For tomorrow.

Remember Destiny?
She brushed past you yesterday in an orange raincoat.
You stopped her by the hand and pulled her back.
She smiled and you let her go.
Her eyes were crimson in the dappled sunlight through the frosted branches.
She didn’t speak.
But you heard the whisper hanging in the air eternities after the snow thawed.
And the rain swirled over the dying streetlight.
And you waited…
For yesterday.

The Paint-box Man

There’s a man who lives inside
A branded paint-box.
And although the paint brush is too high
For him to reach the top,
Every morning just before
The sun peeps out his head,
He prises up the lid and goes
Softly with each tread.

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

His strokes are real tiny
But really really fast.
And although he knows only too well
That his paint just will not last.
He will run over his white canvas
With his blue and red and black
And touch up the twilight
But by dawn he will be back.

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

His paint-box is filled to the brim
With all the colours that he needs.
And when he thinks he is running out
He fills it up with all our greed.
His colours are beautiful –
But in places empty, say
When he paints the outside with all the colours that he has
Why inside he paints us grey…

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

behind the paintbrush

Ashok peeped over the top of his copy of the Times. The man in the opposite seat had drifted off to sleep. His snores came out in intervals, coinciding with the rhythm of the train. His moustaches quivered with each breath, a silver mass of frost on the branch of a bare tree in the wind. Ashok smiled and folded his newspaper. Then, slipping out a small black notebook, he opened it to an empty page and hid behind it with a miniscule wood pencil. His strokes were light, quick and clever and the empty page soon changed form and the yellowing white of the page transformed into a man, a fat old man, snoring with his mouth half open and his head tilted up against the headrest, who has just dropped off to sleep on a moving train.
There was humour in the lines of the drawing and Ashok could feel it. The problem was, people never saw his pictures the way he did. Every one of Ashok’s paintings was perfect in his eyes. Every hint of expression on each of his subjects’ faces was there for all the world to see, his compositions were clever, the colours just right and yet…he never seemed to make it big.
The carriage gave a sudden heavy jolt and the man woke up, yawning. He shook his head to clear it and, staring hard at Ashok and his glance, eased out of his seat and went off for a smoke. Ashok sighed and banged the notebook down on the seat beside him. He’d just have to finish the sketch without a model. He glanced around the car.
The girl in the window seat was laughing at him. Ashok stared defiantly at her, wondering whether he should have let his mother iron out the wrinkles in his shirt when she’d offered to instead of shooing her out of his room as usual.
“You were drawing that man,” she grinned. “I saw you.”
Ashok rolled his eyes. “Clever observation.” He pointed out, keeping the sarcasm in his voice as low as his irritation permitted.
“Sorry,” she started again. “I guess that was a stupid thing to begin with. You knew that better than I did.”
He nodded abruptly and turned back to his paper, hoping she’d take the hint.
She didn’t. “Do you draw for a living or is it just a hobby? Can I see what you drew just now?” She held out her palm for the notebook.
The way she talked was a little annoying. Ashok handed her the notebook and hoped that’d keep her quiet for sometime. “I’m an artist…”
She flipped open the notebooks and flipped through the pages and smiled. Ashok didn’t understand whether it was a smile of appreciation or one of contempt. Knowing people, it was probably the latter. She looked longer at the last picture – the one he’d been drawing – and then handed it back.
He pocketed it and waited for an observation. None were forthcoming, however, and he told himself that he was glad and escaped behind his newspaper again. He was not, however, to be let off that easy.
“Can I tell you something - ” She started again, hesitantly. “…about yourself?”
Ashok grunted from behind his precarious shelter. The girl looked at the sports page of the newspaper for a long time, as if she was looking through it at the reader’s face, a strange look in her liquid grey eyes.
“You hide behind your paintbrush…”
The train rattled to a stop as Ashok lowered the morning paper but the girl had already reached the door. She hesitated at the step and then looked back at him.
“Just…be the paintbrush. Be the painting. It’s not about the subjects. It’s about you.”

"That day will come."

“That day will come.”
When the green fields sigh with their white cotton burden
And the stars turn again and once more to carry on
When the sun blazes forth bristling with the glare of scorched summers
And the winter dews settle for yet another round.
The wind circles and sets course for yet another circle
The lost girl looks upwards to the stormy skies
Her black braids swinging in the passion of the moment
Asking again for the freedom,
Asking again for the answer,
Asking again for the memories
That reply with conviction,
“That day will come.”

Does she remember that clash of thunder
And the old cold hearth where the ghosts were burnt alive?
In a towering column of smoke and mist swirling together
Blending and battling – as if they were one.
Fire and ice and that dry wet winter
That forgotten heap of everything dear.
And everything else that didn’t matter
Lost forever. To an empty soul.

“That day will come.”
When the grasses shine yellow in the sunshine.
And the stars sink down into a red-gold dawn.
When the sun yields to the grey-blue line of rainclouds
And the cart road is overrun by a mass of green life.
The wind sighs and gives way to the stillness before the storm
The ghost girl looks upwards into the smiling sunshine,
Her black braids swinging in the passion of the moment
Asking again and yet again for the freedom,
Asking again and yet again for the answer,
Asking again and yet again for the memories
That reply …. with conviction….
“That day will come.”

Alive.

I’ve lived the rain.
And felt it dry.
Dry like cold drops of heaven slithering down the dome of a black umbrella.
Funny how heaven’s white.
And hell’s red.
Like black doesn’t really belong.
Someone died today.
And someone was born.
And someone said goodbye.
I wonder which was hardest.
They won the game.
And lost the day.
The last red haze of twilight sinking into a bleak horizon.
And they said it looked ‘alive’.

EVOLUTION: The Story of a Pompous Ass (Some old stuff)

PHASE I: The Pompous Revelation


Oct, ’96. The first poem I wrote. Accompanied by illustrations, of course.

Our World.

Beautiful flowers all red and blue
Butterflies fly here and there too
In the little world that is held upon
The hands of our own God.

Happiness and sadness in the world there is
So much to write upon
Books are being sent all over the world
In peace and in happiness.

Meanwhile the angry wind does sound
“Why sunshine throughout the town?”
Storms and rain sent over the world
Causes damage and crops grow.

Happiness is when books are read
And when written down.
Teaching and learning with our friends
We grow to learn God.

Referring to lines 8 and 11: ??????????

PHASE II : The Pompous Rhyme Freak with the Age Old Subjects :

Oct ’96.

MY PET DOG(Also known as: A Study in Multiple Adjectives)

My pet dog is very sweet.
Her colour is black and she eats meat.
She has a big white rubber bone
She plays with it, all alone.
She has a long, black thin tail
Her eyes are black and blue and pale.
She bathes every week, once a day,
And it’s mostly a holiday.
Her name is Tupsy, she’s a dear.
Her skin is very soft and clear!

Referring, again, to line 7: ????????

PHASE II: The Pompous Ass Yields.

June, ’98.

The Visitor.

Wearing a black suit and hat,
Came in a man holding a cat.
His face was hidden by the shadow of the cap,
The cat kept purring in his lap.
He smiled a little, by his dark mouth.
When the cat started to hiss, he did shout!
When the cat in his lap slowly calmed down,
He sat on a carpet on the ground.
The cat jumped down and sat down too.
The man took off his cap and said, “how do you do?”

Except a slight but mysterious change of a hat into a cap, the pompous ass seems to have given way.

August 2000

Wait.

Exams are almost over
Just one more day to go.
My books are in the cupboard
All standing in a row.
I won’t be needing them for a long time any more.
I can play throughout the day or go to the toy store!
The last day I have history
My favourite of the lot.
So I want to give it
Everything I’ve got.
Study, study, study.
Just another day.
From tomorrow onwards I can have my own way!

PHASE III: The Pompous Ass Returns, ‘Stronger and more powerful than ever before’. Possibly the most embarrassing phase in history.

Dec 2001.
Life

Love, joy, pleasure
A struggle for perfection.
Grief, strife, distress
A blend of creation and destruction.
Thoughts, words, affection
A description of life
An unbreakable bond with
Parents, children, husband, wife
An immature bud
Pink with a touch of love
Wet with he dews of sadness
Free like the songs of the dove.
Gazing up at the world
At the vast blue sky.
Comparing its minor self
To an endless Universe with a sigh.
Such seeming greatness
In just one out of millions
Such a number of feelings
And thoughts in just one cranium.
So powerful, so mighty –
And undefeatable
And yet so frail
And highly destructible.
Just a breath of the wind
Or a few teardrops of rain
Or the simple trembling of the earth
Can end all thoughts and pain.
Just a minor change of season.
Or a heat wave so small
Can put an end to heartbeats,
Feelings, thoughts, movement, all.

Referring to lines 12, 20, 24: heh. heh.

March ‘02

My Road – The Peak of the Reign of the Pompous Ass.

Somewhere across the horizon I shall find what I seek
Somewhere along my journey my fate I shall meet
No stars shall shine in the heavens to guide me
No maps on my road shall I see
No path will be there for me to follow
‘Ere along with the rising of the sun dawns the ‘morrow.
For then I hall look back upon the road of my past
And draw from it lessons which I may put to use till the last
I shall plunge onwards into dark shadows and fearful mists
If I am to find eternal bliss.
I must struggle onwards along my self-made road
On a path where perhaps none ever strode
And achieve a goal none ever set eyes upon.
But before that I must endure many-a-dawn.
And accept guidance and aid from those worth trust.
And suffer pain and sorrow if I must.
And if my will be too hard to bend
I shall find victory awaiting me at my road’s very end.


Dec ‘02

A Stop.

A distant wild tune came floating to my ears,
It didn’t’ lift my spirit it didn’t let flow tears
But, somewhere deep in my memory,
It stirred some long-forgotten story.
Something about it reminded me
Of something I’d experienced and yet failed to see.
In my mind the past I had left behind
Floated endlessly like the countless clouds that ornamented the evening sky.
The breezes of dusk to which bent the grass
In respect; and the pool with clear waters of rippled glass
Completed the evening’s indefinable glories
And struggled to awaken my sleeping memories.
I remembered a hand that held mine strong
When I couldn’t sleep and a comforting song –
The tune that the far-away shepherd played
On his self-made flute and slowly it began to fade
As the sheep turned, homeward-bound
And towards a sailor’s sea I turned myself around.

