Oh...Ya...You Know...

So we don't have much time. So we're students. Studying is our first duty, above any need for recreation, leisure or basic human sustenance. Very spartan, I tell you.

That shouldn't mean we can't see each other. Of course we can! And we can sit, and we can chat. Even if there is really nothing to say. I mean who wants to talk about exams, right? Which colour pen I used? Does it really matter if I switch to blue from black? What really is bad karma? Is it a white lie if I keep my cell-phone in my pocket anyway, switched off and quite harmless, seeing as how I'm a wuss when it comes to cheating? Should I scramble through the attic in my head for answers, flip the pages through the book opened in my head and focus on that one blurred line somewhere? Or should I retain a certain poise, a charming countenance, a dashing handsome-awesomosity and an infinite grace as I cross out yet another question I can't answer?

Should I? Should we even talk about such things? What is there really in an examination? Tensions, hair-pulling-outing, glorious triumphs, disastrous losses and sometimes pyrrhic victories as you spend too much time to solve one question correctly (and away go the other two). Jealousy, envy, strife, corruption, conscience and that dammit Eye of Sauron, our invigilator! Agreed, it encompasses all of life's vexations. Plus great fantasy fiction. But that doesn't mean we must.

Speak of it, that is. No. No no. No no no. Please. It's over. Let it pass like the idle wind that troubles me not.

We can talk of better things, of happier things, of higher things, of greater things, of more meaningful things, and of things of little or no consequence to pretty much anyone.

For example, have you ever played with those rackets you get nowadays, that run on batteries and can be used to electrocute mosquitoes. I did! I warred with them! The wretched bloodsuckers fell around me as I, fresh from an inspiring re-watching of Star Wars, took out this strange, red, light saber thing and felled the mosquitoes right, left and center. I executed the most complex moves around the room, my each stroke stroked to kill. The racket hissed and crackled as mosquito toast was served again and again to my most excellent floor cleaners, my ants.

It was, so to say, in a colloquial sense, ozzum! I had my tactics all thought out and everything. There was always the good ol' straight charge, with rapidly oscillating racket to prevent them from slipping through any large enough gaps in the netting. That was for the initial rounds, before they could get prepared and require me to resort to advanced strategies.

Then there was the lull-into-false-security-and-then-launch-suddenly-back-and-get-em-boy maneouvre. Basically, I'd lull them into a false security (about their safety and well-being) and pretend to look elsewhere, or admire portraits, or comment on the weather outside and the like. You know. Suddenly, just when they'd let their guards down and decide to relax a little, I'd pounce at them with a "Hiya!!" on my lips and my saber cutting a deadly arc through the unexpecting atmosphere around. Hiss! Crackle! Crackle! Hiss! Hiss! Crackle! Crackle!

Finally, I had a vicious death-row move. I'd go almost blind in it, the racket a blur in my hand and my arms flailing with it everywhere. This works extremely well for inital charges as well. Or for a skirmish sake. Possible side-effects include a perplexed and bemused room-mate. You see, it involves breaking the sacred rules. You have to let rage take over for a bit. Now now, I know what you're saying. No good Jedi lets his anger rule his mind. Anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to a rush of blood through the head, a rush of blood through the head reminds you of Coldplay, Coldplay leads to more anger, more hatred and all new irritation now on top of it, and this surely does lead to the Dark Side of the Force. But don't worry. Have it under control, I do. Give those mosquitoes a whooping everytime, I do too.

And thats me. Right...about....now! You tell me, what up.

* Radio Edit *

I solemnly swear that I shall bite your head off if I ever find you out. So, begin counting your days now, and hope that you never ever run into me.

And that stands for you too, God!

Sympathy For The Devil

Another bomb blows up another part of town in another country another month, and I look at you.

I watch the splattering of blood, the ripping apart of metal and the shattering glass panes, and I smile at the devastation unfolding. I hear the silence in the still millisecond immediately afterwards and I pause to listen in. I hear the rising clatter of shrill cries, the heart-wrenching wails of disbelief and that cry that marks the beginning of the realization.

It is the realization of calamity, of an abrupt, unforeseen shift in life, and I smile to myself as I see you wade through all this.

What is it? What is this you call your sorrow? These shouts, these screams. Is it this physical discomfort that troubles you? A broken leg or a dislocated shoulder? A few burns and a head injury?

Is it the shock that scares you? The sudden explosion and the loud noise that shatters your ear drums? Is it a helpless inability to deal with this evil, which has suddenly chosen you as a victim, that shocks you? Leaves you senseless and numb, until a shriek of primal horror escapes from somewhere within you? Really, is it that?

What is this you call your pain and your suffering? You pathetic mortals! What do you know of evil? What do you know of strife, of war, of loss or of wretched pyrrhic success? You can not recognize the face of evil anymore. It is a face that you have grown accustomed to. It is the champion of your existence, and an Atlas to your world. It has seeped into your system, replacing a gear here and fixing a fault there.

