Nothing else matters!!!

I would have safely assumed it to be mere coincidence that made my iPod played Nothing Else Matters at those wierdest and saddest moments, times when I needed a hand around my shoulder, listening to my rants. But the strange timing with which the song plays, beating all alogrithms that the makers built into song shuffling, makes me think if my iPod had a mind of its own after all. 

It had been a dream job, one of those things that drove you onward in times of hell and the cliched rat race that gets you into the system. What if I had another bread earner in hand, a compromise my mind called it. I was too naive then to realize what was it in this one that attracted me, the money, the culture, the brand, beats me! But it had been the place to be and having crossed three rounds of hurdles and having almost been there, with one last round between me and the offer, it seemed too good to be true. The call had to come mid day, an hour's break in the hostel to let the nerves cool down. We laughed around in light banter, prepared for questions that might arise. The hour turned into two and four, till I eventually heard about the contemporaries who had made it. Clearly I hadn't. Compromise had to be digested in now, for there might not be another chance afterall. iPod in hand, I let the company lose and walked out to the divine abode. Play - "So close no matter how farrr..!!"

 

I had let another man break my heart, I had shed my first tears for someone other than my closeknit family. A strange sense of helplessness arose as it sunk in, that I was vulnerable to the world and its plays. As I stood waiting for my ride back home, it hit me hard that the race does not end when one sun sets in. It is run with every rising day, it is a challenge to run for, day in and night out. Play - "Couldn't get much more from the heart..!!" A couple of years down the line, I stood at a similar juncture, hurt and pain steaming out of my eyes. As the train pulled in to the station, it dawned on the lame soul that it had become too much of a regular now. The tears rolled down as I walked out of the house, the mind wondering how I could hate someone from the heart, love the same from the pit and never manage to ignore. As each stinging word, demeaning me of going away, pricked, the heart stood there listening, numb to these worldly means of torture. The train pulled off the station, Play - "Forever trusted who we are..!!"

I had woken up a little too early, hadn't slept at all to be honest. The ghosts had stuck along when I hit the bed, they had followed me through LaLa land and knocked me up in time for the sunrise. And yes, It can never be more perfect than waking up early to a cloudy day. God's way of beating into you the truth that no matter how hard you try to keep the sunshine riding and the song in the air, there will be days of utter despair. The dull, gloomy ones where there will be no light at the end of the tunnel, the silver lining would be yet another delusion and even the birds would take their day off. I look up at the end of the horizon, for any sight of the much needed welcome break. A deep sigh and Play - "And Nothing else matters!!"

Two tracks and one soccer game.

She had reached the train station with enough time in hand to let the chill kill her nerves. Was it her guts or her brain that made her go through the torture of the cold every other minute? Every time her teeth shuddered and her muscles twitched in the wind, she let out a sigh, looked up at the heavens and laughed. Yes! She was still alive.

The girl was too young to realize if it was love or a plain high school crush. They had been chums since they'd joined back in mid school. They'd grown closer in the last few years and the five hour long phone conversations had left every couple in class jealous. But today, when he had confessed to her that he had found love and he was going to propose to their best friend for years, she din't know if she was being plain and simple possessive or he really meant the world to her.

Yes! She was still alive; and that realization brought with it the pains of the night. Time when another realization had struck, the fact that she had been kidding herself this far. The last few years had been a roller coaster ride, with her shifting from one foundation to another to keep her shack grounded. It was surprising how everytime her boat drifted off the shore, she'd found a new bark of wood mid water, to moor her boat. But last night she realized that no matter how hard she tried, it was meant to be.

He really meant the world to her and watching him fall for another girl in front of her eyes left her stranded. The icing on the cake had been him falling for her very best friend. Now everytime she saw her, it hit her harder than ever. The theory was proved after all;  everyone falls in love one big time, everyone is fighting for something and everyone has something to hide.

It was meant to be and she had to let the tides wash her ship off shore. Mortal ties of friendship had gotten her through some of the worst times in her life; start of college with all the growing up to do, a new job, work in an unknown land. There had always been a heart to go back to at the end of a sad day, with a smile, a cheer and a hug to kiss the pain away. These were hearts that meant the world to her at some point in space. They had helped her fight it through; and now it was the same few who failed to see it.

Everyone has something to hide and the girl let that guide her when she held both the souls dearest to her heart close to it. The move to a new school, college in a land from the past had given her the break she had needed to fall out of these misunderstandings and grow up. Five years and she had totally out lived her childish charms. She'd grown up. She'd grown out of them.

And now it was the same few who failed to see it; she was not meant to be rooted to the ground to begin with. Every time she thought it was the wave and the tide to be blamed, she had ignored the voice within that was enjoying the unsteady waters. There had always been the hand that quietly cut all ties to the earth, given that perfect boost up skward. Noone had noticed it then because noone had cared.

She'd grown out of them and today when he discovered her in the web world, while she was expected to be ecstatic about it, all we felt was a gush of the smells from the past. Mere fictious characters playing the part in her head, a play that barely made anymore sense to her, something that barely made sense to anyone. Things had changed within her in the years that flew by and she hadn't noticed it. Noone had noticed it then because noone had cared.

