SNIPPETS

 1. BLIND

8 april 2023

 I shouldn't have came in here. I shouldn't have so seriously. Its so humiliating now. What will happen now? What will I say to her? What is this state am I even in? I don't know anything.

So better, keep walking. When I'll find it out, the correct explanation, I'll say to her.

I open the cafe door which moves back with a jingling sound. I am 15 minutes early and gosh, why wouldn't I be too. I'm in skinny, blue jeans on a black t-shirt. There's a chain running round my neck. It's like it's choking me but it's not, it's really not. It reacts on the situation I am in. I feel it.

I locate the table which lays like abandoned in one corner of the cafe. Light isn't reaching that part and they won't open the celing lamps this bright morning. Why waste? I make my way through and flump down on the wooden chair draped with satin sheet. It looks pretty but not comfortable. It's little bit higher than the round wooden table which is covered with a checked table cloth of red and white color, and the usual garnishers.

I have never been to a blind date before. It's my first time and I am already denying it. It's not that I didn't want it in the first place, as my friends say. It's just that, I am hella nervous, because I have actually never met a girl on a, say, appointment? It sounds weird.

So to me.

But is this a blind date? Oh, guess no. I am sorry. She's Hemali bro, I know her. We have met before. Slicked back, tall, long straight black hair, glasses, she looks so much pretty. And even more when she smiles wide without feeling embarrassed about her braces. She looks pretty with those too.

We even met a few months back in London when I was there for an internship round and caught her on a bakery shop round Cornelia Street. She was working heavily back then, and so was I.

But does she knows that her blind date is me? Or does she knows that I know that her blind date is me? Slightly same, just second one is unfair. But I'm sure it's her as i have already checked upon the girl's background who's to meet me in 5 minutes.

   Its like so strange meeting a stranger who can accidentally or maybe become my future wife if it worked. I mean who does that? I am never doing this again. For sure.

Hemali Patel, right?

I don't know why I am becoming so damn nervous. I think it's okay.

       She is coming.

Her eyes wander across the room till she finds me. Then her lips part with a small gasp and she knows, it's me. I stand up when she's near to the table and help her mount the chair. Our hands meet for a brief second. I could feel her impulse at the moment. It's dirty, but I know.

"I didn't know it was you! Hi, how have you been?"

"I knew it, ha! And I'm good, what about you? I heard that you're posted as a journalist here." I say plaintively with an effort to keep my emotions down.

Hemali was my best friend back in school and its a fact that I get excited around my best friends always. I don't know about her. We shared deep talks late nights and the first birthday of mine which she wished was 16th. I don't know if its weird to remember the firsts of someone. But I do and don't feel anything odd about it. Just memories.

     "Ah, yeah. They get on my nerves sometimes but it's okay mostly. I'm off on Fridays and Saturdays, so it's not excruciating. By the way, I love my job so its a shut down on the bad points. And what are you doing now?"

"I am at the business department at New Estates."

"Woah, that's great! Guess the Porsche dream is round the corner."

"Damn, you remember." I say with a deep sigh.

"I do." She smiles and I ain't dying to see her braces.

     She has worn a long plain red dress which runs along the curves of her body, acting like the dress is more of her than she herself. The color radiates and screams INDEPENDENT, but she looks nervous. Too.

We talk a long way normally, sharing instances of our lives. I tell her how my life has been after the transfer from India to Canada and she shares one of hers too when she moved to US after a job approval but dropped it after 3 years. So here we are now.

   After drinking one cup of coffee each, we decided to go shopping in the mall. Walking and talking.

We were through to the topmost floor to eat ice-cream from Baskin-Robin. But I am not calm right now. My shores are being constantly hit by the waves and its raging. Not with actual and real anger, its just an urge. I hope I don't do anything to her out of agony.

She says something while I look at how her lips move. She has colored it with red lipstick and has on a decent makeup which doesn't hides her natural beauty. Just enhances it more.

I should be focusing on her sentence. But where am I? Lost? Found? Or just, alone?

"Mable!" She is loud and I'm back to reality. "Yeah?" I ask as if i didn't just ignore her.

"Are you okay? You didn't answer my question." She is concerned so lets enjoy it.

"OH, I'm sorry. I hooked off. What did you just say?"

