Monday, April 17, 2006

Right, something I wrote:


Navigating along a familar route, it is rather odd how people can meander through paths, following a dotted line on a map that is seen only in the nanosecond moments when lids are pulled down over the eye in a blink. And as limbs and thought wander off on a different track, you see the many things that you see everyday. A part of the flattened image that wallpapers your perimeters: there, we have the dry grass and above, the bright and cloudless sky that from its great distance, is changing the green to brown. There, we have the red, silver, blue, black cars of generic make and there, the bus that rumbles along with flawed suspension, lopsided. There, we have the cracks on tarmac.

There, we have the lady who is waiting patiently for the temple to open its gates that are now speckled in pearly rust. Yesterday and like the many days before, she might have been sitting by the steps with crumbled edges, or by the roadside curb holding on to an old bag that in turn, hold on to its fruits and cakes. These items, asserted by our mortal tastes to be overripe and bland, will soon in an offering, be making their ascension to the heavens; the seams of the said bag meekly protest this, and slouch over the edge of the curb like a soft anchor.

Today, she is standing and stretching her arms, soft curves that arc into the sky and you wonder where her anchor is before realizing that it is already there. The gates are late today - the tending old man, who you suspect lives and sleeps in the temple, is still sweeping the grounds clear of the dust that sweeps in everyday.

You wonder what it is that she could be praying so hard for.


..........

On another note, the death of a friendship is so awkward to navigate through.

So what do I do now: do I still politely smile and make inconsequential small talk or twitch my hand in a passing wave or even bother putting on the veneer of cordiality or ignore you because why bother right or just ignore it because on my part at least, I've always sort of known it was like that except that now, the horse has said its word.

What, in the world, do you do with a corpse?

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