mop hitting the floor got her out of her mind, it was that near. She looked back to see a young boy, an adolescent, staring down everyone who looked. And she shivered, for she was not used to that kind of intensity from people other than herself. She saw him pick up his material in deliberate motions and start his work again. Then he looked over his shoulder at her, and she was struck by his gaze that had won over the others just a few moments ago.

A moment defined would be like that, she thought, as she looked into the eyes of something dark and deep. And inside her, she began to pray. His gaze was like fire, a spark, all flash and flames, brilliant white heat. Her eyes, stone cold and yet innocent drew him, and he felt like he knew every minute of her existence, and could feel it in his every nerve end. She saw nothing but torturous fear there. He saw what cold be. She saw what might have been.

And then, in that moment, they both looked away. Shattered, he stared into the dirt water in the bucket by his feet. Something tightened around her heart and she wondered if her sister had felt this, ever. If this had made her a shadow, because that gaze touched her through the ice in her. She turned, smooth movement covering the frantic and sought comfort in the light. And prayed for peace to her sister.

©Phalguni Desai, February 19, 2005

2005-02-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Ruby

2005-02-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

Aidan

2005-02-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

Butterflies

2005-02-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

Run...Zina and Ruby

2005-02-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

Joy

Conversations With Me, Part 1

2005-01-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

Immense
Inane
Bitch.

Who?

Me.

Me?
Did I displease thee?

No.

No?

Ha ha.
I would I were truly displeased
For in the awakening of displeasure
Lies dormant elusive pleasure.

©Phalguni Desai, January 9, 2005

Conversations With Me, Part 2

2005-01-10T10:45:00.000-08:00

I need medicine.

Why?

I’m a hypochondriac.

And what ails thee?

Joy.

©Phalguni Desai, January 9, 2005

Conversations With Me, Part 3

2005-01-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

Think, not speak, I beg thee
Thy ill thoughts
Coupled with thy spotted tongue
That is the blessing
And the beginning of curse
Fills me with tremors of foreboding.

I see.

Conversations With Me, Part 4

2005-01-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

I shall go.

Where goes you?

I shall go
Sit in the midst of
My masters.
And their Craft
Shall I imbibe.
And their tortures shall I endure.
So their Craft
Shall I beget mastery in.
And their art
Shall I denounce.

Go then, be not too sure of thyself,
Though, for
You may have Skill
But not the power. Yet.

Conversations With Me, Part 5

2005-01-10T10:19:00.000-08:00

I don’t like him.

Who?

He, who drinks from the Kings’ cup,
Until he plays one always.

Ah, him.
He leaves me with the wish
That I were not. Here.

Conversations With Me, Part 6

2005-01-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

//Sneeze//

God bless!
Extra blessings never hurt anyone.

The Promise.

2004-12-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

She woke up to the touch of fingers, soft, and almost imperceptible, on her cheek. Her right cheek. She opened her eyes, slowly, letting the light stream in through the lashes that guarded her eyes from the sudden shock of it. Through the mussed curtain of her hair, she saw him, bent over her, contemplating, lost, and so dear to her.

“Hey, when did you get back?” Her voice was laced with sleep, with a trace of dreams in it.
“A while back. How are you?” His eyes were tired. His shoulders weighed down by duties she understood.
“Well. Rested.”
“That’s good,” was the absent minded reply, as his hands moved on to play with a lock of hair. A curl.
“You’re tired.”
“Seems like I always am, and I come to see you”

It was the need of his, that made her secure, made her smile.
“Does it sound like I mind?”
“No. That’s why I keep coming back.”
“You should get some sleep. Have you eaten?”
“I ate. You left my dinner out”
“I was going to warm it”
“Do you?”
“...what?”
“Mind.”
“No.”
“I love you”

She did not reply. Looked away in fact, for three seconds, which stretched like eternity over nerves fraught with worry and the doubt of acceptance.
Then she looked up at him, and said, “You never said that before.”
“An oversight, I’m sure.”
“Was it?”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps. I’m not really sure when. Or where. I don’t know.”

A car passed on the street outside, a droning, rumbling disturbance in the otherwise quiet afternoon.
“Should I know?” His hesitance endeared him further.
“No. You shouldn’t have to.”
“Thank God for you. I love you.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you”
Again.
I love you.
And again.
Again. Again. Again.
I love you.