PHASE IV: Trial and Error.

Dec. ’04.

Deer in the Snow. (or, a little speed.)

Cold was the air
The treetops bare
The sun all lost
In the imminent frost.
The frozen ice
Seemed oddly nice.
On the white-blue lakes
Beneath the flakes.
The snow was soft
The cool wind oft
Bristling through
The leaves so few
Of evergreen trees
In twos and threes
That bravely stood
In the faraway wood.
The timid deer
Twitched both his ears
And then his nose
In his raised-hoof pose.
Peeping forth
In the wind from the north.
To see in fear
If the coast was clear.
He stepped front
Without a grunt
Back again
All in vain.
The squirrel passed
On his last journey to his horde
Of nuts all stored.
Once again
The silence was plain
And out he came
In the same
Cautious way.
So as not to say
“Farewell adieu – ”
“I told you so”
Would be the words
Of answer from the world.
He stood aloof
One raised hoof.
On the white, white snow
His fur aglow,
And then behind,
All in a line,
Came his family,
In twos and threes
Of does and fawns
On the rolling white lawns.
Relatives and friends
From the front to the end.
The mountain stream
A picture from a dream
In the bed of rock
Was out of stock
Of a gushing flow
Yet a trickle slow
Had failed to freeze
In the morning breeze.
Melting snow.
Coming down below
From a high white peak
Though the sun was weak.
One by one
The battle won
They bent to drink
And then to sink
Their little snouts
In the miniature spout
Heads low until
They’d had their fill
And then suddenly,
No time for the glee,
Of quenched thirst,
Safety first,
About turn
Before forest fires can burn
They were gone.
From the deer to the fawns.
And the silent flakes
Fell on the lakes.
And in the snow
Several hoof-prints showed
Till they too were lost
In the imminent frost.
And all was still.
And all was still.

It was a little difficult ending the rhyming scheme and hence the meaningless apparent Robert Frost influence at the end.

Feb ’05.
An Ignorant Attempt at Freeverse.

There are times
When I can’t rhyme
A word with another
It’s a bother
But it’s life
A strife
Between what can be
And what can’t
What you want
What you don’t
Or simply won’t
Accept
Without regret
It’s always there
You never know where
What you’re searching for
Neither true nor
False
Without cause
Evil and good
Shouldn’t and should
Happy sad
Decent and bad
Which is which?
What if you switch
From one to the other
Or even take it further
Or if you don’t know
If you can’t go
The way you want
‘Cause you don’t know which that way is.
Eternal bliss
Depths of Hell
Oh swell
Is there life in death
One last breath
In the light of dawn
And then its gone
In day
Far away
In a land with no land
Where you can’t stand
But only dream
And scream
Out loud
Draped in a shroud
Hidden behind
The depths of your mind
What do you find
Feelings of what kind
When it’ all unveiled
Truth is sealed
Locked in a trunk
Silent as a monk.
Never fear
A hundred tears
Only why
You can’t cry.
Is there pain
In excessive gain
Or just the negation
Of realization.
One blank stare
Without care
Existance
An instant
Of thought
What not.
It’s there
And not there
Again
And again.
In a circle
A whirlpool
Of emotion.
No notion
Of why
A sigh
Confusion
A nuisance.
However
Forever
Eternity
Infinity.
On and on and on.
A tuneless endless song.
That’s all.
You’re small.
That’s all.

March ’05.

Giving up on rhyme.

I sat down with a pen in my hand.
Thinking what to write.
The pages were empty
The lines seemed to call
For the blue of the ink of my pen.
And then,
I put my pen down on the paper.
They seemed to go together.
Blue and black and white.
And the words.
Everytime I wrote a line
I created a world.
Everytime I moved my pen
Something happened.
Leading my characters round and round and round.
I could do what I wanted
Whatever I wanted.
They were helpless.
They had to follow.
I was the rider
And they the horses.
Who couldn’t throw me off
Nor lead me astray.
I was the artist
And they the canvas
Mine to create
Mine to do what I liked.
I was the little girl
Playing with her dolls.
“Mute insensate things.”
I was the architect
And they the rubble
Out of which I built my creation
Placing them in what way I chose.
They were people.
I was God.

PHASE V: The God Poems. And Reflection.

March ’05. God poem 1.

April ’05. God poem 2.
God Poem 3.

Somewhat.

I am a character
In someone’s dream.
Just a character
That doesn’t matter.
That someone is dreaming
A dream with himself in it.
Therefore that someone
Must be someone
Somewhere
Around me.
That someone is making
The world go round
Without realizing it.
That someone is turning our lives up and down
Unconsciously.
That someone is God.
In our world.
He is God
Without knowing
He is God.
( I could be that someone too!)


God Poem 4.

God,
The sands of time are slipping through my fingers like water trickling through a sieve.

I wave my hand,
Trying to grasp the coarse grains,
But in vain.

How do you live a moment to the fullest
When that moment passes like dust in the wind?

How do you experience reality when reality doesn’t pause for you?

Stars, blinking, shimmering, in the deep blue sea of the sky.

I won’t wait.

I won’t wait for time to pause.

I won’t wait for eternity to shrivel up like a dry rose.

I won’t wait for the candle flame to flicker and die in the passing storm.

But I’ll wait.
Wait a while.
Wait and take
A deep breath.
Breathe in the hurrying breeze.
Take in the fleeing clouds.
The departing day.
The setting sun
And the fading stars.
Take in the change.
And the pace.
This race
Of life.

PHASE V: Using Melancholy

Dec ’05.

Search.

They told me God lives in the clouds.
Behind the rainbow and the rain.
Behind the mist and the smoke…
So I built a ship from prayers
And a sail from a hundred wishes
And I set sail for the skies.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me god lives up in space
Beyond the blue and beyond the beauty
Beyond the warmth and the life…
So I built a ship from whispers
And a sail from a hundred sighs
And I set sail for the void
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives out there
Behind the sun and behind the stars
Behind the world that we’ve heard of.
So I built a ship from pleadings
And a sail from a hundred chants
And I set sail for the beyond.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives at the edge.
Beyond the void and behind the rift.
Behind all that we can imagine.
So I built a ship from cries
And a sail from a hundred tears
And I set sail for the end.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives in the beyond.
Somewhere out beyond space and time.
Somewhere out behind thought and dreams.
So I built a ship from my soul
And a sail from my faith.
And I set sail for eternity.
And I’m still searching…

Jan ’06

Letting go.

I tried…
Again and again I tried to let go.
But his had was clutched in mine
At the edge of nothingness.
His eyes stared up pleadingly at me.
Sightless eyes.
Because he was dead.
And I wasn’t hanging on to him at all
But what used to be him.
And yet…
I couldn’t let go.
Not after all we’d gone through together
After ages of petty emotions
That tossed and tore
Wild horses in the wind
Around me…
Like ghosts that wouldn’t let go.
Because I couldn’t.
And I couldn’t accept that I was hanging on to nothing
Except those ghosts
After all.

God Poem 5

God,
Have you ever turned away from a sunset…
And looked at the clouded east
Like tearing away from gold
And turning to the grey
Because it gave you more
Once upon a time..?
The world is not about the grey
The old and the dull.
And they’re forgotten.
Lost.
Erased.
It’s like the wind sighing over a withered branch
Or sands blowing through the desert.
Christmas trees lying in the gutter the week after Christmas.
Used.
Wet.
Cold.
Alone.
Should I wait for the rain?
And forget the summer?
The red-gold bits of dried paint that peeled off my wall in the sun?
The shafts of light through the iron shutters, rusted in the winter dew…
The piercing blue behind the smoke and behind the scarlet curtains that spoke of the hours.
It’s all gone.
Like a breath of the wind that’s losing its echo.
Little by little
To the waves of novelty.
And I’m fighting a losing battle trying to ward off time…
But how can you ward off something that keeps you going?
It’s like being lost in the desert
And wiping away your prints in the sand
To spite the misshapen steps that led you there.
And everybody says that I’m not alone.
But they haven’t heard
The frozen silence that’s inside me.
The soundless din
That rises above the city speaking
Through its cars and its clouds
And its stray crows
That survive like a lone pair of electrons in empty nothingness.
I am alone.
Alone and stranded
Stranded in the darkness
Only that darkness is stranded in light
A light I cannot reach.
And everybody says that I’m not trying.
But they haven’t known
The impenetrability.
The pain.
The despair.
When I’m stretching out my hands for nothing – to nothing.
And walking, blinded, in circles, till I’m mad…
I have tried.
But I’m tired
And scared
Of being pushed down again.
Of being forgotten again.
And everybody says they’ll always be there.
So where are they?
All I can see are miles and miles of dust blowing away in the wind.
And I’m stretching out my hand through the bars
But no one’s grasping it.
They are there.
But outside the iron bars.
Not knowing what its like to be inside them.
Not caring what its like to be inside them.
I wish they’d turn away from the sunset
And look at the clouded east
And understand.
Just once.
That’d be enough to set me free.

Feb ’06.

I heard it again –
The whispers from what was
Seeping into my thought
Pleading for remembrance
And I shut my eyes to them
But they were already inside.

Every tick of the old clock
On the wall painted anew.
Painted yellow for a beginning
But paint peels off fast
And it’s another pathetic attempt
To ignore.

And sweeping new layers of dust off the floor
Waiting till it gets renewed
But the layer’s never gone
Off the corners – it won’t go
Piling up every time I wipe it away
Like the memories.

I tried to scrub off the handprints on the door
Again and again they cleared
And returned – there will be no end.
And every time I tried – I left a new set
Which had to be cleared but came back
Inevitably.

I shut my windows –
Latched and bolted them to the winds
Which howled and rattled the door on its rusted hinges
But my shields are made of glass
And I keep them at bay – but they taunt me
Continuously, from behind the panes.

Maybe I’m trying too hard.
Maybe I should throw open the windows
Maybe I should let the handprints be and the dust grow
Maybe I should leave the walls to their grey.
But I’m just alone – and the whispers haunt me.
Like cricket song in dark silence.
I can’t.

