“What would we do?” Jack of Hearts broke the silence with an anxious question.

The potato shifted on the couch impudently “I am not part of a book! I cannot be.”

The blanket of silence took over once more till they heard muffled noises in the living room outside. At the sounds Clock’s hands moved frantically all over his face. The Lady fingers squeaked and the noodle smiled.

***

“I do not understand”, the woman shook her head. “I do not understand what it is you’re saying.

The man, propped up near the fireside on a couch with numerous blankets ensconcing him in a cozy warmth, was moving his lips. However the woman could not hear anything. She shook her head once again and moved in closer to catch what the man was muttering.

“I need to get away…from here. I have to go – anywhere. Please…” and the frail voice glimmered silent once again.

When the woman drew away and looked up at his face it was composed in peaceful lines. His breath had become steady. He had slept off.

A sudden wave of concentrated confusion and panic swept across the woman’s face as she gazed at the inert, comfortable form. Getting up she started to pace up and down her small living room. One of her cats – the white Persian beauty – sniffed around the couch, gracefully jumped up on it, gathered herself around the man’s leg and settled in for a nap too.

***

Looking out the window, the Spoon gasped.

It was snowing outside.

“It never snows so much here!”, the Spoon sputtered the words out.

The two Ladyfingers inched closer to see what the Spoon was sputtering about. One of them turned more green while the other look drained of color.

It was snowing in thick sheets. Soft flakes falling down in such thick stillness, it looked like feathery blanket after blanket silently hastening to cover them under a shroud of white.

“we will get buried under the snow in a few hours” one greener Ladyfinger whispered

“…if it keeps snowing like this” the paler one completed the whisper.

The noodle smiled nonchalantly. “Wait till you see what happens.”

Ice continued to clink as the snow outside gathered silently around their cozy home.

I am becoming reckless.

Nowadays I open the door of my car, slide in, hold the staring wheel and look straight ahead – my stomach tightens. I see myself from outside, standing at a corner, inert; silently gazing at myself getting into the car. Settling into the seat and looking ahead, my stomach tightens. Death gazes at my face with luscious curiosity as I stare through the innocent, transparent windshield.

It’s like I’ve sprouted another self, the very devil. Cautious and controlled – at home and work. But in the car, behind the wheel its a different story. I am a different me.

Dizzying speed briskly patterns a round of sly roads polished at even times in the evenings. The orange ball stuck in the sky plays a desperate hide-and-seek before painting the road a bloody red; tempting to exhaust my baby in a rain of raw frothy luminosity.

Isn’t it amazing – the way Death looks? It has a divine spark of life to it. Yes, you may say I am being ironic. But T S Eliot knew exactly what I am talking about.

“What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.”

The sterile car, waiting for me, is where I start from. The end, Death tells me, is merely a beginning. And then Death smiles. The coldest of all warm smiles. Slight in the beginning, the smile gains pace, in tandem with the increasing speed of my car.

Mephistopheles’s tongue – the road looks like at sunset. A gigantic, polished tongue. With an effervescent mouth yawning, exposing a rainbow of water colors splashed about like modern art.

At 120 km/hr, when the world flies by in a blur of motion, Death is a cold smiling column of crimson light stretching in front of me.

Scattered bits of sound whooshed past her ears. A murmuring hum whirling about. She did not know whether it was the world or her. Who fled from the other.

And I am becoming reckless.

The moment I start slowing down that divine smile ebbs away from me. You see, I don’t want it to leave. I want it to bathe me in its iridescent flakes, to cocoon me in its wake.

Whirling about the pool from which shot out the escaping route of speed, she splashed in her confusion. Splashed and thirstily guzzled the speed: hungry with desire, desirous of hunger.

Every time I take the wheel – Death jumps from my core and takes to me as cozily as my body to the car seat. And I cling right back to it. Not a single moment has passed by from that time, not far away in the faded past, wherein Death hasn’t divinely smiled down at me.

I am becoming reckless because I’m beginning to enjoy it.

The game.

ash strewn
on hair, askew
remnants of fire,
floating gently
in front of her eyes.

Strange:
how a stranger
reads bits of your
life – spread like
cheese on bread -
a quick bite
in the mornings,
small snacks
in the evenings.