A Wish upon the Cliffside

2004-12-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

She waited in the dark, waited for them to call out her name. Waited for the applause that would follow then. Waited to take her bow. Only, they had other ideas. The name that was called was someone else’s. the applause was for someone else. She never was allowed to take her bow. Then.

School was always difficult for her. Difficult to understand, more or less, how people would admire the ones that got excellent scores, but did not, in practicality, know how to spell excellent. Those were the popular ones. Also, it so happened, the rich ones. Fabulous, she thought. If those are the standards we’re living by, she thought, she’d never be popular. And thank God for it.

But that was then. Now was right here, staring her in the face. Now was the sound of the sea. The squeal of the seagulls. The roar of the waves that argued with the rocks for countless years before now, and would for as many years after. The breeze running through the blue green grass that nearly always blanketed cliffs on this high an altitude. Now was the current of air slapping her in the face, making her steps slower, stiffer. The altitude brought a drizzle that fell on her face, her arms, her calves. Soaked her dress in a way that made her feel like she was five, and dancing in the rain with her friends.

Her friends. She’d miss them. So very much. She missed them now. But she forgot the hurt of missing people as her bare feet curled into the cool, soothing grass. Her toes peeked out of the blades, and she thought of all the people she had left behind. All the hurt she had left behind. All the need for acceptance that she’d never found in her home, in her city, that she was suddenly blessed with here. In this small village on the coast, where the people spoke with a lilt in their voice and smiled with their eyes. Those smiles had made her reconsider the purpose of her visit here. Made her stay here. Made her stay. Those same smiles now eased into the smile on her face.

Voices. She heard voices, and turned, to see her friends, five of them. She ran into the arms of the oldest one. He laughed out his rumbling laugh, like thunder, and equally cheerful. She had told him so, a year ago, when she met him. And he’d asked how thunder was cheerful. She had replied, it sounded like God playing, laughing and embracing his creations. The laugh had endeared him to her. The answer had endeared her to him. In turn, she stepped to the one who was her closest friend, like a sister. His daughter. And hugged her hard and cried tears of joy. Next was her brother, and she held on to him, and he held back. They always had. And then were those she considered mother and father. As the laughter filled the cliff-side air, a man in robes came up, the priest.

Following him was the man who said he loved her. And did. The sight of him filled her with such incredible feeling, and such joy, that she had to check herself to not run to him and knock him down. As the one she considered her father gave her hand into his, she looked into his eyes, which were, she thought, chocolate, flecked with gold. As she looked into his eyes, she felt his love. As she felt his love, she thanked herself, for not having taken the step off the edge of the cliff, and not giving in to the disappointments that had plagued her life.

Sunrise and the Dream of Life

2004-12-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

I wish I’d seen it. No really, I wish I’d known what it was going to be like. The inertia. The movement. The constant, never ending tapping of feet, the beat of the drums, the sound of the wind and the sound of the sea. All in all, nature and her mood swings. Merged with Meera and her mood swings. To compare and contrast the two – Lord what a task. I’d rather delegate.

That is how I’d thought of it, wishing always, to never know her, never touch her, never really know her.

I wish I’d known now. I might have seen it then. I wish I’d seen what she hadn’t. What, until now, I did not know she couldn’t. She, a blind girl. A blind woman. I never really knew how, or why, whether she was born in the darkness, or had entered into it later, when she should have been playing with other children. Other girls and boys, and games like hide and seek, and catch and cook and playing house. I still don’t know. Now I wish I had.

Every moment, in my head, there is her voice, in the back of my head, like a flutter in your heart, the kind you feel after having climbed upstairs a five storey building. The flutter causes curses to stumble out of the climbers mouth. The very kind that stumbled out of mine, every few minutes, because I heard her laugh, her sigh, her reprimand, her voice. Her. Every moment filled with the unique sound that was her, and that was the only way I’d known her. A voice. Illusory and fantastic. Earthy, breathy and as heady as the tickle of champagne bubbles. Real, yet not. An illusion, I told myself. Never to be seen, only to be heard, like the voices in my head. Now, I wish I had bothered. I wish I had known. Wish I had seen.