PHASE VI: Experiments…..

The Gobblers

A Fable of Fools, Part 2

I think he didn’t understand but he pretended he had.
But I wouldn’t be the one to know.
But I’m sure it was the racehorse rider
Who screamed “fire!”
When he saw the cigarette
And jumped off the palmyra palm
And the piper just went on playing
His Cs at D#.
He didn’t care but he couldn’t help it either.
I don’t know how long the racehorse rider took
To realize he wasn’t drowning
And swam back to the foot of the palm tree
As wet as the plumber’s cigarette
And forgot to ask us the time.
I was relieved.
But no one else noticed.
And when it started to rain
The intellectual went to a lower sheltered branch
And said he loved the rain.
While the plumber just gazed at the clouds and waited for eternity.
The racehorse rider was sheltered
And by then he’d already fallen asleep
Snoring hopelessly loud
In time with the D#s.
Which couldn’t be heard anyway
Because of the rain.

Imagine a blue world.

One grey day in the future
Little Jim ran to his ma
Saying, “tell me the story
Of the dust from the stars.”
“Liquid it was – ” she said,
“Smoke that was pure.
Prussian oceans
Blue skies – strong and sure.

“The earth was all water
On dust – now my words,
Only they remember –
Imagine a blue world.

“Then somehow someone
Fell in love with grey.
Forgot what blue meant
And we went astray.
We sold what was given
And we killed the rain
And in place of the oceans
Scattered ashes of pain.

“Once the earth was all water
On dust – now my words
Will have to remember –
Imagine a blue world.”

Little Jim, he cried back
To the ghosts of the past.
And we stand here listening –
Do we hear him? Will this last?
Do we still love the blue
Much more than the grey?
‘Cause that grey day in the future
Is not so far away.

The water is dying
To dust – and our words
Are all that is left
To save our blue world.

A Fable of Fools, Part 1.

This is a story of five people
On the highest branch of a palmyra palm
(Who were obviously lighter than normal)
On a five foot diameter island
In the middle of the Pacific.
One was a plumber
Who didn’t have any work to do
And got bored.
Another was a racehorse rider
Who had lost his memory
And kept asking people the time at first
When no one had a watch.
The third was an intellectual
Who got tired of replying
That time was only relative
And worked out from the position of the sun
That it was around three o’ clock in the morning
But he couldn’t figure out
What time it was back home
Because he didn’t know a lot of geography.
The forth was a piper
Whose pipe had got soaked in seawater
And the C sounded on the D#
But all else was fine.
And the fifth was me.
And I was only experimenting –
Counting the number of seconds
Till one of us got mad
Not counting the racehorse rider
Who was mad already
As also the intellectual
Because my grammar isn’t very good.
I think it was the plumber
Who asked for a cigarette
And I had one on me
Although it was soggy.
And the intellectual laughed at us both,
Asking where the match would come from.
I stared at him and said
It didn’t matter because the plumber didn’t want to smoke.
He just wanted to hold the cigarette
Between his lips like he always did.
And the intellectual echoed, “like he always did.”
And sighed.

Fantasy

Do you close your eyes
To a dying storm
In rolling green wildgrass
Beneath shades of grey
And smoke mountains beyond
The glittering endless sea
From a magic window
On a spiraling tower
Of a fairy castle
Between the high rocks
Where tears have fallen
Of some long lost dreams
Sometimes at night
When the wind is still
You can hear the dragons
Beyond the northern wall
And remember their gold
And their frightening eyes
And the rumble of their wings
Under the midday sun
A day in a year
A trumpet sounds
To the clatter of steel
In the courtyard below
And out in the harbour
The sails are unfurled
And the coat of arms
Dazzles in the sun
On a high mast
Where the seagulls swoop
To stare and then
They fly away
And by noon
The ships are gone
And handkerchiefs lost
From tired fingers
Now and then at dawn
You wake to hear
Your horse neigh loud
From the stables below
And you grab your sword
And ride bareback out
Without thinking
Where to go
The mountains call
And the green shadow pines
The old lost path
Up the forested slope
Where if you’re still
You might just spy
An elven head
By a whispering brook
You remember once
You never went back
One starry evening
Against a moss covered trunk
And the unicorns
Came out to bask
In the silvery light
From the crescent moon
And the toadstools glowed
Phosphorescent and love
Before you just fell asleep
A ring of dancing lights
On Fairy’s Nook
A treasured dream
Beneath a granite dolmen
On a carpet of grass.
There’d been a time
When the wicked queen
From over the mountains
Had sent a horde
Of swarming evils
To take over the land
And the fairies had disappeared
For a long long time.
You remember the steel
Clashing overhead
And the arrow whizzing
Through the stinking air
The woods on fire
And for a moment there
You didn’t care
But for the lust of blood
The dying cries
Wouldn’t leave your dreams
For years and years
And time went on
The fairies returned
And the forest grew
Again anew
Out of the ashes of war.
Beyond the magic wood
Up the path and on
To a soft wild meadow
Where the wind is strong.
It slaps against you.
Outside and inside.
Like flute music
From a shepherd’s song
The eagles soar
And from down below
It’s still so high up
That you can see
All your world
And much much more
To the shady horizons
Of your eternity.
Here you wait
For the thundering rains
To flatten the grass
And obscure the sky
Blending black and white
With a touch of blue
Blue for freedom
That lasts awhile.

Dust.

This is the old hall where we sang our old prayers
In timid quartets, our fingers smudged with ink.
And the old wind blew through the creaking shutters
Singing along in a tune we once knew.
The rows of empty seats where we imagined our fantasies
And velvet curtains where the walls were damp
The grand old organ we didn’t dare to touch
And the ghost of the past hiding between the pipes.
Old was new and our worlds were coloured dim
With glistening fantasies of a history read and heard
The colours of antiquity – much of it imagined
Where the dust had gathered from the passing storms.
The windows have been thrown open
Since then, by some unseen hand of betrayed eternity
And the wind, in some gory daze of triumph
Barges in unheeded – where it was once barred.
And flusters the dust – some misplaced remnant
Forgotten and complacent, left behind by time.
The shutters aren’t there to creak to the song
Of the wind anymore, or our forgotten tune.
But there is the dust forever and on…
The dust of yesterday. The dust of memories
Layers of new merging into the old
Silent songs of overlapping destinies.

Dreams.

There’s a path behind the sunflowers
That leads down a steep little slope
Winding around jagged pieces of rock
That belong, beneath each of which
Brazen weeds lift their heads to the treetops
More real than the sky-reaching dreams.
Of some ordinary haphazard commonness
Making more sense than ideals
They seem so real to me now.
When I never noticed them before.
There’s some sort of law about upward turned gazes
Which lower as the ages lengthen
Not because ideals are lost
But because they are renewed.
Less beautiful than before, to be sure.
But so much more real, so much more endearing.
And if truth is beauty, more beautiful
Than dreams can ever be.

a bushy tree?

i hate my mouse. it gets stuck at the wrong times.

In between.

"where i will always return"

this was supposed to go with the post below but it wasn't uploading so here it is now...

yesterday lost

I found heaven in a painted matchbox once.
Because someone told me it had been painted by someone I’d loved.
I didn’t even remember but that didn’t matter.
I thought it was right that I should treasure it even though I didn’t really care.
It didn’t slide out easily because the paint was thick.
Green and purple, I always knew it wasn’t really any good.
I could see the unsteady hands in every uneven stroke.
But sometimes when you’re pretending you forget the pretense.
And everything becomes as real as you pretended it was.
So I cried when I lost it one day in the rain.
Funny how many stories end with a hole in a pocket.

I found heaven in an old broken piano.
They told me it could never be fixed.
Something rotten about the wood on the inside.
I think I liked it that way because I never complained.
I used to finger the carved cherries on the stout little legs.
And make up little stories about the one that had broken off.
It didn’t make a difference that all the notes sounded the same.
A stiff footfall on a wooden staircase.
They managed to fix it in the end. And I forgot what it had meant.
Like an easter egg which had lost its own inside.

I found heaven in the line of thunderclouds over the southern horizon.
The grey line over the other grey line – but it meant so much more.
And the way they sped nearer – the vastness of existence.
And the first sudden sound of raindrops on the hardened tiles overhead.
The smell of wet earth, how it always came down to that.
And the upturned leaves, bent over in the wind.
The wild exhilaration of nature invading our boundaries.
But summer skies are bluer when the rain has passed.
And spring is only spring when it comes after winter.
I guess I’ll find heaven again when the year turns round.
A different sort of heaven, but that’s always how it is.

I found heaven in a little wild tune.
That came to me with no reasons and no origins.
I whistled it all day, and hummed it when I was tired.
I tried picking it up on the piano, but it didn’t sound the same.
It came with no obligations… and it went without the same.
Only the sides had reversed. And it didn’t come back any more.
I tried many times to remember, but you know how it is.With a tune that doesn’t come back.
It didn’t even hurt when I gave up.

first light

and god said, "let there be light."

grey

God,
I saw you the other day out by the jute mills.
The sun was in your eyes as you looked up at the sky.
You lifted a grime covered hand against the intolerable gold
Seeping through the swirling grey line of smoke from the iron-clad chimneys.
And watched the light filter through your fingers, red-gold and tainted.
Sparkling honey-dew and sulphur sprinkled across your bronze skin.
Change is good. But nothing really matters.
Change is inevitable. But no one really cares.
Something precious, like the pride of creation.
And that of the creator… when industry smiles.
I thought perhaps you still find beauty in pain –
Because nothing is more beautiful than hell distorted.
Symphonies of splintered glass where you waited
For the blue… and found the grey.
You looked back but didn’t see me standing by the clearing
Where the old tree once stood a long time ago.
It had no name… like me and you.
But you’re still trying to lose yours.
Grey is beautiful, too, if you turn your eyes from the dazzle of colour.
That’s where I lost myself because I didn’t understand.

weird.

…and then I was tagged.

Which means:

1) write down 6 weirdo factors about meself.
2) Tag 6 more people and thus keep the chain going!

What fun!

