Monday 31 October 2016

Beyond…

Okay you hide then. I’ll count to ten and then come looking. Don’t go too far…
One… Two… Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine………….. Ten! Ready or not here I come.

Palms over face I stood listening. He was near. I could hear him. His breath full of excitement… quiet giggles… twigs breaking under his feet.

I can hear you, you know. You’re making it way too easy. I’ll count to ten once more. Find somewhere better to hide. One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine………….. Ten!

Silence……….
I listened… seconds ticking away… no sound of him. I took my palms off and opened my eyes. A maze of giant trees greeted my sight. Trunks so huge it was almost like I was walled inside. I looked up. The dense canopy let through only thin slivers of light… not enough to find him. A hundred trees blocked the path in every direction. I stood there indecisive and still. It’d never been this way before. He was terrible at this game. It hardly took me a minute to find his hiding place. And then he’d ask me to close my eyes and count again. But this time… this time there was no sign of which way he went… no shoe trail… no hushed giggles. It was getting darker by the second now and I couldn’t make up my mind on which way to go looking. If I went the wrong way I risked us both getting lost. I’d stay I decided. I’d stay here for he couldn’t have gone far. I sat down beneath a tree and my mind started counting.

One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine…………..

And I counted… I counted till the highest number I knew. And then everything went dark.


Somewhere else, in another world, a heart monitor fell flat.

Thursday 6 October 2016

Sunsets and Sketches...

There was something elusive about sunsets which made it impossible for him to recreate it on paper. The girls he’d been with told him maybe he should use colours. He didn’t think so. He had in his drawing book sketches of countless landscapes he’d done in pencil and it never bothered him that he didn’t capture the colours brimming in them. There was a simplicity in his sketches which was profound in its own… but not sunsets. He never could render it’s magnificience faithfully on paper. It was not the lack of colour he felt. A sunset didn’t need many colours. Using colours won’t make it any better, he told himself. It was something else that was missing… and he hadn’t figured it out yet. So everyday he’d stuff his shoulder bag with his tools… pencils, a whole lot of them… 4H, H , HB, 2B, 4B, 5B… an eraser and a few drawing books… and walk along marine drive till his mind’s eye agreed with the vantage point… and then he’d wait… for the sun to start drowning in the horizon. Once it did, he’d take out his books and pencils and lose himself in it… till he looked up and didn’t see the sun anymore.

It was no different today. Once the sun had deserted the horizon, he put his pencils back and picked up his work. He’d chosen to draw in one of his bigger books today. He held it up and looked… just looked… kept looking at it for a long time… his face a mask… betraying no emotion... his frame still… it seemed he wasn’t even breathing. Long after the sky turned black and the stars came out, he put it down and let out a sigh. Today was not the day he got his sunset. Lost in dismay he closed his eyes and consoled himself… One day I’ll get it right… he thought. He opened his eyes and welcomed the sights around him. To either side of him marine drive stretched endlessly in a curve… streetlights alive all along… like someone had put on a golden necklace on the Arabian sea. He took it all in… the vehicles racing by, the high rises, the windows on them, the lights in them, a billion people doing a billion things under the lights… this city never slept.

He gathered up his things and stood up. He tore up his interpretation of the day’s sunset from his book and left it there where he had sat… and started walking. He never kept anything which was less than perfect. The wind would blow it into the sea and it would drown to fathoms below like the sun did a while ago… or a peanut seller would find it and use it to wrap peanuts without even looking at it once… he didn’t put much thought to where it would end up. He had left so many sunset sketches behind he didn’t care anymore. It was an imperfect piece of art and it would find it’s final resting place in some imperfect grave.

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He’d walked some thirty feet or so when he remembered he’d left the eraser where he sat. He turned around and retraced his steps… all the while thinking about the next day’s sunset. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a woman sitting where he was a few minutes ago… a girl actually… she had his sketch in his hands and was studying it intently… the scarf around her neck being blown around by the breeze coming in from the sea. He couldn’t see her face from where he was… she was wearing a white sleeveless top and a sky blue skirt… or was it denims… he started walking towards her… it was a skirt infact… sky blue with some silver patterns… he liked it, it was pretty. He approached from behind… she was still studying his sketch. He looked over her shoulder at the sketch he’d discarded… did she see something in it which he didn’t? he searched… but a streetlight behind had cast his shadow onto it and she turned to see this tall, lanky guy hovering over her. She didn’t flinch. He stared unsure… detecting maybe the hint of a smile held back by force on her face.

I forgot my eraser ‘, he broke the silence between them. She searched around her for a few seconds and held it up for him when she found it. He took it from her and put it inside his bag. He looked at her again. She was beautiful… slightly darker shade of brown… bespectacled… yet the eyes beneath speaking volumes… thin, a little too thin perhaps… like himself he thought. A few more moments of silence later he looked away and started to walk. Two small steps later he heard a voice as sweet as honey drift towards him asking ‘ Why do you leave them behind? ‘. Stumped as he was by the question, the revelation within it was not lost on him. ‘ Them? ‘, he asked looking back at her. She didn’t realize her slip and stared at him. ‘ You said them, not it, which if I know my grammar correctly is a plural. ‘, he said. Comprehension dawned on her and she couldn’t hold back a blush. ‘ I, uh.. ’, he saw her struggle with the explanation and thought he should put her out of the misery… he said, ‘ Have you been stalking me stealing my sketches? ‘, a grin evident on his face.

I didn’t steal them. You left them behind. ‘, she had a sheepish look on her face. ‘ So you thought you could take them? ‘, he asked amused by this beautiful girl in front of him. She didn’t speak. ‘ How many do you have? ‘, he continued his interrogation. ‘ Six. ‘, she said after a long pause. He wasn’t expecting that and found himself at a loss for words.

Who is this girl? Why does she keep my sketches? What more does she see in them than I do? How could a discarded piece of an unsuccessful attempt at art be of more importance to a stranger more than the artist? His mind was crowded with questions… but he didn’t voice them. He didn’t want to intimidate her with more questions… and he was a little weary of the answers he might get. So he said, ‘ it’s okay, you can keep them. ‘. The relief that showed on her face at that flowed over to his… but shortly paved way to a new dilemma… What do I say now!

He needn’t have worried for she spoke, ‘ There’s a Mc D over there… are you hungry?


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