A little sad...just a little bit

I feel a little blue today. Very close to tears, but it's a slightly stubborn sort of wistfulness. It pains me somewhere in the chest, makes me forget my breathing, and then gets possessive about this territory in my throat. It doesn't move. I wish I read something sad, or listened to an ode - some thing that will thaw this clump of jagged, piercing ice and it will just trickle down my being. I could be free again.

It felt worse earlier on in the evening though. The weather had just turned dramatic and wild. There was thunder and thin, veiled gnarled flashes of lightning. The sky seemed to shudder like a sheet of stage art. The wind was ready to rip through the sheet and disclose the puppeteers who stood behind it. For a moment, I held my breath. I was mesmerized. The moment passed on, though, and I felt blue again.

Slowly, over the next few minutes, the air had become cooler. My prickly melanchony was getting blunt. I could feel the sawdust of my tristesse getting shaved off. And steadily, I felt lighter. The world still felt blue. But it was a blue my own blue could mingle with. Get diluted a little, hold its own, and yet get carried on forever.

That's how I will get through the rest of the night. With my sadness riding on a stronger, more beautiful sadness. I will get through the way sunlight gets carried by the sea.

How can you be anything but...

I am usually optimistic about everything in life. I believe that no matter how wrong something might be at a particular moment, it is still the very same moment someone else is finding true love. Or realizing his or her dream. Or eating a sinful and tasty treat. Or stopping to smell a rose, and then sit on the curb to write a poem about it. So, it's just a matter of time that that person becomes you.

Some days, though, are very hard to get through. Like yesterday. I woke up unwell. Some fever, some body ache. But nothing I couldn't deal with. The day was ordinary. Things took a turn late at night. There was an argument I did not see coming. Listened to abuses I was too shocked to respond to. And hostility that seemed so bitter and rancid, that it seems to have festered for nearly a lifetime.

Outburst over, I sat in my room. I thought I was calm. I think I started folding clothes. I wonder why. Maybe smoothening wrinkles after being abused is akin to mopping blood stains after a massacre. You have to clean it away. For the longest time, I tried to focus on something else - something happier. It was getting on late into the night. I was scared of the bile swishing sleeplessness that awaited me. Have had more than enough of those in the last few years. The fever became worse.

Just before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep, my mind and heart slowly came to an agreement...that perhaps this is as dark as the nights come. No use looking or hoping for sunshine. No point craning to see that dazzling spot of light. My heart and my mind, after years of conflict, seemed to have reconciled over one thing - I will never be carefree and happy again.



Outside, the sky, silent and soft, listened to everything going on inside me and said, "We'll see."



And the next day, the sun shone...again.

Portaiture

A deep, brown bough reached across a green pond. A million leaves around it trembled. The reflection of these arboreal twitches creased an already rippled surface even more. Water registers such synchronicity.

The world was green. No sunshine. No stars. No moon. No wind. No grey clouds. Just a soft world seen through layers and layers of leaves.

Whilst passing, one wondered why one had seen such a sight. Had it been a few minutes later or a few minutes earlier, one would have missed it. But one saw. One remembered. One translated that memory, crudely, into faltering words. Why?

My life - a sad, quiet Mona Lisa. And it's purpose - a slight, silent smile.

Now there's a boss

A friend is getting married in December. He applied for a month's leave, when apparently some new project would be underway - the kind of project that, if not worked upon in frenzy, would lead to world domination by cats.

My friend's project manager was reluctant to grant leave.

"Can't you go in January?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I'm getting married in December."

"So get married in January."

"I can't."

"Why not?! Think about it...the later you marry, the longer it will last."

"How so?"

"Simple... you will have less time to be together, no? You will die quickly."



...and they wonder why people quit jobs suddenly!