Here goes:

1) I think too much. Which isn’t always a good thing. The “look before you leap” sort of
thing. Like the bananas on the table. Well, not quite all that much but somewhat.
Someone asks me a very simple question. “Where do you live?” Instead of answering
It straight out or even speaking my thoughts aloud I start a chain of reasoning.
The question is where I live.
If I am to frame my answer such that he understands, I’ll have to know how much he
knows about the place I live.
He will obviously know about so and so place. So I will tell him about that.
On second thoughts, he might not… but he’ll know about such and such place.
So that’s what I’ll answer.
And because I’m not a computer I need some time to reason all this out. So I buy time
by repeating the question as if I haven’t heard.
Its worse when it’s a question in a
geography exam. Reading topography maps. I always end up thinking too much. A
simple question like the slope of the land. There’s a single hill in the south and the rest
of the southern part of the map is flat…lower than the north. So I write that. But the
correct answer would be the simple one. Slopes from south to north.

2)I write my personal diary in such a way that other people will understand what I’m
talking about.

3)I live to show off. Most of the time. That is, like everybody else I’ve got this horde of
different personalities inside me, each for a different person or a different mood. The most prominent among them likes to show off a lot… she’s the one who lives to show off. So I live to show off. Most of the time. But I also show off that I don’t actually show off so no one understands… if you understand what I mean. Or maybe I just think I like to show off. See, I’m doing it again.

4)I sound crazy and… stupid when I’m in the mood and perfectly irritatingly practical
when I’m not.
I’m in the mood now, as you can probably make out. And I’m weird in a very
methodical way.

5)I live in fantasy fiction. Narnia, Madeline L’engle, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings… the
finding a new world kind. Do you know that feeling you get when you dream of flying?
I get that when I read these. Is that weird? Or just plain romantic?

6)I am a “dangerous substance for glass objects”. In the last three weeks I broke:

a) A bottle
b) Two glasses
c) A bowl filled with curd
d) The glass door of a bookcase.
e) A glass photoframe.
f) A bangle.

6 isn’t a very big number…. I think I could probably go on forever. People like thinking they’re weird.

Here’s my list of the six people I’m tagging:

1) googly (they don’t come any weirder than that)
2) rupsha
3) jahnavi
4) apurva
5) priyasha
6) snigdha (even though she has only one post in her blog… may this be a reason to post another)

Weird is only a word. And all words are relative. I think you’ll find that one out after you go through their^^ posts.

death of a world

Sitting against the dried hard bark of the banyan… the leaves were still green then. And the stiff stillness of midday that coloured the white lilies dull red in our eyes because we were hot from running and we would have run more if we could.
“Imagine…” And that’s how it started. You told me to write them down. My fantasies of colour and emotion that I couldn’t quite make you understand.
So I did. But I wanted more. And my fantasy grew from two pages to ten… the nouns became larger and the adjectives increased… but I couldn’t stop because I had a book to fill.
And the story became a novel.
And I’d created a world. A child’s world… the handwriting loops of indecisive decoration and the characters those well-rounded figures from a child’s bedside story – the fat bald man, the pigtailed little girl in candyfloss pink and the dog who seemed to understand everything you said.
And the days were too short and the plot so detailed…. then once, or twice, the sequence led around a fairy garden only to double back and loose itself in a fisherman’s knot that wouldn’t let go. And neither would I.
Did I tire of those knots? I didn’t let it show. Instead of erasing the entire path I’d ease them out, little by little, leaving behind a trail of growing complications that I’d take in my stride.
And my handwriting became formed and my sentences shorter and more intelligible and my ideas more ambitious than ever before.
And eventually, like a musician with a new instrument, I let go of the last….
I forgot my world… and started another. And another. Till I couldn’t keep track of them all.
And you asked me why I didn’t show you what I’d written of the old story any more and I said because I can’t.
You told me once to put down the world I’d created. That’s what I like doing. Putting down my worlds… so that instead of being forgotten and lost in some unused corner of my memories that has clouded over with cobwebs and dust because I never visit it anymore, they would be forgotten and lost – old diaries scribbled over in an unsure hesitant handwriting – in some unused corner of my cupboards that would be clouded over with cobwebs and dust because I never visited it anymore.
Because that’s what I do. Create worlds. Story? I never bargained for a story. Neither did you.
But at some point of my own story I tired of the candyfloss and the red bulging eyes… the bold staccato of reds, yellows, blues and greens and yearned for cyclamen, hazel, azure and emerald. Because at some point that’s what everyone does.
So I gave up the red world and the yellow world and the pigtailed girl in candyfloss pink stood behind a cast iron boundary fence and sulked at me as I walked away…towards more knots.
And my world died. Because I didn’t want it anymore.
And a little girl sitting under a banyan, looking happily up at you, saying, “imagine a blue world…” was lost to the storms of complexities.

going bananas

There were four bananas on the tabletop.

And one of them was the one for me.

So how do I choose between four bananas?
Maybe I should take the one closest to the edge of the table.
Maybe I should take the one furthest away from my reach.
Maybe I should take the one with the least number of black spots.
Maybe I should take the one that wasn't really remarkable in any possible way.

Should I just close my eyes and pick one and leave it all to chance?
Should I just do what every one else does and take the one nearest to me?
Should I try to be different and take one of the others?
Or do most people try to be different and take one of the others and I'd really be different if I didn't try to be different and pick the one closest to me after all...?

Is this really as easy as everyone makes out?
My whole life might depend on which banana I pick as an after dinner snack.
Maybe this decision will affect all other decisions I make in my life.
And therefore I am, right now, at a crossroads. Four paths of life. And at the door of each is a single banana, each a miniscule bit different from the rest.

Maybe the banana second from the right has a deadly poisonous worm inside it from the deepest jungles of Africa and if I choose that I'll die instantly and go to heaven.

Maybe the next banana has a blessing laid upon it from God or whoever it is lays those blessings that whosoever eats this banana becomes the happiest rich guy in the world.

Maybe one has a curse saying I'll fail all the next seven exams I give in a row and pass the eighth one with flying colours.

Maybe the last banana is just an ordinary banana that won't change my life in any stupid way.

Maybe one banana would suit me and one wouldn't.
Maybe the one to the right would be too grainy for me.
Maybe the second from the left would be too sweet.
Maybe the first from the left would be just right but I would never know because I'd have eaten the third from the left which wasn't right at all.
Or maybe all of them would suit me equally well.

How can you tell with bananas? They're all wrapped up inside skins where you can't see them.
You can't even sample one and then leave it and try the other. Because once you choose, you've chosen and you're banana sticks with you for better or for worse.

I gave up. And I walked away from the table. Maybe I'd come back later and choose my banana.
Or maybe I'd let other people take away the bananas till there was only one left and that would be the one for me and it wouldn't be my fault if my banana didn't suit me because I had no other choice.

The trouble with careers is, you can't do that.

a wish

Little Martha sat by the window and stared out at the sky.
She didn’t see the pink-white clouds, or the birds flying high.
She didn’t see the colours of the sun, the trees of every kind,
Or even the young moon, faint and slight: Martha, you see, was blind.
But as she waited for another black
Dark empty day to pass,
Growling angry rain clouds came
And hid the brilliant sun – oh so fast!
And little drops, tiny drops of sweet kind rain came down
Touching ever so gently her soft warm cheek and her frilly laced gown
The windowpane was raised up and the curtains drawn back too
And the rain, finding an open door, gleefully flew into
Martha’s spick and span little room
And settled on every space
And gleamed silvery on her mirror and
Light brown on her face.
And then, in a sudden miracle little Martha smiled
Because you see little Martha had suddenly realized
That no one, not even God up there was where she was right now.
And no one, no one in the world knew exactly how
It felt to be her – it felt to feel
Something you could not see
Something that came in its own sweet time
The delightful absolute glee
Of feeling something as a surprise-
Before you knew it was there
And giving you entire attention
To what you felt only – the soft breath of air
Or the soft touch of rain
Again and again and again…
And Martha by the window in the rain and the wind
Martha in her rain-washed room
Martha in her utter delight
Wished that very soon
It would rain again and the rain would catch her by the windowsill
And she wouldn’t forget the way to feel the way she just now did.

thinking of yesterday

Like a frozen ripple of unused humour in the red-gold slashes of darkening twilight and a circling masterpiece of dank cold autumn crocuses shivering in the summer heat for newfound realities of hungry illusions dissected and thundering simplicity in prussian and again and again and again…
I never meant what I said…
I never said what I meant…
It was just lost in a single breath of stifling stillness to the bruised midday infinity.

"Rosemary for Remembrance"

“Rosemary for remembrance”
…she said – and held up a sprig.
“Rosemary for remembrance” and we sailed the skies
And gathered the splashes of colour off spring.
We painted the bare grey sea
And pushed down the midday sun…
Then, smiling, we said goodbye…

“Rosemary for remembrance”
And I kept the sprig…for eternities of seconds…
Watching the wood sprites play around it
Bathing it with dew and kissing it softly…
The leaves soft brushstrokes of green…
Green for a new day.

“Rosemary for remembrance”
…and the sprig wilted fast.
The wood sprites grew cruel and cold
And left it to its fate.
Dry colours of death…brown and ochre
Because death is remembrance…
And life is oblivion…
And it’s all a screaming chaos of opposites.

“Rosemary for remembrance”…
Rosemary for life…rosemary for death.
Rosemary for eternity and rosemary for oblivion.
Rosemary for a laugh…
A laugh that I couldn’t discern from a cry…
“Rosemary…”

Question

I asked God yesterday
To tell me about death
And I’d tell him about life.
Tell me about freedom
And I’d tell him about bondage.
Tell me about blue
And I’d tell him about grey
Tell me about reality
And I’d tell him about illusions.
Tell me about eternity.
And I’d tell him about a second…
He smiled and he shook his head.
Stupid, he said,
They are all one.
If you know about life,
You’ll know about death.
There is no knowing one without knowing the other.
Opposites are nothing but two edges of a stretch
That’s within your grasp.
If one edge is near,
Pull the rest in.
You’ve known all along.

twisted

A pen
An instrument
Of expression.
When words,
When your voice
Fails.
And the dry tears,
The silent cry,
The colourless blush
Or the blank laughter
Is unnoticed –
And twisted language
Is twisted further
Into twisted tales
Of relentless thought.

