A slow collapse

With the world on a lockdown, there is a lot of time to think; no time for socializing, nowhere to get a drink. Some, risking their lives at work with people dying at their feet, tucked away in body bags; wind heralding a thousand deaths and clinical suicides - every hour. Rounded up or down to a pleasingly symmetrical number. Prescription drugs, infomercials, images of families and foliage, and a pleasantly vapid disclaimer of collateral sufferings, followed by a drone shot to some unnamed music. Blue and white PPE Kits, everything smells of caustic chemicals; dogs chewing through their hair, for a morsel. Prisoners of our own making, of the horror, the invisible death, the stench of blood and sweat. All that talk of apocalypse sounds exquisite, flames twisting skywards, faces masked, as if some horrid holiday has commenced. Everyone’s in a mask, N95, blue, black, floral, abstract - endless designs, a pallid veil of dancing shadows, an impending demise. Is there a fury in the bleakness of the after-death, a separation beyond anxiety, hopelessness beyond the last farewell?

She asked - "Is this the end?”, and I said, “press your beautiful bones against my ribs, lay your mire upon my silt, as we stumble to a halt, tangle your rictus into my thinning hair and chew out a keepsake for the archeologists to carefully sweep a brush across someday. “ You laugh, and we leave it that.

Each morning we inch a bit closer to the bottom of the valley. Each morning becomes more arresting, and every evening we laugh ourselves to stupefaction, to an anthem of prerecorded applause as the news delivers a thousand clockwork deaths and suicides, an hour, a slow collapse.

The phone pings. Update! It is hard to see the pain in a selfie. Another smile in the sunshine pretending everything is 'fine'. Aren’t you getting sick of the grind? But we’ve all adjusted, shifted things. Persisting here day by day, the end of times delayed, yet again. Seems simplistic at first glance. Guess, it’s all up to chance.

Maybe the sun will eat the world today...

Dream Diary I

And suddenly, I was falling through the clouds, through the rays of that blinding sunlight. It was a while before I could see clearly, but then I did, and I saw you. I was falling into your lips. On contact, I shattered like glass into a million shards reflecting turquoise light. That’s when I woke up, truly woke up. The firmness of the mattress affirmed that I was surely awake this time. The hum of the flickering fluorescent light, from across the street, illuminated my room. The wind was still howling against my window, painting a dissonant melody. I stared at the moon, muddled by my dusty turquoise tainted-window and eventually slipped back into the embrace of my sheets, hoping that the night’s sweet lullaby would hush me back to the dreamland where I could fall into you once more.

Dream Diary II

I fell out of reality and into my dream only to wake up under a kaleidoscopic glass ceiling that somehow reminded me of your eyes, and the uneasiness slowly started to creep in. The scene immediately changed. It was as if I was in control. I found myself swimming in the air through a forest. A dazzling world where the ravens and crows strode beside me through the ocean and the whales flew within the un-trespassed rainbow-tinted sky. I was soaring backwards on silver-tipped wings made of supple, snow coloured clouds which opened up like a silk stream and let in a myriad of colours which blinded me. So I turned the other way. There was a parade of neon cloaked figures marching on buildings flowing sideways. A psychedelic scene! Reality seemed flimsy, expanding and contracting at random. Butterflies with stunning poly-chromatic wings were drinking from the beautiful blue petals of serene morning glories enveloping the glass building. A bunch of cats were singing karaoke to the melody of galloping sea horses, the lyrics papered against the sky.

I was swimming along with trees flowing through the forest; regaling in the tales of the lustrous paintings hanging between the branches, like the clothesline in my Mum’s backyard. I was dancing with Kaali, adorned in liquid crystal armour, to the bustling beat of her Tiger’s trumpet. That’s when it hit me. A succulent aroma, the kinds that can whisk you away. It mysteriously flowed in, unsuspected, and enticed me, but before I could react, I was being caressed by the vines of magenta flowers twirling and spreading their petals all over me. The petals appeared to be changing colours in the warm, whistling wind, as I unraveled myself off it and swiftly mounted upon an enormous and magnificent elephant with exquisite legs, brazenly defying gravity, flying through the air. Together we advanced to what looked like a giant beating heart, a human heart. My heart started beating faster as we moved forward, the parade stomping alongside. As I got closer, I jumped off and ran up the foothills of the heart, faster than sound. It felt as though I had left my body behind, for it was too slow. Therefore, what can only be described as my soul, sped towards that essence. Wind howling behind me, I arrived.

It might have been the center because as soon as I got there, time slowed and my existence felt like it was being sucked into the black hole where you should have been. Instead, there was a disco ball, also swirling into the hole beside me. Then there were the people from the parade, the butterflies, the ravens and the crows, the sea-horses. It looked like a tornado of pulsating colours. I caught the twisted smile of one of the cats grappling with Kaali and her tiger, melting into each other, like metamorphosing. Everything was crumbling in space as time itself erratically fluctuated. It looked devastatingly glorious! Everything was piecing into singularity and Bang!

That’s when I heard it. In-spite of the deafening ringing of the bang, I heard your name. The power with which it still makes me shudder, it has yet to relinquish. Your name, like a storm, murmured to my soul like thunder echoing on a rainy night. It struck me like lightning and traveled through my body like a wave of torment. “Replace it! Replace the scene!” But the pain was too immense and I could feel myself losing control. I couldn’t muster the strength to change the scene so I did the next best thing. I forced myself out of the dream and once again, fell back into reality.