"I asked if-if you talked with Dumbo. She has been on my mind lately and I don't know why so don't ask me. I didn't know that i was gonna meet you here so now that I have a chance, I thought I should ask."

She thought she should ask. Like its something she can ask me.

     "I don't want to talk about her."

"I think you should."

"Well I don't need you to tell me that." I can feel my voice raising. We halt in the middle and I take her hand and pull her to the corner. I stick her back to the wall and hold her from the shoulders with both of my hands when I look her in the eyes, deeply, and say "I don't want to talk about her. I don't know if you understand it or not. She died for me long ago and i ain't ever going back."

   She is indeed independent. She throws off both my hands pushes me back with a blow of her fist on my stomach. Did this date just turned into a battle?

"Don't hold me Mable its so bad and weird." She says heavily. "And by the way, I didn't ask about her just because I wanted to know if you still love her."

          She pulls out my phone from my pocket. How did she know it was there? Eyeing, but feels like more of stealing. She is running her fingers round the screen like she knows her way around my phone, and flashes a Tumblr page round in front of my eyes.

Oh man. Not again. I snatch it out of her reach and shut it off, putting it back where it was.

"I have told you not to bring this up again and again, Hemali. This is no joke."

"I know, actually more than you do Mable. No wonder Dumbo's happy in her life right now. My own close friend group runs round her appointments and clinics. There's a long line and just like everyone's dying to be cured only from her. But you need to get out of this Mable. She is happy, she is living, she is alive while you are digging your grave for every minor inconvenience. 10 years for God's sake Mable, and this is no joke for you. You should actually move on. And no wonder I am that person who's always reminding you this. I know my way around you."

It's not true. She doesn't.

She turns around to face the wall with her back to me. She drops her head and gently bumps it into the wall.

I look sideways like to find a way by which I can escape this. This question. She always brings it up. Maybe that was the reason why I was nervous around her. This question was buried deep in my subconscious lane, and the moment, the breath, the voice, brought it all back. Back with avenge.

 Like she thinks I will fall for that.

I notice her slight smirk behind her back on a mirror on the side. I wasn't ready for this Hemali. You always do this to me.

"Anyways, it's your-"

"I don't need you Hemali. Guess you also knew this was a date and I was going to meet you. I'd like to be blunt about this as always I have wished it to be. Maybe we are not the one for each other and maybe I am incapable of loving someone other than her. I don't know. So take care, just leaving."

"You know you are caged Mable" she blurts out while I turn to walk away from her. "You're a coward Mable for behaving like you can handle everything. She grows, blooms while you will wither for it all the rest of your life. It's love, not a joke, like you."

I keep waking. Away. Suddenly my phone pings and the notification brings an immediate, involuntary smile to my face.

                creepycalls: hi

2. BLOOD

2 April 2023

 It's a dusty, gloomy room. I can tell even if my eyes are closed by a black ribbon, as the smell comes to me like a lingering caution. I don't deserve to be here, but, maybe, do I?

I should ask her. She is coming to me. I can hear her footsteps, it's like a blunt knife hitting the ground.

 She is leaning over me and, maybe, she is checking if I am still alive. Maybe I should tell her.

"Um, may I know where am I?"

"Yes, unless you stop thinking those 'maybe' questions." She says incessantly.

Yeah it is obvious, she has always known what goes on in my mind.

"I know you hit me right on my forehead with that shovel, laying right below the window, I know, when I came back from my dorm saying Hemali goodbye. I know I am hella blunt and dumber than you, perhaps, now. Why even I am saying these things, I never say my mind?"

"Because I just gave you a drug which spills the truth from victim's mouth. I made it and I don't care. Do you?" She speaks like a witch now, it seems like i have never heard her before.

"OH, now I see. Am in trouble?"

Someone, some other person, outside of the room trips on a steel bucket which makes a clinging sound, announcing his presence. Betty knows the best, i pray for the 'someone' now, more than me.

"Well, I knew you were trouble" and she was about to leave the room when the door comes crashing down. The 'someone' is standing right at the door way, is it here to save me? I have never cried out since June of 2022, it's 2032 now and I am thinking of changing my vow.

