Sellophane

(This be written by Aaki
Sigh, apparently it be for me.)

Walking through IIT with him (he of the bright eyes and eighteen years' worth of dreams), I traced my fingers along cold railings that worked upon my body like some ancient balm. It was a green campus yesterday, and flowers that seemed to be hurting from an excess of colour glowered at me from every direction that I cared to look in. There was anger in the air; the flowers seemed to diffuse it.

Culprits.

My self-confessed sibling had now taken his chappals off, and was balancing them quite expertly on his right hand as we ambled alongside each other. We looked around, looking for stray peacocks or such and such signs, barely discussing anything that I would regard as particular. But then, quite as swiftly as it had been broken, the camaraderie established itself again. We started speaking to each other again. My aching need to quell a self-induced loneliness began to talk in disjointed sentences, and he sought to contribute to the melancholy with his genius when it came to knowing all kinds of strange animals ever since he was a boy of four.

And then, maybe because he requested it, or maybe because we were running out of even-lined things to say, I twirled about in the sunlight, and began to sing--a song in a quivering voice that spoke of ill-practice and little range.

Desperado.

You sound like a jazz record come to life, you know, he said dreamily, and then he made me promise to sing for a movie that he knew he would make in the future. He sounded so sure that I wanted to believe him. One could always make a documentary of sorts, I suppose. But it would be somewhere along the time I know I would have lost my voice completely. Shoulders shrugged, but consent delivered, we walked on towards any road that could take us to a place where we would find our peace for today. I would not know why we supposed any road would do that, though. Maybe sunlight disillusions the easiest of pessimists into believing that all can be translated into a dream at the end. I cannot be sure about this too, you see. I had rather speak for myself, but I believe I would be more accurate if I were to furnish an account of the man who walked with me—he of the bare feet and an open mind. Yes, perhaps I can answer for him. Then I can perhaps escape the business of filling my own questionnaires, you know.

A peacock finally crossed us, its colors sitting sedate in the shadow of a bush, and it was a lovely three in the afternoon. Ruined professors sat along lawns, in pairs or crowds of three, and possibly talked of History. How are we ever to know? I would have liked to eavesdrop and know for sure, though. One likes to be sure of such things sometimes, you see, even when it does not warrant any particular reasoning, or does not seem to be worthy of consequence, to be sure. One just likes to know sometimes.

The peacock elegantly bowed to us and vanished behind the bush whose shadow had lent him an air of darker color than the bright blue he was generally supposed to be, and Barefoot pointed to me the bower where he had his first kiss--that tree near a hostel complex that had stood by and watched as he and his lover had felt their first intimacy come to life only about a few years ago. How many more first kisses had that tree seen, I thought to myself, as we moved apart from collected encased memories of at least a hundred couples. I put an estimate at hundred. I think its safer to spell it out as a roundabout of such, because then one can always fool oneself by forgetting the number of zeros that were attached to it earlier when confronted with the real figure, I think. One can always then quote the real figure and forget that the earlier estimate had been a zero less, or zero more. Or some such thing. It is easier on the nerves that way. At least for me. I shall only speak for myself as regards the way one ought to deal with estimates.

(This be written by Aaki
Sigh, apparently it be for me.)

Afternoon wore on, and I felt myself in a trance and gave myself up to imagination, though I had only sunshine to thank for the distraction, and we had just eaten Appams at a friend's home. Appams, according to me, are not romantic enough to induce a trance, I suppose. I hesitate. I had rather not say, actually.

All around us, Great Neem Trees were raining their leaves upon the ground springing metaphors in my mind. To me, they were leprechauns that liked to give out fake gold coins, if only for a laugh. There they shimmered, those leaves (those gold coins,) at a distance, as we made our way to an inviting hillock where noone would disturb us. I did not want any kind of intrusion into the happy occasion of me smoking my first ever cigarette.

Indulgence, I said, as we sat down, and he got up again. Dropping his bag and packet of cigarettes, he ran to fetch a box of matches from somewhere. We had forgotten the matches, you see.

The hillock housed an ancient tree, with the trunk of a Banyan, leaves that spoke of Kachnar and flowers that answered for Bougainvilleas. Two women sat at a distance near the foot of the hillock, probably speaking of a math problem that they had their heart stuck on, I would not know, really. I thought of dreaming about a black-and-white checked snake that might come my way. One has to content oneself with imagery when one is alone. But then suddenly all at once, one of the girls opened her hair. The shiny mass of it tumbled about the girl, and the other girl (her hair still neatly bound by hairpins I believe) rested her head on her shoulders, speaking of a bond that made me smile. One must invent stories when one waits for cigarettes. If crawling snakes fail, stories of two lovers ought to suffice.

I wrapped myself in a tight embrace along by myself, and waited for the man in the bright tee shirt and awkward jeans to come back to me. Suddenly, I loved the Sun as it sprinkled in through the magic tree. It was an image that I knew I would make a postcard of and mark to myself, that would be opened in about ten years from now and felt again, just as it was supposed to be. Probably just as how it was.

(This be written by Aaki
Sigh, apparently it be for me.)


***
Do you know how gorgeous you look right now, he said, quite out of breath as he looked down at me.

He had come back.

I had watched him as he was coming back--running towards the hillock chasing an imaginary football, perhaps. Football and women were all that he would ever chase, my imaginary sibling does not believe in taking trouble otherwise. This is conjecture. Don't get me wrong—I usually leave character sketches by themselves. I would rather not judge, you see.

I watched him no more as he seated himself next to me, all ready to begin a lesson on cigarettes that I had never cared to know about. Menthol sugar was handed to me, and the elegance of what was about to begin sought to interest me enough to look at him, and then look beyond him to a particularly tall Neem tree—that leprechaun that was shimmering its golden wisdom all the while the matches were searched for, imaginary footballs were chased, stories were intertwined.

It lit, the strange boy handed the cigarette to me, adjusted my fingers to the way they ought to be, and I inhaled strange tastes and smells. I billowed smoke caring nothing for it, and I spoke as much. You don't look like a whore or a stupid inexperienced girl when you smoke, you know? He said that I smoked with the elegance of a woman. I think I believed for a minute, and then I reverted to concentrating on the smoke in my mouth, my insides churning with the strange taste of it, it making no music as it was supposed to. It should have, what did they show it in the movies for? The long cigarette wrapped around long fingers, the long fingers trapping the long cigarette, smoke lighting up the dark, creating the romance of a fog when there earlier had been none.


I gave up, cigarettes are wasted on me, I said, giving the rest of it to him. I cannot feel anything.

You do not feel anything because you do not want to feel anything anymore, he retorted mildly as he lay down on the grass, his bag his pillow, he stretched under the tree and felt the magic of the confusion that the tree was for himself.

Suddenly was I angry, suddenly I made a reference to some of the anger, and got up and signaled for him to come along. It was nothing, and it was everything. I think I feel too much. I do not quite believe anybody will agree, though.

Walk forgotten, I walked alone, my man following with the cigarette I had forsaken, apologizing for things that had never happened.

Later that night, he told me he loved me. I coiled myself around the cigarette that was still leftover in my bag, and smoked in the emptiness of my room. I wanted to feel something, feel anything.

But then, Cigarettes are quite useless for companions anyway.