The strands in your eyes
Your number on the phone stares back at me. Should I call ? Will you be there ?
What did we talk about, in those meandering conversations ? Remniscences of the past, details of the present. Sharing vignettes of a life even as it ebbed and flowed by us, converstations that stretched. Till the nitty-gritties of a life were but interregnums in the connect, to be given short shrift while we sought to pick up the threads from where we’d left off. I could never run out of topics, not while your stories remained untold. Not while I found pleasure in the most mundane of your details, in marvelling at the way you navigated what seemed vicious shoals.
I now recollect that I once thought of the patterns of dappled sunlight on a wooden floor while we talked. Of someone practicing scales that seemed to fall in glistening pieces on the floor, melting in the warmth of an afternoon sun filtered through flower-patterned curtains. The sound of your voice is an abiding memory, but of the mist that covered the peaks in the early morning rather than the details of the landscape down below, for I recollect your voice without quite remembering what it was you said.
I start with surprise, and then realize that a desperate mind is trying to tell a heart the soothing lie that a random voice is yours. I see arms in the familiar gesture of smoothing back your hair, and I wonder if that tendril is still as obstinate as ever. I once went through a phase where you filled every crevice in the consciousness that was not already occupied by the debris of existence. Now is the time for you to visit, for I have split myself asunder, creating a palace of solitude for you, with a hut of the remnants being reserved for the bits and pieces of the daily grind.
You have no idea, you often said, and though I protested, it was true. For my writings were but the treasures of a beachcomber wandering where waves of your voice carried magical pieces of flotsam onto the shores of my heart, and now he waits in vain for the tide to roll in again. And in the meantime, he is loth to move on to another shore, for he carries with him the burden of unsaid words that the tide was to sweep away.
For there are so many of them, the unsaid words. I have yet to tell you of the tiff with the younger one, and the gaffe I committed with a well-meaning acquaintance. There is the story which you must listen to with sympathy, for I am too afflicted to be proud. Another which I know that I will rue telling you, for you will laugh. But with the tinkle in your voice that will make me see the silly side of it too, and so it will be alright. This one I know I must not tell you, for you will belabour me with it for a long time to come,but I will . The dream I had of sitting next to you in a car in the road adjoining the runway, of sipping lukewarm wine in waist-high grass while around us the planes soared, and the moonlight fell about us in casacading sheets of remonstrance, awaits your chiding for being absurd.
I had nothing but the mundane to offer you, and yet the lightness of spirit that came with the shedding of words was great. Now the words tumble out faster than I can stuff them back, and yet the tide does not come.
I now sit and type incoherent words that lack the uniting strands of your thoughts. And the screen reflects a pallid light on my countenance, for it is in these early hours that I have spoken most to you. The morning will soon come, and I shall sit in the hovel and attempt to arrange the odds and ends of an existence, a sentinel to that empty cavernous edifice of the heart that awaits your arrival.
Your number on the phone stares back at me. I call, and you aren’t there. Perhaps you never were.
What did we talk about, in those meandering conversations ? Remniscences of the past, details of the present. Sharing vignettes of a life even as it ebbed and flowed by us, converstations that stretched. Till the nitty-gritties of a life were but interregnums in the connect, to be given short shrift while we sought to pick up the threads from where we’d left off. I could never run out of topics, not while your stories remained untold. Not while I found pleasure in the most mundane of your details, in marvelling at the way you navigated what seemed vicious shoals.
I now recollect that I once thought of the patterns of dappled sunlight on a wooden floor while we talked. Of someone practicing scales that seemed to fall in glistening pieces on the floor, melting in the warmth of an afternoon sun filtered through flower-patterned curtains. The sound of your voice is an abiding memory, but of the mist that covered the peaks in the early morning rather than the details of the landscape down below, for I recollect your voice without quite remembering what it was you said.
I start with surprise, and then realize that a desperate mind is trying to tell a heart the soothing lie that a random voice is yours. I see arms in the familiar gesture of smoothing back your hair, and I wonder if that tendril is still as obstinate as ever. I once went through a phase where you filled every crevice in the consciousness that was not already occupied by the debris of existence. Now is the time for you to visit, for I have split myself asunder, creating a palace of solitude for you, with a hut of the remnants being reserved for the bits and pieces of the daily grind.