Recriminations. Reproach. Worry. Guilt. Anger. All at war inside me, all at war around me. I saw, even now, the regret in his voice, as he said she’d never see me. He never said who he was. His name was secondary. He never said who he was and how she belonged to him, like an object, a toy. I should have asked. Forced my way in. but I didn’t. I turned and walked away. I wonder if she stood just inside the doorway, to hear my voice, and feel disappointed. I just turned away. A long, long time ago, I just turned away. From her, from the life I was offered if only I’d fought. A long, long time ago, I termed it as the past, and buried it.

A chance meeting then, a fleeting look between supposed strangers. He seemed to be the man who’d answered her door. Only, after the years that had passed, it seemed unreal, just like her voice that still rang in my head. Isn’t a smile, any smile, recognition of thought? And this particular thought – we’ve met, haven’t we? A longer look, and he seemed half my age. He got up, walked to me. A chance meeting, in a glossy capitalized café. It seems that was all it was. All there was to it. All it could have been. Had I not turned away. Closer, he seemed a tad younger than the man I had spoken to. Reality of time and distance setting in said, a son. They had a son. His hair was slightly different. His mouth was not his father’s. Some things, a man remembers, despite time, despite age. Despite the glossing over of memories.

He was his fathers son. Direct, and with a lilt to his accent. His father’s son.

“She cried that day,” he said. “I was five, and playing in the kitchen with my father’s clay, when you came. She stood there, frozen for a while, and he asked her to meet you. She was afraid, afraid you’d mock her. Afraid you’d turn away. So she pleaded to him to meet you at the door. He loved her very much, he would have done anything, to please her. To stop her fears. He went out, and I remember getting up then, holding her fingers, and leading her to the front door, as if that was what I was put here to do. It felt like leading a helpless spectator to the scene of the fight. Like I lead my wife to her first and last bull fight in Spain. She stopped at the door, just behind it. You couldn’t see her behind the lace curtain, and she couldn’t see you. She stood there. stood there long after you’d left, with tears making patterns over her face. Then, my father went and touched her shoulder, and she spoke: “He did not even fight.” And she stumbled up the stairs into her room. She hit the banisters, for the first and last time in my memory, as she ran upstairs. Much later, she spoke to me of it. I was nineteen then, and she said, she hadn’t the courage to see you. Or the faith to let you see her. Her blindness never hindered her work, but that day, it stopped her life. You left her.”

I sat stunned, my face, a reflection of shock and understanding, and yet confusion. “I never left her. Or perhaps it would be right to say I never stopped loving her. And yet I did not know her. I could not have known. Will you take me to her? To see her? Once, so I can explain?” even as I spoke, I realised how it might sound, to a man who seemed her son. I stumbled, halted; old age and nerves. And memories of conversations twenty-six years ago. “I’m sorry. I should ask about your father...”

The man in front of me smiled; a sad tilt that gentled his face and yet left it strong. And I remembered that was the look his father gave me as he said, “She will never see you,” and realised for the first time what it meant. Remembered for the first time, beyond just him and me, standing on the porch of her lovely house, that I had managed to track down with great efforts. Remembered the little boy gazing up at me, with wondering and intelligent eyes.

That boy, now thirty-one, with his father’s smile said to me, “My aunt died three years ago. She never married, and she kept your letters with her all the time. Now I keep them with me, in a pouch, as my lucky charm. I’m sorry. Sorrier now, than ever before.”

And understanding swam into my eyes. “Your father...”

“Was her brother,” the boy completed, just as my daughter came into the coffee shop, bright-eyed and pink from the winter outside.

“I should go now. My wife is waiting,” he said, nodding towards his table, where a young woman sat, fussing over a tiny baby. “But before I take your leave, this belonged to her, and I’d like you to have it.” He held a chain in his hand, with her name threaded into the gold links of it. Her name. My daughter’s name. Grateful, I nodded, unable to speak, and watched him as he left with his family.

Today, a year has passed that day, and my daughter is going away, to university, in another country. My wife has been around, pottering about the house, in a way I have learned to love. Cleaning, cooking and fussing over her daughter’s imminent departure. Today, I give my daughter the chain. So I can make amends to the woman whose voice still sings me to sleep sometimes. And so I can give my entire being to my wife after a score and four years. And yet, the thought will remain, I should have known. I should have stayed. Perhaps, I should have apologized. Maybe tonight, as I say my final goodbyes to her, I will.