Thursday, May 5, 2011

At first, this was a poem.

A rainy afternoon, windows shut to the hiss and haze outside; gray without, gray within, moisture dripping down the panes. Waking up to a dull, throbbing ache in your head and gut; loneliness acute in its obviousness, in its entirety, not a soul around.
Pad into the kitchen, fix yourself a solitary lunch, abandon it. Push open the window panes, rest hands on the dust covered sill and gaze outward. Trains, snaking in the distance, whistles and hisses mingled. Smoke and blur and ashes. Stare and inhale till you're saturated with the smell of condensates and humor and misery, with the exhausts of other people. Wrap yourself around a couch; discolored flora dying away with wear and time and neglect. Gray permeates everything, all-devouring, you're scared. There's no blue as the day weans itself towards its end.
You strum a few notes, make lists in your head, take in smoke and exhale it. Look at pictures on the fridge. Maybe you should eat, maybe put something out for the cat, but it's unlikely it will return.

Right in front of your eyes, the shades of the gloom intensify. Skylight is dying, but in the outer world, happier folks will light up their lives. Yellow and orange and neon. Slivers in motion slice through the darkness, like roving eyes, tiny in the distance. Herd behavior; they move in packs. You sit till it's too dark to see anything but the cars, stories moving apart and away from you.
Smoke curls up magnificently, luminous in the dark.

Sit there, living out parallel lives in your head. It begins pouring again, the lights melt into one another, glowing streaks. A thing of beauty, forever is till you stay awake. Awake is a concept, the brain never sleeps. Energy, it all comes down to it. Thoughts, electrons, light, sound. You curl up on the floor, don't feel the threadbare carpet under you anymore. Cold. Textures hold no comfort anyway. The static of the rain is comforting.
White noise wipes everything else out. Blank. Zilch.

12 comments:

  1. You sit till it's too dark to see anything but the cars, stories moving apart and away from you.
    The best lines of all.

    Wish I could fall asleep when I am bored to death, but the inability to sleep is the foremost reason of my boredom. Yet, I seldom take notice of a whole day of events like you did. :)

    Nice write up.

    Cheers,
    Blasphemous Aesthete

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  2. This was fiction, every word, but thanks a bunch anyway! :)

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  3. This is amazing Richa! Absolutely brilliant!

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  4. It's an honor, coming from you. Thank you so much! :)

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  5. Great writing... If this was a poem once then it precipitated to prose very well...

    I have written prose after a long time, do read if you get the time!

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  6. That's very poetic! Brilliantly written :)
    Ive tried my hands on poem and its my first post..
    So, plz do visit and drop your comment http://envisaging-heaven.blogspot.com/ :)

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  7. Rhett, thank you for commenting. I sure will! :)

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  8. Anonymous, I'd have liked it if you elaborated. :D

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