Winter.
The air grates my skin,
and I feel like floating,
but I keep my feet steady.
The dusty street is gleaming
under pale light orbs.
It is depressing the way cold evenings can be
Honking, heaving vehicles zoom past me,
a single thought of stepping in front of one of the them springs
like a dolphin,
and then it disappears into the same depths it came from.
Alas.
I amble away to kill time.
The air is heavy, pressing on my chest,
the harsh noises reverberate in the air,
the world is a giant radio with no controls,
always blaring,
playing static noise,
driving you crazy.
Is it any wonder people are so angry these days?
The road leads to a crossroad
and at the end of it stands a man.
Stands?
More hammered like a nail to the ground
than standing,
his left leg is missing,
head of a wooden crutch is buried in his armpit.
He has a vacant face
it bears no expression
none,
but what sort of pain doesn’t cry for attention?
An ancient pain, perhaps:
the kind which is long absorbed, long expired,
its edge gradually softening through neglect
and apathy,
its remembrance fading,
cruelty of the world now evenly matched
by cruelty of the self,
a tug of war,
a tug of life,
a tug of all things not love.
Where is his guardian angel?
He has his right hand extended passively,
his fingers seem like black wax candles
with some coins flashing like luminous wicks in his palm.
He doesn’t beg,
he doesn’t beseech,
he doesn’t turn to anybody,
he doesn’t thank if somebody is kind enough to drop something in his half stretched hand.
His eyes seem ossified through the diesel fumes swimming in the air.
He might be saying nothing to the world,
or he might be screaming: “Fuck You -
I am here in your world in the position I am because of you.
And I am not going to please you.
I am not going to give you back your coin size satisfaction in return,
and when I die on this street lying half naked
starved, sick, diseased, and at the end of your fucking mercies,
you will see me,
and you will talk about something else
to erase the awfulness of your memory of my wretched existence from your mind
So, Fuck You once more.”
I have seen him before,
I have felt his gaze slip from the world to me,
and from me to the world.
Once I saw him eating from a bowl,
he sat cross legged on the ground at the same spot where he stands.
Again, there was nothing -
an animal feeding his hunger,
a man with no dignity to salvage
what expression shall he bear?
who is going to ask him?
In eyes’ curious tongues, may be I have -
in a different life we could be friends,
in a different life I would look at him,
and he would look away.
just bystanders on a busy street,
looking askance at one another.
There will be a tomorrow.
I shall wake up in the morning,
and dazed all day, retreat to sleep at night
amid the slow realization of time passing,
life humming,
and an ending nearing.
I may stop going his way
I may leave this city forever.
In this world of infinite possibilities
really most things just come and go
with no beauty, no fulfillment, and no reprieve till the very end,
What could you possibly say to please your God?