"Leave him alone, betty, it is none of your business to take your anger due to me out on my husband" that voice spoke so sternly and in a minute, I could figure out the 'someone'.

"Augustine!" I broke my vow, "what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here!"

Shot! I could hear the gun shot so clearly and near to me that it sent shivers down my spine instantly.

"Augustine's dead James, now you are none of my business" she laughed out loud and I heard the last shot in the night.

3. DREAMING

8 June 2023

"Why are you drawing it like that? It looks so weird, like its not real." I scoff behind his back. He's leaning on the wall, standing high on a ladder, and painting a whole damn scenario out of his mind on the wall.

It's cool. This house is big. Its his. Nothing to worry about. Not even the renters.

 

He's just drawing something i am so damn unsure about. Today he woke up from a deep sleep and is carving out his dream onto the wall, scrapping out the already painted.

 

"You'll know it. Its just... i don't know too." He chuckles a bit and then continues. I walk out, grab my laptop from the drawing hall and come back to fill in the couch with my coffee. It's nice watching him paint.

 

Who is he, you ask? Ha.

 

The person from my dreams.

4. FUTURE

8 June 2023

Ha, why do my tuition people have to be so rude? You don't know? Me too. I'll just go ahead in time. It's time to change the time. You understand? I dont too, the process, but I love traveling. 

 

I hop onto the bed and spin the time wheel on my wrist watch, and let's go.

See what this room will be like 50 years later.

 

*snap

 

It's dark. Blue light is coming from the balcony, once from where the sunshine used to crawl in. The curtains are closed and someone is sleeping on the side of the bed im on.

Don't worry, I'm invisible.

 

The furniture are all set with algae. Its like this place has been left cold for a long time. I dont feel cold. I can feel the presence of the dampness but I don't feel the shiver. It's a different type of breathlessness. It's choking actually. Nothing but just empty.

 

That someone before me has big tangled strands of chapped dark brown hairs. The strands have a lot of gaps between them. They look like the hairs of a big giant. I can't tell if it's he or she but let's say 'she' because she has hairs.

She's wearing  a damp one piece white dirty cloth which is not even highlighted as being white because of the darkness around and also because of all the dirt on it that's sitting for so long. She's sleeping soundly. No ups and downs on the side. Her back is towards me and her hands stamped below her head. She's curled up on the side.

 

I get off the bed to look out the world. Everything's gone. The tiny tables and my books on the shelves. The dining table in the center and the TV on the front wall. My aquarium is there but the fishes? They're actually dead if I get closer. They're lying lifeless on the stones spread below.

 

What happened here?

 

I turn and rush to the balcony and to my fucking horror. The sky has no sun. But its all blue along the town. The apartments around the building are covered with mosses and ivy. Water is leaking out from a pipe down the road. Everything around feels lifeless. This is not my future. What is it?

 

I pull my hands off the railing and back away till my shoulder hits the wall. I need to go back. This is sickening. I turn to return to the place to go back to my timeline.

 

But she's awake.

It's horror. It's dead. It's ugly and inhuman. This is not a person. It's a mass. Just a mass with big doe eyes. And nothing in them. They're tired. It's piercing, she's looking right at me with them. Does she knows?

 

Her mouth moves a bit around the corner and I now noticed that there's a knife in the corner of the room. Is she, how is she able to see me? God damn. My mind is running, running. I walk up to her and she mumbles something. Under her breath, down her pharynx and into nothing.

 

I slid pass her and she's not looking at me. I need to get out. When I hop onto the bed, I hear sounds of vomiting. That woman is vomiting...organs. oh god. Is she my mother? Hell not? Is this my future?  Please no.

5. IT ISN'T ABOUT YOU

10 April 2023

"Did you just wear soft smoke eyeliner to a coffee date?"

"I did so what?"

"Nah, I just-don't you think it's too much?"

"Go to hell Aaron, this isn't about you anyways."

"Yeah, I wish it was."

"Huh? What did you say?"

"Nuffing. You look pretty cool though. It's killing."

"I knew it. Do you think James gonna go head over heels for it?"

"Obviously. Hands up. No doubt. You are already so pretty, even without this makeup."

"Its catchy Aaron. No one gives a shit about natural beauty nowadays."

"Yeah?"                  

