The In-Betweeners

Picture credit: here



He liked running his toe between the space where the stone tiles met. From afar it looked like a seamless coming together, to him it was a beautiful falling apart, cracks cradling nothingness and free falls. Where life could be lived noisily, with the wind coming at your face, into your hair, while you're one with speed and connected to a feeling that lives in the pit of your stomach.

People were a lot like that too, with each other. They only ever made sharp, acute sense when lines were blurred. Not everything was above board 24x7. Not everything fell under neat labels. Sure, it was here that most riots, chaos and heartbreak existed, but it was only from here that poetry stemmed. The relationships which eventually gave way to definitions breathed their first and last in this place. The tiny gap where two stone tiles met.

Take love, he starts to argue, how does it start?
It's always inching its way out of a Glee soundtrack of questions. Do you love me as a friend? Am I your boyfriend? Will we marry? Is this forever? If you let this cacophony settle down, there in the quiet and peace of blurred lines you could shyly shake love's hand and perhaps even share a drink.

Find your own lines to blur, he's now urgently advising you.
The first thing you'll lose then is control. Control of how you thought this should turn out, what is the ideal next move in this template you always told yourself you'd follow. Control of how you should act, what is right and good for you. There is no resolution in blurred lines, no conclusions or peace of mind is ever  found here. 

So, tell me why does everyone want to visit here every now and again? He'll ask you suddenly looking you straight in the eye.

Don't fidget or rush to deny it. He always answers his own questions.

Because, they never feel more alive anywhere else than in these in-between relationships which end perhaps even before they begin.
You should enjoy them for what they are, he drawls this out .
Take from them your poetry and music. The validations that you deny you're seeking. Take from them everything your being needs and then go back to your definitions.

Don't try and live here too long, you'll suffocate the beauty of the nothing. You'll make sweaty, desperate attempts to box this. And remember then, what I'm saying now. In between the concrete porn that you call your cities, in between your constant attempt at a work-life balance, in between your manicured parks and the days you design around yourself, exist the lives you wish you had. They're breathing slowly, and they're yours to hold for a minute.

Don't try to cage them and don't stay too long.

Refer To The Black Box

 Picture credit: here

There was a steady rhythm to scrubbing a table clean. You started at the centre, took that cloth and swiped it hard in a circular motion. Assured that ballet dancers aspire for a similar flourish in a pirouette, you moved to the sides. Soft, clean strokes worked better than getting angry at the stains. Sadness, coffee rings and stray tomato pieces disappear faster if you're gentle and firm. 

                             

This remained his favourite part of the day, scrubbing the tables clean so that the next customer could write his own story- broken hearts always left crumbs and empty sugar sachets, long-lost friends left coffee rings and forgotten ash. It was those he was careful of, those that left the table as pristine as they'd found it- too afraid to own it, to leave a mark, to be remembered or perhaps found. 

The constant back and forth carrying orders,could make you feel like God. You heard snippets, learnt bits of their stories and yet you couldn't interfere, these kids really had to sort it out on their own

                                                   

This city is no longer strange. Perhaps, moving here 25 years ago felt surreal. The 26th year is different, the tourists ask me for directions


to his question, I have no answer. Will I marry him? Yes. Should I? No. But he only asked me will I, didn't he?

Leave a reply on her voicemail. If she still wants to do business with you, she will call. Honestly, everything does not need to be analysed over coffee. Hi, one banana muffin please


come for a holiday with me. I signed up for the tour but the thought of spending a vacation with complete strangers makes me lonelier than I have ever been


away for far too long. I don't know their dreams anymore. Do they like peanut butter with milk, or do they prefer pizza. Are they even my children anymore, or hers to call her own


manuscript, but we can't publish it now, can we? I know school jealousies should be behind us but there are somethings a 9 year old version of you will hold on to so tightly that 27 years later


a bomb in the middle of the district exploded and all I wanted to know is if they blew up the shop where I had eaten those beautiful brownies the last time I visited


her home. Her beautiful, sterilized home where red was not a colour but an explosion that really should have been contained


before it got out. You can live in a certain part of the city all you want, if your child gets lice at the age of 12, I'm judging you


and those books you loved. I loved them with you. The movies you saw, I held your hand through the reel. It seems unfair that suddenly it's my taste that's under scrutiny


was his beautifully cut jaw-line. I'd have run my finger along its length but I was afraid it would have ripped the skin on my finger tips open . Blood is never a good look on a first date


which ended in me having to pay the bill. Ordering lobster is a decision one should make when one is clear whose bill the meal is going on


for almost an entire day. I guess that makes him a recognized artist and me a proud father. Do you want to see the slideshow again


we're back at this restaurant? The food is delicious but don't you think that waiter is always lingering within ear shot


my heart to pieces with that text, but she doesn't know I read it and I can take another bullet for love.

Start with a clean cloth in the centre and move towards the side, that way you can really get the entire surface clean in a single go.

Ways Of Seeing

There are stories to be told in the way people look at each other. Especially around crowded rooms, meetings, clubs and malls. Most need to be translated from the author's native language to be understood. But some can be heard, read and observed if you pay close attention. 
You see there are ways of seeing, even in the dark of the night.

The-I'm worried for your happiness, and how you wear it carelessly like a dress with the straps falling off- gaze.

The- I want you right here, right now, but anyone else will also do- gaze.