WORDS

God put a pen in my hand.
He put paper in front of me.
He breathed consciousness into me
So that I might live
To create.
And the first letter I wrote
Said, “God doesn’t exist.”
So he stepped back and said,
“So let it be.”
And he went.
Always there
When I need him most.
Never there when I want to see him to be able to believe in him.

WORLD

My sister’s playing with her Barbie dolls:
“Will you come over for tea?”
With miniature cakes and kettles so small
And a beach rug next to the imaginary sea.
She holds them in her hands,
Makes them run over the sand
And talk to each other happily.
She’s named them, too,
Clara Brown and Mary Lou,
Lucinda and Rosemary Green.
And dressed them in laces, ribbons and shoes
That glimmer and shimmer and sheen.
They do what she wants
As she dances them about.
They whisper, they talk, they scream, they shout.
She speaks through them, creating a reality.
They seem right there,
Real and fair.
Living and thinking in their world
Of teapots and cutlery and plates and parties and shoes that fall off at every turn.
It’s all an illusion, a dream, a fantasy
That she creates in her thoughts:
The picnic spot,
The sandwich, the sand and the sea.
They’re lifeless and thoughtless
Non-existent in her hands
Their world’s an illusion, the sea and the sand…
All in her mind
Of a childlike kind.
She doesn’t know much
About the world as such…
Yet she has the right
To make her dolls live a life
That she’s made up.
It’s a child’s cup
Of tea.
To create a world
Be it with pictures or with words
And make it a reality
For those who live in it
And lead them by the nose
Helpless and clueless,
Following, wherever their road goes.
On and on and on…To where?
She alone knows.
That little girl of three.

In the Rain by the Sea

There I was,
On the sand
With my umbrella
In my hand
And the rain pelting down on my face.

There I was
By the sea,
With a reason
To be me
Watching the wind and the waves in a wild race.

All alone
Standing tall
Daring to be there
Daring to be small
Just there under skies so gray.

I
In a storm
Nature
In her most expressive form
On a cold wet September day.

The sky
Was vast
The lightning
Fast
The sea an eternal stretch.

I was small
The world was huge
I was soaked
In the deluge
One lone figure in the blue gray swirling sketch.

Believe

God sent me a shooting star.
A spark that slashed
Across the dark heavens an night.
I didn’t believe in Him.

He sent me a rainbow.
An arch of colour.
Glittering between the sun and the rain.
I didn’t believe in Him.

God sent me a storm.
A wild raging storm.
That tore the heavens apart with its angry beauty.
I didn’t believe in Him.

He sent me a dawn.
A golden dawn.
Early and fresh and the bird’s young song.
I didn’t believe in Him.

He sent me an answer
To my prayers.
Fulfilled my wish and all I’d asked for that time.
I still didn’t believe in Him.

So He sent me Fear.
That ripped apart my heart
And froze my blood and bones and forced a tremble in my limbs…
I believe, God. Have mercy.

A Thought...

God,
I look out the window and I see a star.
Behind the tree that has large leaves like plates.
Trembling into sight and out as the branches quiver in the wind.
And I think…
That’s Who You are.
Not the star.
Not the tree.
Nor it’s branches or it’s leaves.
But all of it together, including the breeze and the tremble.
And me, who’s there to see it.
That’s You, God,
Existence.

Silver Earrings

SILVER EARRINGS.



Anne Bartley was a tall girl with flaming red hair. She wore frameless spectacles and silver jewelry. She wouldn’t be caught dead with a gold earring on.
I ran into her the other day at a restaurant. She had changed. Then, I had, too. So I didn’t find anything unusual about that. I walked up to her after making sure that she was Anne. It was ages since I had last seen her: at school in my hometown. She was on her own at a table for two. So I just sat down beside her. She looked up at me in surprise and slight indignation.
She had her hair tied back loosely and was wearing heavy make up. Two large gold rings hung from her ears.
“Hi! Fancy meeting you here all of a sudden!” I smiled. “Why, don’t you remember me? It’s Clara – Clara Hughes!”
Her brows contracted a little. She frowned at me. “Clara – ”
“School, Anne, school!” I urged.
She smiled now. “Oh! Imagine that! I didn’t recognize you, Clara! I’m so sorry! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I work at the place opposite! What about you? Never seen you here before.”
“At the newspaper office? Are you a reporter there?”
“Yes. Well, how about you?”
“I’m planning to get a job there. In fact, I’ve already handed in the application form. I’ve come to see if I’ve got the job. Couldn’t wait for the letter.”
“Oh! Then you must be doing that new column on the second page that the boss was talking of. If you are, then you’ve got the job, alright!”
She smiled happily. “Oh, good.”
I looked around for the waiter. “Are you waiting for someone? Otherwise I’ve a good mind to order for both of us. What will you be having?”
“Whatever you prefer. I’m not all that hungry, really. Nerves, I expect.”
“What have you been doing with yourself all these years, Anne?”
“Things.” She replied, her mind on the menu card.
The waiter came and took our order. I looked at her gold earrings.
“Tastes change, Anne?” I asked.
“You don’t know how much, Clara…” She replied mysteriously.
“So, what are you going to do your column on?”
“The supernatural.”
“As in – ghosts?” I couldn’t suppress my smile.
She shook her head sadly, not in denial, but just an expression of sadness, as if she was laughing at me.
“I like your earrings, Clara. Where did you get them from?”
I was proud of my earrings. I’d got them from an old shabby shop that sold valuable trinkets. They were silver. And old floral design crafted beautifully.
“A family heirloom.” I shrugged.
She smiled. Her own gold earrings sparkled in the sunlight coming in through the parted curtains. Suddenly I felt curious about her. All this time she hadn’t ventured any information about herself. And she had changed a lot.
“ Do you mind if I ask you about your earrings?” I stammered.
“ A gift.” She smiled. “From my husband.”
“When did you get married?” I asked, sitting up.
“Ten years.”
“And your husband, what does he do?” It was being exceedingly difficult to keep up the conversation. I was asking all the questions and she was giving short direct answers, not making any effort to prolong the conversation. I felt like a lawyer questioning a witness.
She sighed. “He died three years ago.” She said, not looking at me but at our approaching meal.
The waiter laid down spotless clean plates in front of us and served the steaming hot stew.
“I’m sorry,” I said. She shrugged, blowing over her spoon to cool it down.
“The earrings –” she said, laying her spoon down on her saucer and pointing at my ears. ‘Will you give them to me once?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, just let me hold them.” She smiled, reassuringly. “I’ll show you something.”
Bewildered, and not at all sure of her intentions, I slipped each earring off my ears, one at a time, and held them out to her. She took them from my hand.
“Didn’t you say you didn’t believe in ghosts?” She asked, her head cocked to one side like a parrot’s.
“I didn’t say that exactly but, well, I don’t think I do.”
She was pleased with my reply. She sat up, eagerly, holding my silver earrings on the palm of her outstretched hand, where they glittered like moonlight in the sun.
“I have a theory.” She started, looking down at my earrings. “When a person dies, he leaves behind a part of himself in this world. Understand, though, that it isn’t he himself that remains behind, but his trace, his shadow, his ghost, if you would call it that. And this part of a man doesn’t live – it can’t, it has no life. It’s just the dust of a burnt out fire, scattered over the fireplace where the fire was once lit – the remnants of a thing that no longer exists, at least, in this world. And like the dust in the fireplace, this part also remains clouded around things that belonged to the man. Not things like his money or his office. But things which were really his, so to speak. His house, his clothes, his shoes, his comb, which he saw everyday, used everyday. Things like earrings, if it comes to a woman. Earrings, you see, are my specialty. I can read through their aura. And yours, Clara, are really very interesting.
“They tell me that they belonged to a woman. A very wealthy woman whose wealth dried out, little by little. She was fair and tall. Her auburn hair fell to her waist in soft curls. Her eyes were green – a deep clear green. She was headstrong and powerful. She inherited a fortune from an aunt and was used to all the luxuries of life. These earrings were given to her by her father.
“They were a wedding present. Her husband had a title but was poor. Every attempt at business on his part failed miserably. They started with a large house. A huge house too big for two people, too large for three even, if you counted her baby son. Also they kept a horde of servants to manage it. The servants disappeared one by one. The husband flaunted her money extravagantly. He went on long, expensive holidays, gambled, drank and slowly ate into her wealth. The house had to be sold soon – they couldn’t manage it anymore.
“They moved into a small bungalow on a street which belonged to the less fashionable area of the city. They didn’t keep any servants anymore. She slaved day in and day out cooking cleaning and looking after her ungrateful husband. He didn’t make any changes for her. He still went on about his life the same way as before. The money they had left dwindled. He started going to her father for loans. Her father couldn’t refuse them.
“One night her father was returning from a vacation. Her husband was supposed to meet him at the station. He didn’t show up. He got drunk at a party thrown by one of his friends and forgot about his father-in-law. It rained heavily that night. Her father couldn’t possibly know that her husband wasn’t coming and waited for hours in the rain. When he finally staggered into her house he was soaked to the skin and very ill. He died the next week.
“What money she inherited from him was used up in a year. A lot of it went in clearing her husband’s debts and the rest of it in gambling. They were penniless. She spent days sitting in her house wondering what to do. Everyday he went out with his friends drinking at their expenses.
“One night he came home really drunk. He entered the house and slumped down on the sofa in the drawing room and fell off to sleep. Her little son came into the room crying for some reason. He woke up angrily, slapped him as hard as he would a grown man who had slighted him, and went off growling to sleep once more. She lost her temper. Her kitchen knife was lying nearby. She picked it up and plunged it through his heart. He was dead before she flung the knife away. Then, slowly, systematically, she brought a pen and some paper out from a closet, sat by her husband’s gruesome dead body and wrote a letter to her cousin, asking him to take care of her son and left him her silver earrings to give to his son’s wife when her son grew up.
“Then, she placed the letter in her son’s hand and retired to her room. She hanged herself from the ceiling, her dead body dangling lifeless and limp, a cord taut around her neck, her eyes open, staring and dead.
“Her cousin sold these earrings to a shop after they found them still on her ears. He wasn’t going to care for the child, whom he sent to an orphanage. The child was sickly and weak and died soon after the incident.
“So you see, Clara. You didn’t inherit these lovely silver things as a family heirloom. No, you bought them at a shop, a shop that sells little trinkets. That is why when I see these earrings I don’t see them on any of your ancestors but on the pale ears of a dead body – the body of a strangled blue woman hanging limply from a ceiling.”
My stew was cold. I hadn’t touched it. I didn’t feel like eating anymore. Trying to think for a good excuse, I got up and pushed my chair in. Clara smiled up at me, the earrings still in her hand. “Going so soon?”
“Sorry, I have to get back. I lost track of the time talking to you. The boss will be getting angry and I still have to see to the evening edition. It was lovely meeting you after all these years. Do call when you’re free. We’ll have lunch together again perhaps.” Throwing some money for our meal down on the table I hurried out the door before Anne could realize that I hadn’t given her my number. I wanted to be well locked up inside my department before she went to the office with those horrible earrings that I’d dared to call mine.
The sun was high in the western sky and the heat was almost intolerable. The sunlight forced its way into every open window into every shadowy lane. The office building was exactly opposite the small restaurant. On either side of it small flower shops were lined up, closed for lunch. The flowers in the window drooped in the sullen heat of the early afternoon, their otherwise vibrant colours dull in the orange bright glow of the midday sun.
I hurried in through the open doorway and ran up the stairs, my leather bag dangling from my shoulders. The office was relatively empty. Everybody hadn’t come back from lunch yet. I was early. Technically, I hadn’t even had lunch. A few people were sitting idly about, eating packed meals and chatting. I sat down with them.
“Back early, Clara?” George Farthing asked, looking up from his computer screen. George was a little too serious about his work. He worked through meals and coffee breaks. “Looking anxious, too? Lunch been too expensive for you?”
“At least I can afford to eat everyday, unlike you.” I replied, turning towards the door. The boss had just come in. He was a short stumpy little man with nervous manners and a nose that could twitch in the funniest manner at odd times.
He looked at George, craning his neck to look over the monitors.
“The new employee’s just arrived. She’s standing outside. Would – would you show her around, George?”
George nodded briskly, getting up. “That would be Mrs. Clive, I presume.”
The boss nodded, turning to leave.
“Excuse me, sir,” I burst, surprised. “That wouldn’t, by any chance, be the woman who’s to write the new column for the second page of the paper, would it?”
He looked back at me with an annoyed frown. “Why, of course. Mrs. Clive’s going to write on ‘managing a house’. Or something the like, if I remember rightly.”
“And Miss Bartley?” I ventured. “Anne Bartley?”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s not going to join here?”
“I’ve told you already, Hughes, I’ve never heard of her! How many new people do you expect me to employ in a day?”
“She has written to you, hasn’t she, asking for a job?”
He looked at me with a queer expression on his face.
“I haven’t had any letter asking for employment in the last eighteen months. No one by that name has ever written to me in my life, I can guarantee that.”
I grabbed my bag and ran towards the door, excusing myself.
“Mad as a hatter,” I heard George mutter after me.
I flew down the stairs and rushed out of the building into the heat. From across the street, it looked as if the table I had had lunch at that day was still occupied. I hurried into the restaurant. An unknown family, dressed shabbily, was sitting at our table by the window.
I stood still for sometime, wondering what had just happened. A sudden thought made me walk out the door and hail the nearest taxi I could find. I wasn’t going to give up till I knew.
The sun was much less aggressive when the taxi pulled up outside the dingy old shop. Its reddening rays seeped through the dark stained glass onto a large dirty-looking tray laden with jewelry and little trinkets in the window. The artificial stones glowed softly and, somehow, mysteriously in the dull light. The faded letters above the doorway were almost unreadable – paint peeling off the rusty board.
I walked into the shop, feeling nervous. As I pushed open the door, a bell attached to it tinkled softly, its sound bringing out an old wrinkled man to match the old wrinkled shop out from somewhere behind the old wrinkled counter. He nodded feebly at me, his small but magnified bright blue eyes peering out from behind his thick glasses. He recognized me from my previous visits.
“And what are we here to buy today?” He smiled, half of his yellow blackened teeth missing.
“Mr. Shepherd,” I asked, hesitatingly, “do you remember the silver earrings I bought a few days ago?”
He nodded at a moth-eaten tapestry hanging on the wall behind me for a few minutes, processing my question in his mind, slowed down by his years.
“The flower – ” His face broke into a thousand more wrinkles as he smiled. “Aye. That was a beautiful one. What would you like to know about that one, lass?”
“Where did you get them from?”
Once again, his balding head bobbed on his thin weak neck, his eyes on the tapestry. This time, he took longer and I waited, my heartbeat loud in my ears. At last he broke off from his stupor, looking at me with another wrinkled smile.
“That would be from a little girl, lass, only ten or thereabouts. She sold them to me. It’s my belief she told me she was gifted them from a rich uncle and she didn’t want no jewelry – only a book she’d seen in some shop. She bought it with the money she got from me.”
“You didn’t get them from a man whose cousin died a few days earlier?”
“Why no, missy,” He broke into a laugh. “Who’s been scaring you with wrong ideas? Those earrings were beautiful. What would you like today? I’ve never seen a gal with better taste, no sir. No one saw those earrings before you and I’d kept them in the center of the window for all the world to see. This lady saw them too and she’d be about your age. Poor thing. She hadn’t the money to buy them. Not them and not any others in my shop, though I have them so cheap. The only things she could afford were a pair of large false gold rings. And she had taste, too. What this world will come to, I don’t know, lass. Ah me, look there she is outside. Talk of the Devil – ”
I whirled around. I was too late to catch more than a glimpse of Anne’s face. She was pressed to the window, her eyes wide in shock at seeing me there, a silver glint beneath each of her ears. Then, in a swirl of flaming red hair she was gone, with my earrings. I rushed out the door as fast as I could. The only thing I was in time for was the sound of running feet. The street was empty.
I never saw Anne Bartley or my earrings again.