"Its late isn't it? James should've been here already."

"Same pinch. I dont think he'll show up Bronze. Why don't we just leave?"

"I can't dummy. Its a date. Its important. "

"Well, i am important too btw."

"It isn't about you Aaron. "

6. ME AND HER

20 April 2023

"Nah, I am not gonna explain the whole damn rule to you Jason, no. It's too much complicated and I don't even know where to start. It kinda looks like a treasure hunt but I am not sure about it at all."

"Its nuffing Mable, you just have to make out the meaning of the place from the jumbled words. Its so damn easy. Now get to the place you can make out of it. Palatial Palace arena ain't even that unknown, at least not to you."

"Ah I know but the game conductors have set the bars too high. It's so hard."

"Stop saying that and play it. Go."

I am pushed forth to join the crowd and enter the jumbled game. My mom doesn't realizes I'm 7 but I do.

         I carve out from the big names the very sacred and famous fountain of Starview, which lies here, in Palatial Palace arena.

I run to the place, dashing through the leaves of the trees which are lined on the slim path and i should be running off the road, which means through the trees. One branch cuts through the bottom of my knee but it doesn't really matters compared to the Fanta fountain.

         I reach on time but it seemed like someone was already there before me.

The black long hairs swayed through the wind. It was like the wind had fingers which ran smoothly through the frizz of her hairs, curved at the ends. Delicate, little fringes of short upto-forehead-cut hairs were dancing vertically up as if to catch the rain which was about to fall down.

It starts pouring out of the mist and I stood there like a stone, watching her hairs, getting wet in the spring rain. Its more like winter to be honest.

I don't move. I don't budge. I stood still to watch her. She slowly pulls off her hands from the stone counter made of wood, from which the view ran down to the very deep sea, and looks back to look me in the eye.

The narration turns suddenly deep, smooth, silent and still. As if we slowly grew out of our childhood sweaters, teenage jeans and 20s coats. We are even now. Me and her.

7. OLD

14 April 2023

The building has crumpled like a white piece of paper left in the dumpster for decades. Irrecognizable. God only knows if something happened here in all these years.

             I stood staring at the remnants for sometime before laying my eyes on the stone henge which bore the names of the alumni who died long ago. There's her name too. On the topmost left corner. The first. The one. It's strange.

        While I'm only 36, I try to fight the urge to know how could she die at the age of 34 only.

Died in a hunting voyage. A hunter. Sounds so cool.

"Talk like a bad boy, bunny"

She used to say that often when I said something so cheesy she didn't have to fight the urge to meltdown on that. She loved Nate from 'One Of Us Is Lying'.

"It's real." I suddenly realize actually that its real. The voice. I look beside myself to find her standing formally like we are in a funeral set and, strangely, as transparent as the mist. She looks young like the woman in their 30s and is gorgeous, just as i had imagined her.

                         Then she points to a place on the cobblestone and i strain my eyes and move closer to read what was written there, below the picture-

Talk like a bad boy, bunny.

I was stunned and when I looked back to see her, she was gone.

Gone like that Sunday morning. Gone like the good times. Gone like the relief after the storm.

8. SOME SAY

8 april 2023

 Today's the day.

I am obviously dressed like cliffhanger for everyone present over here. I should be swaying my dress like I am a butterfly but you know, the kinda extroverts who just aren't a narcissistic extrovert.

Every 'vert' has an adverb, maybe. For everyone.

I just hope I don't meet him.

   I enter the creeking gate which feels as creepy as it looks. My heels are tapping on the ground like I own this venue, but who the hell chose this venue?

I had dreamt of maybe someday like this where I meet my besties and we are having a party, throwing up, it doesn't sounds real, right? Well, definitely not to me.

    As I make my way through the little path which seems to be leaning over the grasses on both of its sides, I open the final door to the faces of the people I am seeing for the last time. I wish I never meet them again.

Just, not again.

And never him especially.

There is a massive hoard of people hovering over the barbeques.

Hungry, aren't they?

I was about to move ahead when something stopped me. Not a hand, not a physical touch, not a reality. But the virtuality of the moment.

My spine shivers, my hands tremble, and I was about to fall headfirst if I hadn't turned just the moment around and leave out the door.