Strangers:
flowing around
screens -
kindred lotuses
sprouting in the same muck.

discovering yet another way
of reaching out
while reaching within.

overflowing
with bubbling rawness
of fluttering fingers.

silhouettes:

tracing a
dark dance of
nimble limbs.

fumbling clinking of
thirsty fragility:
irregular bursts of
music.

dangling distances
of drooling glasses
stifle slowly:

ardent for raw rolling
on shards of
sharp unruly chinks.

dreams:

shattered on the floor
rubbing feet raw,
dribbling down from
bubbling glasses
overflowing with a pain too
pleasurable.

“that’s because you like him too much for your own good.” he scowled. “i never want to hear about him again.”

“you’ve never searched for him enough!” she screamed.

“shouting won’t get you anywhere.” he said quietly, his jaw set.

“he is my brother! and i know he’s alive!” she was hysterical now, eyes wildly flashing with anger. “find him!”

***

“Its the same sensation. Fleeting.” whispered my grandmother, bedridden, wanting to speak to me after ages. I was summoned from the other side of the world. Couldn’t help the curiosity I guess, “Deathly but fleeting. For as long as I can remember.”

“Whenever I think of him, I’m quite sure he is still around. In this city. Melting into shadows. Still in search of someone or something. I have not been able to share this with anyone.” Her sunken eyes flickered with fire for a moment.

After a pause, she made a supreme effort to prop herself up on the bed. I got up immediately to help her but she shook her head.

“Leave…me be”, she gasped “I … can still…do some things..on my..own.”

Veins of her arms were bulging with the weight of her body as she shifted herself up the bed.

“Find him for me.” she said, her eyes dark inscrutable pools. The emotion in her voice unmistakable. “I want you to find him for me. I want to prove my husband wrong. In this one thing, I want to prove him wrong, if its the last thing I do on earth.”

“Find him for me.”

***

The butterfly fluttered carelessly around his shaggy mane. Bright orange wings flashed and settled among thick unruly strands of brown.

The brown mane shook and in a second the butterfly fluttered away from the grasp of thick fleshy hands.

***

He nodded and his hands balled up into fists by his sides.

***

‘It was in the heart of the crumbling city. We were gathered for a purpose I did not know. All I knew, rather could sense was the overriding fear. There were men all around, menacingly walking about us in circles. They had guns and their black jackets were full of bombs.’

‘I don’t know why this was so. We were protesting in front of the factory for a month. An increase in wages. We refused to work till we got our due, and also managed outsiders not to rush into employers’ hands easily. We were peaceful all along. There was no law we broke. We only refused to work. So I did not know why these men had dragged us to the busiest street of the city and were pushing us towards the middle of the circle they had formed walking threateningly about us.’

***

‘she …can’t be…this…no…it cant…dammit! work!…think think! where can… she be!’ he was hiding in shadows of cracking buildings, his tears fluttering in crevices of his heart.

‘i need…to get out…of here!’ screamed his brain

***

‘There was a lot of blood that day. I still remember it’ said my grandmother quietly, sitting on a stool beside a window looking out at the orange ball sliding down from the sky. ‘Your grandfather and I were there. In the middle of the city. Its busiest square was splattered with the blood of a thousand workers and people had kept quiet after that. The ones that were left, either wandered away from the city or went back to work at the same price. No one mentioned the incident ever.’

***

‘there must be answers!’ she cried, lying in the mud, her body shaking with fright. The smell of death all about her.

‘there must be! how can …’ but silence swallowed up her muddy sobs.

***

‘I never found your grandfather’s body. For a long time I kept dreaming about his being alive. In my dreams, I saw him running in the alleyways; running as fast as his legs could carry him, without looking back, without thinking anything but where to hide and how to save his life.’

***

‘you, my love, are the reason i want this’ he said, gesturing toward a building in the heart of the city. ‘see? that window up there? and the terrace? – it shows you all of our world – and i want you to stand there and see it. i want us to be able to walk in there – like we own it – like we’re a part of it. you make it worth fighting for.’

***

‘They had told us to run.’ she turned to face me ‘They had told us, that they’re going to shoot on the count of three and if we chose we could run. That was the only way to save our lives.’

‘But you know how I survived?’ she turned her face to the sky again, her tone inscrutable, ‘There were too many corpses I was buried under for them to see me.’

The sky was turning a vibrant, living canvas of burning fire.

‘I lost sight of your grandfather as I fell. Someone fell over me, then there was another and maybe another. The smell of blood all around me. I could feel it running down the nape of my neck.After an eternity the noise died out. I waited and waited. They went away. Wriggling my way to the outskirts of the city I buried my face in the sand of the desert and cried.’

