I hate pop-ups and smartasses. But that didn’t stop them from entering my life.
I am fussy about coffee, but I am diseased with politeness. I sit in a bus that’s about to have a heart attack, and I know it’s not for me. And as I wait in the traffic signal, studiously ignoring the little beggar boy, in my plush Mercedes Benz, I know, that’s not for me either.
I have a face that could be from anywhere. I have a voice that is seldom heard. I have hands and feet that could be anybody’s. I have a body, I don’t care much for. I have a cello-taped heart and an indecisive brain. I have a pair of very vague eyes and a smile that’s too easy and meaningless.
I live well enough. I have friends. I have family. I’m not frightfully pretty or frightfully ugly. I’m not morbidly depressed or over the moon happy. I’m your everyday, regular cup of coffee. Or tea. Whatever it is you have.
Come tomorrow, I am going to die. And it’ll be sheer poetry.
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Ms. Ol’Wassername, I’m pleased to announce, has kicked the bucked. Gone, deceased, disintegrated, helloing St. Pete, whatever, whatever…dead. And here I am. An extreme. Brand new hands, brand new feet, a face you’d remember, a voice you’d dream of and eyes that would haunt you forever. Ms. Sex on the Beach. Peachy ‘aint she?
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Unrequited love is a bitch. That’s what the girl next to me keeps saying, in an accent I don’t quite get. It’s the first time I’ve come to this strange city. And she wails, and bawls, and dead soldiers appear from nowhere and one tells me… “You were never a patriot, never will be”.
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Coffee, cruel coffee. Loves to test my patience, still. Cigarettes and magazines scattered everywhere, remind me of a song. A mother, a father and a brother walk around the new apartment looking for this kid. I tell them, she doesn’t live here. And they walk out saying “never mind” and remind me of another song.
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Another day, another job. Another face I remember, another I’d rather not.
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He had a trunk like a tree trunk. And he ate six meals a day. He had perfect teeth and a ghastly voice. He just came into my apartment and refused to go. I had to pick up a cricket bat and chase him away. But then again, it could have been a crow.
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This British boy (I’m sure about this, he was British, he told me so), sat next to me in a hand-pulled rickshaw. I thought it was strange, because I hate hand-pulled rickshaws and I never share my transportation. He told me, I was becoming crazier by the day. And I told him plainly (because I wasn’t diseased with politeness anymore) that, I am fine. I have a perfect body, perfect feet, perfect hands, haunting eyes and a dreamy voice. I am an extreme. So he just got off, and I endured the terrible ride on my own and could not ask the man to stop. When I reached my destination, I realized I was penniless.
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Is it just the Romantics, who keep searching, searching and searching? What is it that they search for? The Holy Grail, Salvation, Love, God, Happiness? How do they write? How do they tell stories? Don’t they ever look at their hands and wonder, “whose are these?”