The ghost who owned the footbridge

THE GHOST WHO OWNED THE FOOTBRIDGE




She ran out into the rain and into the darkness, straining her ears for a sound of footfalls coming after her but none came and she realized that was the way it was. Her two dollar scarf that she’d picked up at some yard sale which she went to only to oblige some acquaintance flew back behind her, untwined itself from her collar and glided away in the flying wind. The rain lashed into her coat, driving the frayed stitches deep into her skin and seeped in through the moth holes and drenched her fake designer evening gown. Maybe she was trying too hard to be herself.
The streetlights glared from behind the thick translucent curtain of rain, a glazed phosphorescent halo around their shadowy posts. Her feet splashed through two inches of drain water that some burst pipeline had let into the streets, the splashes drowned in the roar of the rain and the intermittent clashes of thunder. The sky was pitch black and the clouds invisible in the claustrophobic emptiness of the night and she ran with her face raised to the skies but she couldn’t keep her eyes open because of the rain. The sheet of water above her glittered in the soft light like a shower of blessings from heaven, only she knew them for what they really were.
Past the criss-crossing chaotic mess of roadways that the weather had driven empty and the tall apartment blocks behind the thick concrete walls that kept the burglars out and the silverware in, the lines and rows of monotonous houses whose lights were hidden behind heavy linen curtains that seemed as thick… and the night thundered on. The river was right ahead and past the turning. She couldn’t see it because of the rain but she imagined how it would look with the tiny ripples on its ever-moving surface magnified by the storm and she was satisfied. She ran on and felt the hollow toughness of wood beneath her feet replace the cobblestone road as she stepped onto the footbridge and she thrust herself against the railing and slipped down to her knees, pressing her face in through the bars.
She pulled off her ruined black crepe silk hat – the one that had belonged to her mum and the one her mum had given her for Christmas because she wanted to borrow money from her – and tossed it into the waiting depths below. The raindrops trickled from her sad blonde locks onto her face and down her cheeks like misplaced tears that she’d borrowed from the skies because she had none of her own. She turned and sat back against the railings and sighed. The whisper was lost in the rumble of the rain and the wails of the wind.
“I wish…”
And the rain thundered on…




“What do you wish?”
She leapt up, startled, and peered into the darkness. The voice was sad, like her own should sound now, if she spoke, only her voice had lost any emotion it could possibly have held a long time ago.
“I’m sorry, I can’t see you in the dark – I didn’t see you –”
“It’s alright. I didn’t see you either. I just heard you.”
She could make out his silhouette now, kneeling back against the railing just as she was, just opposite. She hadn’t noticed before. She hadn’t looked before. The city lights were strong but dimmed in the rain and dimmed further by the empty dark not-yet-lighted long stretch of unused road between the station and the river. She could hardly see him yet, only a dark form against the spent lights of the city behind.
“Did I frighten you?” He hardly seemed to move as he spoke.
“No – ” She edged forward a little, peering at him through the haze. “I mean, yes. Perhaps a little. You surprised me. ”
“As you did me. I generally don’t expect anyone to be on my bridge.”
“I come here pretty often. I’ve never seen you or anyone else here for that matter.”
“Funny, don’t you think? If the bridge is yours as much as it’s mine, you would have thought we’d be knowing each other, wouldn’t you?”
“At least have had seen each other – ”
She stretched out her hand and her fingers brushed against his jacket – the waterproof polymer felt hardened and yet calm under her touch.
“I have seen you here before.”
She withdrew her hand with a sudden jerk. “Who are you?”
The pause she expected didn’t come. Instead, rough fingers, warm and still dry from being tucked safely under the jacket closed around hers from the other side of the darkness.
“Not who you’re thinking I am, I promise.” His voice was gentler, stronger. “Tell me, do I sound like him?”
She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on his hand, raising her head to the rain. The drops were gentler now; their wild harsh strikes a little less spiteful, a little less wild.
“No – I’m sorry. It’s just that he’s the only one I’ve ever come here with.” And for the first time in fifteen years her voice broke down. “Was the only one I ever came here with.”
And the rain, drumming onto her skin in a frenzied chorus, drummed into her thoughts the lost ties and futile gestures of painstaking adorations, lost promises and treasured vows that served only to, again and again, remind her of the cruelty of false facades of love and the world.
“I’m sorry about him.” The sound of his voice didn’t break off his respectful silence – only seemed to emphasize it.
“He’s gone now… away from who I am…” Then, not quite paying much attention to the incongruity of what she was saying, nor of what he was saying, she broke into a gay laugh. “And I have you. You’re my new ghost.”
“I’m your new ghost and you are mine,” he acknowledged, in a matter-of-fact manner. The rain stopped suddenly, as if cut off by a bout of contentment that did not belong to the night and yet was strong enough to drive it away. She looked up at the clouds, now dark red in the silenced heavens and then brought her eyes down to his chiseled face, his silhouette clearer and formed without the rain, and smiled.
“When will you be here?” she asked.
“Always.”
“When will I be able to see you?”
“Always, now. Whenever you want to.”
“Goodbye then.”
She let go of his fingers and felt them slip away, not quite aware of the feeling of his touch edging away from hers but of the depth of his eyes, as she imagined them, looking into hers in the resolute darkness. Then she turned and ran towards the lights.
Her boots splashed heavily through the waterlogged streets, the sound they were making amplified by the stark silence of a rain-washed night. Her drenched coat weighed her down. The cool breeze that had sprung up after the storm slapped against her cheek and her coat, pushing the warm stitches against her skin and finding their way in through the moth holes, bristling against the silk of her gown. The streetlights looked warm and bright against the blue-orange sketch of the city, somehow inviting. She looked up at the fleeting clouds and the obscure patches of deep blue sky in between, trying to spot the infrequent star.