The- it's a crowded room tonight but desperately trying to avoid you makes the corners of my eyes work overtime- gaze.

The- telling you lies by looking at you boldly and bored in the face- gaze.

The- we're shaking hands and saying hello because all possibilities are ours in this moment- gaze.

The- even though this success is yours tonight, I played my part by being in your life- gaze.

The- I'm smiling at you but my eyes are roaring for that other person across the room- gaze.

The- I'm staring at the fluorescence of my phone screen waiting for you to look away- gaze.

The- this's a screaming plea to you to learn my piece through desperate, tiny furrows in my forehead and practiced curves of my smile- gaze.

The- obvious knowledge of my beauty tonight earned me my right to look bored- gaze.

The- I have my family and tribe by my side and Loneliness checked out earlier- gaze.

The- these dark glasses let me stare at your body leisurely and inappropriately- gaze

The- that object of beauty you're all unavoidably sneaking glances at, is all mine- gaze.

The- this world seems more promising if my eyes stay slightly hooded- gaze.

The- I dare you to spot the outlines of the places I yearn for in my dilated pupils- gaze.

The- fallen from grace and gleefully rollicking in instant gratification tonight- gaze.

The- dull longing, exploring, wondering and wishing artfully hidden behind infinitely blank eyes- gaze.

                                                        
                           Picture credit: Here

A Story Always Contains 26 Letters.

                                                    Picture Credit: Here.

                                              

He sat turning the postcard around in his hand.

The matte surface of the picture felt cool against his thumb. Circling the surface distractedly, he hoped to trace a hidden message. Convinced that if he spent a minute longer weighing his decision he would amble into 'chick' territory, he scrawled

Hey,

I'm ok. Hope you're happy too

**
The old pub on South Bank must've been witness to it's fair share of confused lovers. They who'd sit with a pen in their hand, confusion tempered with enough bitterness in their hearts and a freshly brewed ale keeping their emotions fueled. What else could explain the wear and tear of the wooden table?
The scratch marks down it's surface, told more tales of anguish than of weathering due to age. Leave a man with a postcard, a pen, a drink on a wooden table and gashes on the table's surface would inevitably appear. Sometimes it was less horrific to carve out a message permanently than have it's intended recipient read it on paper, a thousand miles away.


This was his routine now.
Every weekend he would send her a postcard perfumed with noble intentions, hoping to explain himself. To communicate that he wasn't the obvious villain, he honestly didn't blame her for thinking he was.
That his flirtations had never been anything more than an anthropological experiment, all to prove his hypothesis that he still had game. That there was more to his decisions than a transparent fear of commitment and a painfully burning desire to explore more.
You couldn't say those things to your lover.
Not without her taking them very personally. Flinging a vase at you. Becoming deathly quiet. And then bursting into tears. All with a swiftness of transition only a woman could manage. He'd tried. He even had his friend rehearse the speech with him, but when he saw her sitting there, weathering under unanswered questions and stifled dreams, he hadn't known where to begin.

Baby, I know you're not happy.

That's when the flinging happened, and a muffled voice which seemed to be choking on it's own words said

I see where you're going with this. Don't bother.

Once again he believed her words. And didn't.

**
His ticket for London had been bought for the next month. And that's when the project took form and shape. One postcard a week. To wish her well. To reassure her that he wanted her to be happy, and to laugh that laugh which had once been in tune with eeny-meeny-miny-mo.
The words that came out were always different. Laboured, simplistic and never enough. Perhaps a lot like how he'd been towards the end.


A walk around the river always found him lingering outside his favourite souvenir shop. Laden with fridge magnets, the tired rack was mostly groaning and ready to collapse under the obvious irony. Behind the counter there were rows and rows of post cards. From aerial shots of the Buckingham Palace, tired views of red phone-booths, Trafalgar Square, the eye-sore that was London Eye and Parks.
He always picked one of the parks to send her. It was his way of letting her know that he'd come back and perhaps they could go on a picnic somewhere. Things would be perfect in that unreal moment and give them something to hold onto, to aspire to and to compare against when things got real and well, boring.

His friends wondered why he bothered with this exercise.

We have history, mate.

It was pretty simple. People do more for shared history than for anything else. To preserve it. To not have to start over. If starting over had a taste, it would be sharp, metallic and far too acidic. Shared history sat like melted chocolate on your tongue, you could chew it out and get tangled in it, eventually though it disappeared leaving an aftertaste that only water could wash away.

His postcard messages were always succinct. Clipped, if you may. He couldn't bother with poetry, despite knowing how much she ached for it. She'd once traced this, letter by letter, onto his bare back while he lay sleeping
“-Before leaving my room

i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.”

He wanted to try for her today, outside the Tate. He wanted to go for something meaningful- but all he got was.

Hello.
The museums here are pretty cool. So, you doing alright?

That was his fourth and final draft and frankly it looked like that hot-dog cart would leave if he didn't get up quickly.

Stuffing the panoramic view of St. James Park in his back-pack, he made a run for it.

It tumbled into place. Falling clumsily on top of the postcard with the couple sunning themselves at Hyde Park, and five other such, including a now, slightly yellowing one of Greenwich Park. The edges of the postcard had curled against the leaves of the tree in the picture. His handwriting was smudged by errant drops from the Tabasco bottle which lay alongside Greenwich's best, and frankly only decent view.
There they lay. Forlorn. Waiting for absolution and postage stamps.