The littlest one’s arms were yanked by his mother who’d had enough of the noise and restless energy of the still-in-nappies tot, together with probably half the carriage- a conservative estimate based on neatly rounded and made-up statistics, that only half of the half who didn’t have headsets on cared (about the noise) and that half of those wearing headsets had their devices switched off but were primed and ready for their sensory limit to be reached setting their trigger finger to hit play and transport them into an aural cocoon, avoiding the very noise they contribute to in the overcrowded carriage with their generic tinny orchestra joining dozens of other leaky headsets, proving that sometimes the whole is worse than the sum of its parts, but I digress. Continue reading →
Actual Stream of Consciousness. Literally, Really 03.06.19
I entered the carriage and immediately registered the smell of curry and the many faces looking tired, dishevelled and defeated by the wintery Monday. They’d done their time and now the journey home was as comfortable as their fellow passengers would make it. There was the annoying whistling sound of two women speaking quietly, wet umbrellas without a designated place to rest till their owner disembarked, and the smell of snacks and early dinners. A four – seater was waiting, only steps into the carriage so I took it and removed my coat, placed my bags in the overhead compartment and got comfortable before realising the curry was coming from the seat opposite and diagonal to me. Continue reading →
‘It’s not over till it’s over’ he’d said. If it hadn’t been such a heated conversation and had she not been walking out on him, D would have burst into song, repeating his lines and adding ’till I’m over you’. It was 5 years since that day, also his birthday. The reminder had been in her phone up until last year, but by then the date was lodged in her mental calendar. She’d felt horrible doing it on his birthday, but there was hardly an opportune moment to talk with him, and he’d given her his full attention in anticipation of being showered with gifts and adoration.
‘Shit!’
She slammed on the breaks, bringing her ricocheting into the present. Continue reading →
Pauline’s husband died on the eve of their 50th wedding anniversary. A heart attack. It was no surprise as he had been one of a dying breed. A smoker who over the years had to trade the convenience of smoking anywhere he chose for surreptitious drags in the shadows wedged between the looming office tower where he worked and the adjacent apartment block where he kept four walls for late nights at the office, doubling as a faux bachelor pad for the high class hookers he was dependent on. He’d work late into the night, billing clients for time that would never be his again. Pauline had been busy with arrangements for their anniversary party that coming weekend. It was just another of a long list of projects that kept her occupied through the course of their marriage. Their secret for longevity, they’d only half joke to anyone who cared to ask, was that they were both too busy to have any marital discord. This was of course not entirely true. There was discord, but it was spoken of in the hushed tones of their body language, separate beds, and dreams on divergent paths. Continue reading →
I’ve lost count of the number of times ‘the only thing private are his thoughts’ has been muttered by passers-by believing their words to be original and witty; while I retain the dignity of private thoughts in my nakedness, the pleasure is dimmed somewhat by the many distractions that rarely allow for a single coherent train of thought: visitors taking photographs; amateurs and professionals alike making sketches I’ve learnt to not take personally when certain proportions are downgraded to fun size; pretentious conversations about art; scrunched up pages of a sketch book hurled at me; crude paper planes projected with whimsy in my direction, their sharp points denting on impact, gravity ensuring I never receive the message; heads bowed in studious attention toward a Lonely Planet within my line of sight, page open to an image of me as the reader verifies the importance of their visit; and of course, that originality and wit rearing its head again with poses mimicking mine, taunting me as the comedian’s jaunty limbs move in and out of freeze frame with fluidity that escapes me.
As the sun sets on the grounds and the last of the visitors makes a beeline to the gift shop, the first muted signal of evening’s silence cloaks me like a lovers embrace, something akin to a tempered version of that kissing pair who don’t get a moment away from one another.
With the quiet of closing, when left alone with my thoughts for a spell, I’m grateful for being on the right side of the real gates of hell; knowing the screams from that garden shed will take their queue when the bells toll at midnight, telling a tale of a more brutal inferno than our maker envisioned, the fury and despair of forced retirement where the wounded, the shattered, and those with chips on their shoulders too large to repair are banished for eternity.
Story inspired by Sonya’s Three Line Tales, Week 97and memories of a visit to the Musée Rodin in Paris a long time ago.
Work in Progress 