Blurry

You know sometimes how things are just perfect? When you don’t have a tooth-ache or head-ache or a finger-ache or a funny feeling in the stomach? When everything is just right? You do? Well…that’s strange…as far as I see it…there’s always something or the other…. A niggle at most. Anyway….the day I’m talking about…was an almost-perfect day. The weather actually, was rather perfect. For me, anyway. Dark grey clouds hovered over the earth. The zephyr was slowly transforming into something a little more sinister….unassumingly lifting skirts, blowing away hats and smacking fliers onto people’s faces. Two fat drops of rain plopped on to my face and the rest followed suit. Chaos all around me…peace within. Really, it was perfect. I could stay out longer, getting wet and all…but you know all that jazz about decorum et cetera. Besides, it’s more fun when there’s someone else to splash around with. All I could see around me were a bunch of boring drips.

Anyway, soaked through the skin, I finally took shelter – some sort of bus-stop. Don’t ask me which one… I never take buses. People looked at me funny. Don’t blame them. A wet girl in a transparent white shirt …entertainment in an otherwise dreary place like a bus-stop. But an Ursula Andress, I was not….so I guess the stares weren’t sustained. Oh well.

It was around that time – standing in a crowded bus-stop with a simply fascinating assortment of strangers – staring at the deserted streets – that I saw him…Blurry. That’s what he was. Blurry. A riot of colors weaving through disjointed strands of rain.

“Terrific, isn’t it?” he asked me, a perfect stranger. “Perfect”, I replied, a perfect stranger. “Where are you… right now?” he asked, shaking himself like a dog. “Scotland, I guess. Could be Norway, but I’m guessing Scotland”. “Wonderful”, he quipped. “ I’m in this place called Cavan – it’s a county in Ireland – not too far from Dublin. So I guess we aren’t too far apart”. “Considering how big this world is”, I said, “no, not at all”.
“Yes. That’s what I like about you. You still think the world is big. Isn’t it awful when someone says ‘it’s a small world after all’?” “Yes. They give no credit to poor ol’ world. For all its mysteries and secret shadowy crevasses”, I said munching on roasted corn. “Now you are being silly”, he said slurping on imaginary tea, “just plain old silly”. That put me off. Believe me, it did. Who was he to call me silly??...this…this….Clown!

Anyway, good for him he was never in one place, or one mood for that matter, for very long. Judging by his next question, I supposed he was in Africa. “Do you think”, he asked scratching his ear, “that you could ever eat a zebra?” “What sort of zebra?” I asked, groping for a punch line. “Well...” he said, “the usual…but if you want more…he’s about your size…not too tall, but you know, the sort who eats all day and everything…” I gaped at him angrily…damn, I needed a punch line.
“Can I have some of your corn? You are making a huge show of it you know? You might as well share”, he said changing the topic once again. “I’ll think about it”, I said smarting a little; after all he just compared me to a zebra that eats all day. “You obviously have no manners”, he said, the uncouth what-not. “It’s the company I keep”, I sniffed. “Your shirt is wet. So’s your hair”, said the observant fellow. “Really? I hadn’t noticed. Maybe because of the rain and everything”. “See, the thing is”, he said, finally taking away my corn cob, “I can see your scalp. Have you considered taking Paba? Para benzoic acid?” Ouch. “No”, I said, recovering only slightly, “but I’ve considered jumping off a building”. “How tall was it?” “About your size. Not too tall.” “Then it doesn’t qualify as a building.” “Whatever. I don’t feel like talking”, I said feeling disturbed.

So we both stopped talking for a while. Then along came a bus. 202 or something of that sort. “So, you want to come?” he asked, renewing old ties. “I don’t know where it’s going”, I said honestly. “Nowhere particular. Let’s go”, he said, tugging at my arm. So I went, because the bus went to ‘nowhere particular’…precisely my destination. We sat together. Surprise, surprise…like he was going to leave me. The bus was empty. Pretty much empty. I guess most people knew where they were going.

I sat at the window, but of course. I sit only by the windows. He didn’t complain. “Have you been in love?” he asked. What a cheesy question. “It’s none of your business”, I said, not caring much for the topic of conversation. I had seen perfectly fine gentlemen, in total control of themselves, being reduced to jelly, when it came to things like love. Just a mere conversation about it would make them seem silly. When they’d suddenly get sentimental and dreamy and talk about things ‘you won’t understand’. “I knew a girl once…” he began, and I sighed, hating him and despising him and getting bored of him. “She was a tarantula of some sort”. What? Oh no…not Dylan and all that now! “Hairy little poisonous thing. I loved her. She roamed about freely…not in a glass cage or anything. Always found something to nibble on. Till she found my toe. It’s all about the survival of the fittest right? So I took an encyclopedia I never read and squashed her before she could bite me. It was the cruelest thing I had to do…kill someone I loved”. It felt surreal…talking about a dead tarantula, who was a former love, on an empty bus that went to ‘nowhere particular’ on a stormy afternoon. “Was that metaphorical?” I asked, happy again. “No. Nothing between the lines”. “Good”. “But I lost someone”. “Don’t we all?” “Shut up”. Ouch. I should have been more sensitive and less pseudo-philosophical. “Sorry”, I said sincerely.

“You say that a lot don’t you?” he asked. “Even for other people…people I don’t know”, I replied. “I figured”. “I have been in love”, I said suddenly. He just looked out of the window, past me. But I went on. I knew he was listening. “He didn’t love me back. I don’t think he knew either. He went around with someone else. Happily married now, I believe”. “You're like my tarantula. I don't how it is connected to your story though. I'd just like to think you're my tarantula. Though you’re not particularly hairy. Paba is the only answer. Believe me. Paba”. And I laughed. For the first time in ages, I laughed. A laugh that came from some unknown abyss I hadn’t dared to explore.

Somehow I don’t remember the rest. It’s all blurry after that.