I saw someone. I saw him.

I close the door behind me quickly and start waking hastily to the other side of the mansion. Its dark, its gloomy, its chilling all of a sudden. My hands, my fingers are turning and twisting against and over themselves. It's a compulsive habit. No cure for sure.

    I walk and jump over some steps to reach before I end on my knees by the weight of agony, in front of anyone who's outside in the garden around. I don't like to embarrass myself out of my misery. I don't want them to know what happened to me.

           I crouch down on my haunches with my back sliding down the wall behind me, and still against my movement as I bury my head in my arms.

  It's dark, it's gloomy but not chilling anymore. I am covered by the warmth within me. It's peaceful but painful too. It's silly but significant too. It's mine but not MINE anymore.

All these years and still this feeling. Still this depth and hollowness of something I could never cover up fully. My heart, it's not mine anymore. This pounces on me like a rain in the wind, slashing through all my scars and just like salt in the wound. Its burning like fire, but sober like the cold. I am never drunk, just drowned in this. This state, this place, this home, this feeling, it's not foreign, it's like I have inhabited it.

      Just not adapted to it.

I have become like that snowball. I am frozen all the time, just melt when I find warmth but disappear when the warmth turns into fire. I do return like rain, but at what cost? After being held together for evermore and then when its time, when it gets heavy,  I fall and flow like I haven't filled those parts of me yet with those painful memories. My everything wants to remember him like he deserves every single part of it.

But the fact is, he doesn't.

   I never knew my eyes could ever again perceive him like that 17 year old of him when we last met. I was 16 yeah, but caged while he was free. Just the similarity between us was the 'living'. I was walking to the door while keeping and repeating the phrase

'dont come across, don't react, don't look twice, don't fall, don't break'

But I do, everytime, I do.

And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. I desperately want to turn everything into a hearty joke, but love is not a joke anymore, it's a pain in the ass and a page revised a million times.

His eyes pierced through mine like butter knife through cheese. Turned into a joke bro, didn't it? I swayed, I met, I came across and reacted, didn't I?  I stayed, I tried, but fell apart and broke, but yeah just didn't look twice.

One stone unturned. Left a few crumbs.

9. TO GROW OLD

16 April 2023

What it is to grow up in a captivated world, I can feel it now.

Its just like roses around your bed but you can't get off because of the thorns lying below. This world is the ideal world for everyone who has ever dreamt of living a wealthy life with a wife and few children who are almost on their own now. Every single thing is in its place. But captivated.

I never knew I couldn't get out of this. I couldn't step off and leave them behind. I wasn't sure what the world might say but I was sure of the words my family history will say.

 Marriage, relationship, children, divorce, remarriage, death.

Its simple. It's easy. Out of hell.

I come home every single weekend and watch my children ignore me like I wasn't ever really there. Like I never existed or meant something to them. All the life I gave earning so that my children get a good school, excellent grades and an awesome college. I got it all, but you know the thirst for more is a quest and voyage for life. I was never satisfied but was proud . I was never ashamed but was never happy. I was walking with them but never for them, because i knew what life is like and how it is gonna be for them.

     Hence I never comforted them with a lie.

I only wanted them to know how it feels. I thought to make them tough i needed to be harsh on them. But the latter turns all the chairs against me. My dignity, my persona, my image. Everything is ruined in front my children.

I don't really know what i did but the much I know is that they hate me along with my wife.

10. WHAT

1 July 2023

"Is it time?"

She's staring at me blankly. Its kinda more of intimidating.

"What?" I am chuckling softly. Should I?

"How would I fucking know Ben?" She mutters under her breath, loud enough to let me only hear that. She's so done with the puzzle. Its almost drowning her out.

"Why is adulting so stressful? I don't want to go back home now." She scoffs and ahhhh, this was what she was thinking about all this long. Such a fucking unicorn (I'm not weird, I'm a unicorn).

"Gosh I thought you got mad at me. Phew. It could have gotten wild though then."

She eyes me a daunting look. I dont care.

We walk away from the puzzle game to put our minds into something else. She likes horror though, should I take her?

"Ummm, would you like something cool. Like the 'cool' definition of it for you?" "Yeah that'd be nice."

Does she wanna walk with me anymore? Idk.