***

Gasping for breath he kept muttering to himself ‘you make… it…you make it…its worth..worth it…its you..you who…’

Never once did he look back.

***

‘Not caring how long it had been, not knowing where to go, I kept walking till I reached the outskirts of a town. Taking shelter with an old man, I spent hours in the pond bathing for three days. The smell of blood refused to go away.’ She gazed about the room slowly, her eyes coming to rest on my hands, ‘I still remember the smell like it was yesterday.’

‘The old man gave me clothes that belonged his dead wife. And I thought of your grandfather. The thought dragged me back to the city.’

***

‘i need…to keep…moving…’ his body registered with great effort what his brain was telling it. Three days had crafted a chasm in his life of yore and this nightmare.

‘where are you!’ his mind was screaming endlessly. She was not there at the house. She was not there among the dead. She had vanished.

‘she…is alive. i…know it…i can feel…it’ his heart swelled and contracted so fast he thought it’d explode.

***

***

She knits. With a cat on her lap, two next to her rocking chair, she sits beside a fireplace and knits. She is in the business of knitting for her village. People come to her with special requests – of making handmade garments, wall hangings, mats and what-not. She has knitted hearts for lovers, mittens for little children and warm woolen socks for new-born babies. She loves her tea and cats. And of course she loves knitting. She muses often about how its the only thing she knows how to do.

***

“We’re merely talking about characters in a book here! So why don’t we all relax a little?”, drawled a spoon from behind a cushion.

Gathering of eight, propped on various couches and cushions. Heated arguments on what constitutes fiction. Why it plays a role in reality.

“What is fiction anyway?” pokes in the porcupine, scratching his nose.

“If we are given enough proof, we can believe anything.” Quips a lazy voice dangling into the room like a noodle. The noodle wears a thick pair of glasses, has a crooked nose and sinks into a couch with a glass of whiskey. “If I bring you enough proof that we are living in a book of someone else’s making; you will believe me.”

After an unforgiving pause, the potato stood up, indomitable and straight. “Humph! I don’t believe anything you say. And no matter what proof you give me I won’t believe you!”

“You are designed that way, my dear: thick.” smiled the noodle kindly, eying her from behind his glass. “Cheers!”.

The noodle takes a leisurely sip of his whiskey.

***

He stumbles onto a clearing in the woods. Every muscle in his body is screaming with pain but fear has taken the better of him. His mind refuses to work and the pain behind his eyes makes him almost blind. He cannot help but stumble.

She knits, oblivious to the stumbling man in her back yard. In the other room the gathering of nine sit and talk about books.

What hookus-pookus!, she thinks. Talking about books! There are better ways of making use of themselves than talking about books and getting drunk by the end of it. Well, only the noodle gets drunk, she concedes. The others always come out either angry, dazed, or disappointed.

She does not wonder why.

***

“This man.” Blotted paper speaks up finally. Shaking his head “We finished reading the whole book, and you know – in the beginning I thought this would actually go somewhere. But all he’s doing is running – from the beginning to the end!” Blotted’s eyes get darker and wider. “He is afraid – that’s clear, but why? That’s never told to us! I mean how silly is that!”

“Its supposed to be a philosophical book. It is about how man – you know – man in general – keeps running from something or the other all his life.” responded the be-speckled clock with hands going haywire “I think it shows the fruitlessness of fear. It also shows the power of fear.”

“We like the book” nodded the two Ladyfingers. “If not for anything else, then at least for the way the author has written it. The language grabs you coz its so alien and familiar.” They nodded a little more.

“If I tell you that the knitting lady will fall in love with the running man in front of us, will you believe me?” The noodle threw up the question like an interesting riddle.

“The knitting woman can only love her cats and the running man is a character in a book. We are living in the real world here noodle dude” the Jack of Hearts finally pokes his head out from behind the cushions on the floor. “I like your notion, man. Its far out. But seriously, quit joking around.” He sinks back lazily into the cushions among the two Spoons who agree with him.

Rattling outside. The cat jumps out of her lap with a meow. Her hands stop the regular rhythm with wool and needles.

Jack of Hearts perks up his ears. As do the potato woman and porcupine, who sit close together. Blotted’s eyes become a shade of black. Noodle gets up, while the clock’s hands run silently haywire and everyone inches to the room where the knitting woman sits.

From the door they peer like thieves.

“Now” whispers the noodle.

And the door flows open with the man falling on the floor in exhaustion.