And, from the storm that had moved ahead, leaving her behind – or had stayed behind and let her move on ahead – a soft growl of thunder reached her ears from the east.
She stopped suddenly. And stared ahead, smiling. And then turned back to face the way she had come. The footbridge stood empty and bare, its wet wooden boards gleaming softly in the light from the city, and her heart fell. She ran towards it, splashing through the street, and closed her eyes to remember. Her footsteps splattered across the rainwater and then onto the hollow wood yet again and she opened her eyes to stare at the emptiness on her bridge.
“Are you there..?” She searched for a name and then realized she didn’t need one. “I want to see my ghost – my ghost who owns my footbridge – ”
“I’m here.”
She swiveled around on her heels. He was standing behind her, at the foot of the bridge, having materialized from some shadowy corner beyond. A smile played across the corners of her lips and she could imagine it being reflected on his.
“On our footbridge.”

****************************

LUCK

Ten…
Nine…
Eight…


So I had a shotgun to my head and my finger on the trigger and my lips mouthing the most ghastly countdown I’d ever witnessed in my life. What had happened? I had no idea. All I knew was that I was all alone in this ancient music hall, the old stage lying in ruins across the front five rows of moth-eaten seats that were barely visible under the rubble and the sawdust, a single dying-out electric bulb hanging from the dilapidated ceiling near the barricaded entrance, splaying a pathetic hollow yellow haze all over the place.


*****************


Perhaps it all started with that old woman in the coffee shop. The old wrinkled dark-skinned woman in the heavy brass jewelry, with the awful peeling-off make-up and the foul-smelling mug of what she called coffee and what she was trying to coax me into accepting for the whole dollar (daylight robbery in the first place) I’d spent. Oh, and her weird black hat, shaped like a bird’s nest and made like a deflated balloon or something.

She bent over me like one of Macbeth’s witches, silver-gray hair spilling out from behind one wrinkled dirty ear and took the coffee mug away from under my nose – where it had been creating a near-asphyxiation effect. Breathing a sigh of relief I was about to leap out of my uncomfortable chair and dash out of the door like a sprinter at the crucial start of a marathon, when the woman stretched one parched hand out from under her shawl and, pushing me back into my seat, whispered impishly into my ear (although it had seemed more of a cackle than a whisper at that time), “It begins today.”

So what had begun that day? Truth be told, I still don’t know. Perhaps she had meant the car that had stopped by me on the road just outside the shop and thrown out something that inexplicably smelt, looked and tasted like washing soda all over me. Perhaps she had meant the flock of white and gray birds that had alighted from the hedge around my garden, leaving behind their unwelcome leftovers all over my carefully mowed lawn. Perhaps she had meant the friendless old man who had collapsed with a heat stroke in front of my drive and made me drive him over to the nearest hospital and spend all but every cent of my money on him for a check-up and a treatment and wait for the doctor’s report plus the police report after that for six hours in that wretched stark white crowded waiting room in the crux of the afternoon. Perhaps, I hope not, though, she had meant that pretty lady in the Mercedes, who looked somewhat familiar and who’d leaned out of her window to blow a kiss at me and then disappeared behind a shaded glass.


*******************


Seven…
Six…
Five…

Or maybe the story had really started ten years ago. Under the scorching sun of the heart of Africa – a clearing in the depths of a forbidden jungle – the tall broad branches of the huge unyielding trees that hardly obstructed the glaring merciless sun, the incessant chatter of the birds and the monkeys interrupted to a standstill by the sudden gunshot that had blasted through the din, sounding like a scream in a room filled with humming priests.


I had two bullets left. My revolver was getting heavier instead of lighter in my left hand as I ran in and out through the stout trunks, creepers clinging on to the peeling bark, although the bullets kept disappearing by the minute. I heard the soft whimper of the monster behind me, its paws falling softly and surely on the thick entangled undergrowth. I was fast – but not fast enough. Not even close to fast enough for escaping a creature bred and raised in the midst of the jungle, in a race for life that was taking place in the middle of its own element, with me carrying nothing but a measly little revolver that had two bullets left only.

It was playing with me. I could sense the tense excited delight in its every footfall, movement and hot breath that escaped through its snarling display of sharp teeth – built for tearing flesh – my flesh at that.

Perhaps I lost my head back then. Perhaps it was a calculated movement on my part. Whatever it was, I left the suffocating jungle and ran into the clearing. Had I seen the abandoned temple from between the trees that bordered the clearing? I didn’t think so. However it was, with whatever fortunate twist of fate that had brought me there, there it was: an old half-collapsed temple, its northern wall a crumbling heap of dry ancient ruins, blades of new grass peeping out from between the edges of the decaying bricks.

I ran into the ruins, as far in as I could go. The animal couldn’t come in. Its huge tawny body was too large by far for the small entrance. It paced outside the doorway, an angry snarl stretching the corners of its lips, losing its temper now and then and hurtling itself at the old good wall, only to bounce back with a painful rib with each failed attempt. Its eyes were transfixed on mine, hypnotizing and unmoving, challenging and frightening, large and bright orange, the pupil a small but deep black hole, surrounded by red-green flecks. I took aim and shot the thing. The bullet whistled into the bushes behind the animal, which leapt aside with an angry growl. I could see the blood seeping out through the tough skin on his foreleg – where my last bullet had hit its mark, a foot too low for my liking.

The last bullet.

I don’t know how long I waited for a good shot. Hours, ages, maybe the whole day. When I finally lost my nerves and took aim for the shot, knowing that one bullet wasn’t enough, knowing I was going to die, the shot never rang through the thick fruit-scented air of the evening. A single arrow whizzed over my head and embedded itself in the animal’s hide. It lunged forward; the arrow seemed like an ant on its great strong muscular back for a moment; then it fell, floundering, at the foot of the wall. Poisoned.


I swerved around on my heels. A man stood in the distance, visible through a small gap in the part of the wall that had fallen in, a white man with a grin on his face. He walked around the ruins, to the entrance – where the huge beast lay sprawled across the doorway, its once terrifying eyes sightless and dazed, its tail sill thrashing the earth, raising pathetic amounts of red dust, at long intervals that got longer by the second, its breath short, slow and irregular emissions from its flaring nostrils.

The man was tall, scrawny and young. His beard, though, was white and unkempt – as unkempt as his hair was tidy. His clothes were native. He stepped over the beast and walked into the temple, towards me.

“Dr. Livingston, I presume,” I quoted, stammering, gaping, at my rescuer. His grin broadened.

“Close, Stanley,” he retaliated, his accent stiff and British, his tone friendly and informal. “It’s Daniel Scarridge to you. Dr. Dan. I’ve been working with the tribes around here for ages. Glad to be of assistance.”

“Ralph Summers.” I stretched out my hand, not even trying to lie about what I was doing, running from an overgrown wildcat in the middle of nowhere with only a revolver in my hand.

He grasped my outstretched hand in a strong grip and smiled, nodding. Then, suddenly, he snatched his hand away, his grin fading into a look of horror. He grabbed my wrist, flicked my palm over to face the sky, and scanned it intently. Then he backed away from me, his intense blue eyes probing into mine for a long moment, before turning and running towards the trees.

I called back after him. “What’s wrong?” The monkeys were chattering again, in rhythm with the twittering of the birds, at the setting in of dusk.

He paused. Then, hesitantly, he looked back. “So it hasn’t begun yet?”

I shook my head in a gesture of bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, crossing himself with a trembling right hand. “You’ve been marked.” It was hardly more than a whisper – but I heard it clearly in spite of the evening sounds of the jungle. At that moment all other sounds seemed to freeze into a sudden nerve-wracking eerie silence. Then the moment passed. Dr. Dan turned his back towards me and ran into the woods.

The animal gave one last jerk and relapsed into a dead stillness.

***************



Four…
Three…

Or maybe it had started that cold September night on that miserable little ship somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic fifteen years ago, the gusty wind screaming at the cabin windows and the tumultuous waves roaring as they hit the weakening hull, time and time again. The world was a chaotic mess of blue paint, dabbed randomly across a gray-black canvas, the brushstrokes strong and terrifying. White streaks of lightning slashed across the stormy skies, which growled in anger as the sea answered back with its relentless rumble.


I stood on the deck, swaying with the movement of the boat, the wind slamming into my face.

“Mr. Summers?” The voice was high-pitched, shrill almost – a small girl’s voice.

I turned. She stood by the door of one of the cabins, hardly four and a half feet tall, about eleven or twelve years old. She was muffled in a big woollen coat, sheltering her slight figure from the harsh weather. Her light brown curls fell over her cheeks, reddened by the cold. Her eyes were a clear emerald green.