You have no idea, you often said, and though I protested, it was true. For my writings were but the treasures of a beachcomber wandering where waves of your voice carried magical pieces of flotsam onto the shores of my heart, and now he waits in vain for the tide to roll in again. And in the meantime, he is loth to move on to another shore, for he carries with him the burden of unsaid words that the tide was to sweep away.
For there are so many of them, the unsaid words. I have yet to tell you of the tiff with the younger one, and the gaffe I committed with a well-meaning acquaintance. There is the story which you must listen to with sympathy, for I am too afflicted to be proud. Another which I know that I will rue telling you, for you will laugh. But with the tinkle in your voice that will make me see the silly side of it too, and so it will be alright. This one I know I must not tell you, for you will belabour me with it for a long time to come,but I will . The dream I had of sitting next to you in a car in the road adjoining the runway, of sipping lukewarm wine in waist-high grass while around us the planes soared, and the moonlight fell about us in casacading sheets of remonstrance, awaits your chiding for being absurd.
I had nothing but the mundane to offer you, and yet the lightness of spirit that came with the shedding of words was great. Now the words tumble out faster than I can stuff them back, and yet the tide does not come.
I now sit and type incoherent words that lack the uniting strands of your thoughts. And the screen reflects a pallid light on my countenance, for it is in these early hours that I have spoken most to you. The morning will soon come, and I shall sit in the hovel and attempt to arrange the odds and ends of an existence, a sentinel to that empty cavernous edifice of the heart that awaits your arrival.
Your number on the phone stares back at me. I call, and you aren’t there. Perhaps you never were.
What a comeback!!!
Posted by
Anonymous |
October 14, 2007 11:24 PM
a-u-f : Now I am embarassed, if it is who I think it is, and the gent and his CiA will have to answer for it.
Take care, BTW, and bon voyage.
Posted by
?! |
October 15, 2007 6:55 AM
Stunning.
Posted by
neha vish |
October 15, 2007 11:39 AM
Excellent. I am sure the tide will turn.
Posted by
Lalita |
October 15, 2007 4:22 PM
The last line doesn't fit with the rest. It detracts and should not be there, imho.
Won't you post this on ryze too, please?
Posted by
Anonymous |
October 15, 2007 9:44 PM
Quite lovesick, this bes.
Posted by
Anonymous |
October 18, 2007 10:07 PM
EnVy: Flattering : )
La Litre : Yes, now slather it on : ). As for the tide, had to be taken at the flood, I'm afraid.
NonnyM : Mmmm. I don't know : without the last, the first part goes too. And done@ Raise.
Me :Hehh. Welcome back n all. But as a matter of interest, I write an S & M post and it is assumed that it is fiction; I write about lost connections and it is assumed that I am lovesick. Hmmmm. Freud woulda made something outta this.
Posted by
?! |
October 19, 2007 6:51 AM
Bittersweet.
Posted by
Anonymous |
October 20, 2007 2:24 AM
Freud always blamed the world's and its grandma's failure at fruitful fornication for everything, so a very eloquent tchah to that. Something must be said about Freud and my predilection for F-words. Yes, we're all about alliteration nowadays.
Though I agree with you that your imagination must have reached its pinnacle while writing that S&M post :)).
And nowadays, people don't even bother saying hello. Hmmmm. Considering its our kind of the two (okay, three) available in the world that gives you that vivid shemagination in the first place.
Stop playing Scarlet Pimpernel, all puns that you find in that name not intended :-).
Posted by
Anonymous |
October 28, 2007 6:24 PM
Oi, stop all the drama and post now.
Posted by
Phantasmagoria |
December 18, 2007 12:59 AM
Happy New Year. And now post.
Posted by
Lalita |
December 30, 2007 10:09 PM
wow! that was such powerful writing. tinged with pain and remorese and bitter sweet memories and ruings of what couldve been!!
Posted by
ramblings |
April 12, 2009 10:02 AM