“Oh my god!” squeals the woman while her cats run astray. Rushing towards the man, she glances at him, for a moment at a loss. Bending down, she tries to wake him up, but to no avail. Rushing out of the room, she comes in with water, some food and smelling salts…

Raucous noises we made
flapping against
each other’s fins;
whispering songs we sang
in velvet black
of the night.

I never could
say it right.
Too busy to
keep the balance.

And now I can only
say your name
if I’m sure know no
one will hear.

‘Its been quite a while, hasn’t it?’

A silent nod.

The indigo-black sky fading to a baby blue. Light stealing over our stroll on the beach. Splash of colors gently curled into each other spreading across the vast expanse of vision.

***

‘We’ve been at it all night. And I don’t even know your name’

A slow smile. ‘”What’s in a name?”‘

‘Would you rather I walk away without knowing mundane things about your life?’ Raised eyebrow, teasingly questioning,’and think of this phenomena as one of the most beautiful moments of Being I got to spend with a stranger?’

‘Oh but am I a stranger anymore?’

‘In real life, sure’

A pause later, ‘Though am happy for that’

‘You catch up fast enough. So “what’s in a name?”‘ That slow drawl again. The drawl that had drawn her to this in the first place.

***

The sun: now squirming up from a warm sea; fresh and salty. Sand crunching under our feet while we walked on leisurely. From one end to another. The breeze gently combing through her hair. Making them dry.

‘Just tell me one thing’, her eyes shifted from the sea to his face.

He caught the slight catch in her voice.

‘How often do you do this? Meet up with strangers and spend your nights with them, like this?’

‘You talk as if this is routine for me.’

‘Is it?’ Again the raised eyebrow. The sharply defined, raised eyebrow. He wanted to run his finger over it and smoothen it out. Instead he put his hand in his trouser pocket.

A slight shake of the head. ‘I’ve never done this before.’

***

‘Now my turn to ask you something.’

His hand caught hers by the wrist, brought it up, close to his face. He traced the lines on her palm with his finger.

‘I know you’ve never done this either. What I want to know is whether you’ve opened so much of yourself to someone before.’ He restrained himself from bending down slightly to kiss the soft palm. He concentrated on the faintly visible vein lines on her arm instead.

‘Is it that important to you?’ She merely looked at him, gently pulling her hand away to tuck stray strands of awry hair behind her ears.

He walked towards the ocean, letting his feet absorb the cool of wet sand.

‘No, I haven’t. I have never been able to speak so easily of myself.’

She was standing beside him now.

‘I’m surprised all we did tonight was leisurely walking about and talking to each other. I never would have imagined speaking my heart out to a stranger who asked me the time on a beach. Not one of my friends will believe what I did tonight.I don’t think I’m going to tell anybody this either. It’ll be our secret, if you wish’

He had moved to stand behind her, very close. The thought curled her lips into a smile. She leaned back a bit. And his arms went about her waist as if it was the most natural gesture in the world for them. He buried his face in her curls again, took a deep breath and let go with a sigh.

She looked away from the spreading golden rays.

‘I must get going though. Real life does beckon.’ She looked rueful.

‘Do you want to see me again?’ His voice was low. She craned her neck to hear.

A moment’s hesitation.

‘I’m not sure’

‘So we’ll leave it like this?’

‘I’m really not sure’

‘I’ll be here. Tonight. Come if you wish. We’ll see then. In case you don’t, thank you for this. I’ll cherish it all my life.’

And she walked away while he turned his face back to the ocean lapping at his feet.

Sea green eyes.

Been seeing them for a while now. On weekends.

***

In the park, she rests propped against a comforting tree trunk. A thick, uncharacteristic book and lunch rest on the side, while she pays particular attention to black ants moving about in a threatening line around her sandwiches. She seems to be intent on hearing them move.

A small carton of orange juice and fifteen minutes later she cranes her neck up towards the sky.

She seems to enjoy whiling clouds and time away.

Strands of coal-black hair tremble in the breeze. Some fall away from the carefully made bun. Singing silently of a quivering stillness.

***

The man moves about often now, she notices. She gives him cautious, peering glances from time to time.

The next time he passes by, she sighs. Slightly exasperated. Then turns to her book, starts moving her finger over the page and buries her face in another dimension of silence.

***

On weekends. Been seeing them for a while now.

Sea green eyes.

Eyes that graze you with an intense gaze. Then the gaze dissolves, just like that. And they become blank eyes once again.