It has now become your system. You are an evil.

So don't blame me for what you bring upon yourself. I only smile at you now, as I watch you go about your works. I'm not the evil you can call the cause of your woes and your miseries. I'm not the evil that wishes you misfortune. I'm not the evil that attacks your loved ones or takes away your reasons to live. I am not an evil. I'm just a counterbalance.

I shall wash your sins at the very end, the end of it all. I shall have to deal with the poison in your system. I will live with you, with the utterly despised part in you. In all of you. And I, you say, am the Devil.

As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer.

And if you meet me, have some courtesy. Have some sympathy, and some taste. Use all your own well learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste!

Lovesick

Dear M,

I wish I could tell you this face to face. I want flowers and a string quartet in front of me as I say it. However, that doesn’t matter.

I love you, M. I am not scared of saying it. I know you complain to your friends about your boyfriends being commitment-phobics. Thats not me. I know how you sit alone in your room and read love stories, waiting for a fantasy romance to come alive. I see you with your friends, joining in their laughter and their lives, yet slightly aloof. You're waiting for your own life to begin.

I wish you knew how much I care for you. I want to hear your golden voice again and again. It's why I phone you every night. Just to hear your voice, unknowingly addressed to me. It gives me a fright too, you know. I feel like I'm overdosing on something very precious.

Life will turn around, so take care. Those nights you spend staring into your mirror, talking to yourself, trying to figure out your life – you scare me. I can't bear to see you like that, night after night.

I want to help you. So, I'm writing this letter to you, to tell you that there is someone who loves you. That there is someone looking at you. That there is someone who cares.

Every single day, every breath you take, I'll be watching you.

There is no reason to be afraid anymore.

Love,

X.

Staring Into Space

An old memory. The frame of his view was just a haze, a blur. The focus was him. And there was her, of course. Always. Even when it wasn't him. But mostly, it was them. They were together, at the center of it all. It wasn't in black and white or tinted in brown sepia like traditional flash-backs were expected to be.

Everything was still in colour, just as fresh as if that day was today, right now. Together, they danced. Though it was more than just dancing. Or less, depending on how you saw it. They moved together, but not too much. It was not any physical mastery over any dance-form that they showed. They moved together, just not too much.

The music was very soft, very slow. It didn't try to sweep you away to any foreign land. It did not tryto elevate you to a higher consciousness. It had no crescendo, and no climax. It just played. One note after another, each one a soothing and understanding partner to the one before it, and to the note after. It wasn't a carnival or a grand ball. It was just an evening, alone. The music chose to merely help things as they were. It pushed, it prodded. It tugged at their hearts, pulling strings and slowing the beat, till all of it went in rhythm - the music and the two hearts moving to it.

Their hearts beat together with the notes struck on the old gramophone, and they moved together. Together they took the same steps. His hands were on her waist lightly, careful to not hold too hard, but deeply aware of every inch of skin he felt with the tips of his fingers. Her hands were on his shoulders, resting weightlessly. They'd never danced before, he knew. But...It was either the song that told them, through some unknown connection, or they told each other, without words and without signal. Through an unknown, unspoken connection. They danced together as if the summation of their whole lives had led up to this night. Every single moment of it had been a prologue. It was here that the story, the purpose, began. And here it could very happily end. He looked at himself in the memory. He saw himself look at her, into her eyes.

He knew he wouldn't need words here today. He knew he did not need to choose the words or pick the phrases. He did not need to banter. He did not need to even bare his soul. Nothing was needed today.

They moved in slowly and kissed. The lights faded and the memory closed. And the old man woke up again. In the habit of several years, he chided himself softly for going back to it all. Like everytime. Hadn't it been long enough now? It had, it had.

He did not even have a photograph. He had nothing. Sometimes, he wondered how real it had been. If at all. Did it really happen that way? How could it have been all that, and now all this? How?

Mayday! Mayday!

Now that it's done and over, I don't ask for much. I did before, but not anymore. It is just the one thing left which I can have, and I don't see why I should be denied.

But here we are. And all that doesn't happen. All I want is the graceful exit. The perfect ending and the movie's closing credits now that the climax has been played out before an audience.

But that only happens in the movies. It's significantly more difficult when a period of 5 to 6 years cannot be compressed into the 3 or 4 minutes of one song. Just the one song of courage and hope and beating the odds. I like it how it leaves no moment for hesitation or second thoughts, at all. It starts and it rises. And as it rises, it takes him with it. At his moment of triumph, the song leaves him with an echo and an orchestra.

Why can't we have that? Why can't there be a song that does it for us? Takes us all the way to the end?

Recurrences can be scary. Very.