“Yes?”

“He won’t wake. Mr. Reynolds won’t wake.” She was agitated, confused, shifting her weight from one foot to another.

I ran up to the cabin door and, turning the knob, pushed it open. The man sat back in his chair in one corner, staring up at the ceiling, an expression of painful surprise on his aged face, his bald head shining incongruously in the white electric light.

I bent over him and checked his pulse. Stone dead. I turned to face the little girl. “What were you here for?”

She shrugged. “I came to see if he needed something. Mary does it everyday. She’s sick today. Papa asked me.”

Mary was the stewardess and papa was the captain. I nodded. “Go call your papa. And Dr. Frisch. Hurry.”

I heard her footsteps run up the deck to the captain’s cabin and leapt to my feet. Reynolds’ glass was on the table by the chair, the rim glistening silver and the contents sparkling red. I picked it up, hurriedly, and, running out of the cabin, threw the liquid out into the sea. Then I ran back into the room and washed it carefully, meticulously, with water from the wash-stand and placed it back on the table. Then I turned around to face the dead man and smiled.

“What if tell them that the glass was full when I saw it before?”


I jumped. The girl was standing at the doorway, her hands in her coat-pockets, a complacent smile playing at the corners of her lips. I stood staring at her wordlessly, tense and apprehensive.

“You poisoned the wine, didn’t you?” She walked in calmly and sat waiting on the bed. “I saw you washing the glass.” She leaned back, resting her weight on her palms, her arms stretched back behind her. Her gaze travelled around the cabin, coming to rest on a large brown leather case in a corner.

“What’s there in that?”

I sat down beside her on the bed and shrugged the question off. “What are you going to do about it?”

She smiled again. “Are you going to kill me now because I know you did it? Don’t worry. I haven’t called papa yet. And I’m not going to tell anyone. You should know.”

I nodded. “You should call them now.”

She stood up and looked at me. “They won’t know. Don’t worry. You used a good poison.” She ran to the door and stopped to look back at me before she walked on.

“Be careful. Someday your luck will run out… and then it will begin.”


***********************






Two…

It was a warm summer night. I was fifteen. And reckless. And daring. And there was a circus camped behind our country house. So I slipped out through the kitchen door and jumped over the boundary fence and slinked towards the caravans…

The moon slipped in and out of wispy pink-gray clouds, the sprawling green meadows splashed with silver and shadows. The caravans and the tents loomed up ahead, their vibrant colours faded into a dull gray in the light of the moon. I tiptoed up to a shaky temporary wooden stall that sold charms in the daytime. A single piece rested in the small coffee-stained glass case I’d seen on my first and officially only visit. Its silver gleamed in the moonlight streaming onto it through the old glass; the amulet was enchanting, breathtaking, even in the dark when the intricate designs on its disc were invisible. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off it that morning. And it wasn’t for sale.

I wanted it. I wanted that old fake silver locket that hid behind a dusty corner of the shredded velvet in the showcase. I didn’t even think about the fact that all the other trinkets had been taken inside for safety and this one had been left behind; I didn’t even realize that this was too easy. I didn’t think of it as dangling bait on a fishing hook, I thought of it as luck…and I guess I was right. Too damn right for my own good.


I prised the glass open, slipping my hand in under the brass-lined cover and drew the thing out. I didn’t risk a peek at it. I turned and ran.

A branch cracked behind me. I stopped dead. And all of a sudden, in the dead silence of the still night, someone laughed. A mocking triumphant hoarse laugh, that crept into my blood and made the warm night so much colder, so much more sinister.

I turned. A figure stood poised by a caravan, against a starlit sky and the pale ghostly disc of the moon, his face in the shadows.

“It’s yours now!” His voice was guttural, his expression mocking, triumphant, excited. “We couldn’t give it to anyone, we couldn’t sell it to anyone. And now it’s yours. You’ve brought it upon yourself, boy, voluntarily. We’re free.”

I shivered, every instinct in my body urging me to run; but I couldn’t. I needed to know.

“It’s a luck charm, boy,” he called, after a pause, his voice gentler, sympathizing. “It brings you luck alright, for a number of years… and then…and then it takes back all it gave. You can’t give it away. You can’t throw it away. You can’t lose it. You can’t sell it. And when it’s tired of luck, that’s when it all begins… the nightmares.”



*******************




One…

So here I was. I’d had a good forty years. Adventuring in the wildest corners of the world, playing with my fortune, stealing gold from a dead smuggler’s large brown leather case and trying out my version of the perfect murder at the same time, exploring the depths of the remotest jungles on the earth, hunting scary wild beasts, trying my luck to the farthest stretch. And now… well, luck was a funny thing. It gave and it took. What it had given me was a wild crazy life of my fancified desires. What it had taken away was the ability to get around without luck. I mean, so many unlucky people seem to get around fine without it. But now that I’d got used to it, I couldn’t imagine a life without luck. So I was done for. Finished. Dead. And dead unlucky, at that.
The crazy car, the stupid birds and the sick man – they had just been the beginning. It got so much worse after that. From near-death accidents, no less than five broken body parts, one dead friend and two dead parakeets to huge gambling loses, stock-market crashes and a short-circuit fire that blew up my beautiful New York apartment, I’d experienced it all, what an old man from my shady past had called “the nightmares”. And I guess I could have stood through all that… if it wasn’t for the real nightmares. The woman in the car: the pretty lady I’d seen the day it all began. Every night I dreamt of her. Just staring at me throughout every scene of my dreams. Her cold gray mocking eyes locking into mine, triumphant and evil. I woke up in a cold sweat every morning, that frightening beautiful face haunting my thoughts and my very consciousness. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I didn’t know who she was, or why she frightened me so. I just couldn’t take it.

I tried throwing the amulet into the river. It got caught on the suspension wires of the bridge. I tried leaving it there, and every place I went to, every restaurant I ate at. It kept reappearing in my coat-pocket. So in the end I thought maybe I should end this thing. Really end it. And what better place to end it than the place it had all started in. The music hall that had been built, a year after I left, over the meadow the circus had parked itself in. It was in disuse now. Broken-down, neglected, forgotten. Like the life that I’d left for a more exciting one. And this was the end…

Zero…

The light bulb hanging by the door flickered and died out.
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Stop. Rewind there a bit. What had I said back there? “So many unlucky people seem to get around fine without luck.” And what had the circus people done? They’d traded their fortune for mine, losing the amulet to me. How had they done that? One last spurt of luck before the dark? I didn’t think so. The amulet was, before all, a luck charm. And losing it, then, wasn’t lucky at all. It was unlucky. “The amulet takes back all the luck it gave.” And the first bout of luck was finding it in the first place. But you couldn’t lose the amulet. You couldn’t give it away, throw it away or sell it. But the circus people hadn’t given it to me. They hadn’t lost it, or sold it. I had taken it from them. Stolen it. “Voluntarily.” So maybe the way they got around fine without the amulet’s luck was because they were unlucky. Unlucky enough to have it stolen from them. So maybe… maybe it wasn’t too late for me. I lowered the gun.




I heaved myself into the overcrowded bus. The signs glared down at me from above every dark head: “Beware of Pickpockets”. I’d figured the best way to lose it was the Thomson and Thompson way: the end of a chain of pure silver that I’d attached to the amulet hung from my coat-pocket, swaying with each jolt of the wheels on the potholed road, temptingly. A poverty-stricken country in the hotter regions of the world. Faces, brown from continuous exposure to the tropical sun, stared curiously at me, an out-of-place visitor, reeking of wealth. It was a bus that carried farmers from the market to their villages miles and miles away, farmers, travellers, traders and the odd pickpocket or two. So why did I prefer these pickpockets to our own back at home? Simple, I wanted that amulet as far away from me as possible. And as far away from the places I was likely to go to in the near future. Assuming I’d escape the enchantment, of course.


I moved in to the centre of the narrow passage between the seats. There was no room to sit, and I guess I preferred it that way. I wanted to attract all the attention I possibly could. Correction, I wanted the chain in my coat-pocket to attract all the attention it possibly could. And I waited. Waited for that heavenly soft tug on my coat that I’d hardly notice if I hadn’t been waiting for it, wistfully. One hour. Two hours. Three. And it never came.

The bus was out of the town area, speeding through fields of yellow corn, wilting under the heartless sun of the drought season. The roads were worse here, the bus hardly inching its way in and out through mounds of abandoned ‘repair work’ that had started last century and would end the next millennium. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky or a drop of water on the dry earth. We neared a village and the bus stopped, the conductor leaning out to help the new passenger in.

My heart skipped a beat. I stared, dumbfounded into the eyes of the woman from my nightmares – the woman in the car that dreaded day – the woman who frightened me so much that I would have driven myself to suicide. Only her gray eyes had lost their cold malevolence. They were friendly and surprised, finding another American in this place. She came walking up to me and stood next to me.

“Tourist?” She asked. Her presence didn’t frighten me as it always did, her face didn’t scare me.

“Yes. I’ve seen you before, back at home.”

A look of panic flashed through her eyes – so fast that I almost didn’t notice. “I… think you must be mistaken. I haven’t been in America for ages.”

Then I remembered where I’d seen her. Before that day on my way home from the coffee shop, of course. Her face had looked familiar then. Now I knew why. She was the woman who had been suspect in the Manhattan murder cases in ’98. I seen her on the front of the Daily and forgotten her, along with thousands of New Yorkers that year.

She must have seen the fleeting look of recognition in my eyes. She turned and pulled on the emergency chain. The bus braked, with a sudden jolt that sent me lurching forward, grabbing wildly onto the nearest seat. When I’d recovered and stood up, she was gone.

I put my hand instinctively into my coat-pocket. The amulet was gone, too. With her… and away. I knew it was gone, now. Finally. Forever. She’d never come back to America. Or here, for that matter. For the same reason why I never cross the Atlantic on boats anymore. And I… I was free.

It had been a good thing after all, meeting her here in one bus out of a dozen, in one town out of scores, in one country among hundreds – a chance in a million. Lucky.

Or should I say unlucky?

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