Noone had noticed it then, because noone had cared and she was used to life being like that. The prince of the dumpster, the ruler of no-man's isle she had been. And now, when she saw visitors to her little island, wanting a piece of the land, adding their own colors to their little patch and worrying about the bright ones in the neighbours, she wonders if she is to be blamed. She fails to understand why the visitors don't see, that all that should matter is their being there. And their making their stay worth it. 

For as much as I am open to them walking in and as much as it would hurt me to see them go away, my heart would not change from what it had liked before and after. As often as a new traveller would break my heart, it would welcome another one in with open arms, for that is how pink and plum it is bred to be. It has been each such blow that has made the heart stronger. 

No matter how many more bandaids this knee might hold, the soccer game is on and it has to be bled to live to the fullest..

Sunrise Pals.

Some days dont have the perfect sunrise....then other days, when the sun sinks in and you barely notice it....there are nights when you fall asleep and the moon is not out as yet...then there are blues of the sky that keep you waiting for something nice....

My thought wanders between different trains of happy memories, till I hit one stop that keeps me pondering for a while......people who have been the perfect sunrises in the horizon...bright and red...complete creations of the almighty....these angels have made sure that days with them in it, have made it a joy to live through...they have given me reasons to wake up the next day, hoping for similar thoughts....

And then there are others, who are cloudy days from the start....leave a sorry feeling in the heart and an itch when you see the sun eventually up at the zenith....these are the ones that barely made an entrance and you hardly notice them leave....It's funny I actually remember such entries vividly as well, the indistinct reasons why I bumped into them, the meaningless conversations shared and the quick, painless goodbyes.... 

And then there are the trickiest days....ones where you wake up real early and lie awake...because they give you the feeling of the perfect sunrise....bright and orange....leave a craving and a want in your mind...and while you lie there in wait....they jump the gun....very soon you realize that you trusted the wrong instinct after all.....and it was a losing hope to start with....because it had turned into a total disappointment....a sore feeling down your throat....God bless such friends (hic!!) who have walked into my life, dented my heart and walked out with no remorse in neither minds...I know I will rise up for such daybreaks in the future too, because they make me stronger and the eventual perfect sunrise feels all the divine!!!

Ghosts!

She closed the door, as he left, and ran out to the balcony..she peered down as she saw him appear into the yard. He walked out the main gate, a sense of pride in his gait; what was the reason she did not know. She stood there till he was just a bleAk spot on the road and the crowd ate him in.

She turned back into the room, glum and sorry, and he was there waiting for her. One had left only to be filled on by another. She lay down on the chilling floor beside him. She drank her threshold + 1 th round of the drink he had made for her. She let the liquid slowly ooze on, findin it's way around her tracks up to her brain.

Jolt! And she and her sis ran out of the car. Mom found a safe spot under a tree to rest while dad made sure the shoulder he'd picked to park was safe enough for what they were to do. The last few times that the same thing had happened, the two of them had reached a level of familiarity and expertise with what was to come. One pulled the necessities from up front while the other lost the nuts. Dad stayed close by, making sure that they were not missing something vital. They were a team now, they worked best when together. Ten minutes into the job the tyre was changed, the spare and the tools safely stacked and they were on their way to where they were headed.

Blink and they quietly sat in the last row of the bus; both in a coincidental white. There was not a word spoken as he nimbly wrapped her fingers in his. Was it the first time they'd held hands?she doesn't know. She let him take his time, let herself have time to accept his touch. Slowly and steadily.

Slap and she felt the kick land tight on her plum body. She was ten again and her dad did not approve of what she'd just done; out for tea with car drivers equals to being our with strangers. Was it yesterday that her mom had given a hot one for earing candy off the jar? Her memory fades her already and before it all vanishes into nothingness she tries to remember that recent squabble with the little one. She had been weak in math and a tough ruler had met her close to her eye as punishment. They had rushed her to the hospital, she heard from voices over all else. She dint go, because she was hiding under the stairs, not sure if the world would accept her again.

She cleared her head and her throat with one deceiving movement. She'd hungered for revenge and empties the cycle tyre of all air, only to see the devil herself walk by. MuKa lost all tongue and couldn't come with a plausible reason for them to be by the devil's bike. Was this the end? She turns to run and sees RaSu cycling by her, O she is speeding beside her too. A quick thud and she is on the ground, the second of lost orientation, a few bruises down, she walks into the local medical center. It is not she that the doctor wants to see now, though. She cant stand it, neither can RaSu, as the med pulls out the bandaid and exposes the two stitches by her eye. It had been a close call, she had happened to hear her fall and moan from the bathroom.

A flash, she quickly turns the corner and stands at the foot of the stairs, waiting for him to follow her there. He'd come home with her at three in the night only because she had forced him to and he had been very dear about it. As she held him close, she felt him shiver, of fear of being caught in my own house I would say. Where had her panic vanished, how did she not feel those elderly emotions of alertness and caution? Carefree, she held on to him till they went up the flight of stairs and not a minute of air separated them till she knocked.

Knock..! and she woke up to the smell of food in his den. She had done it again, run away from home and work and all obligations, to spend a day in oblivion. He had held her through her rebellious thought, not once questioning her motive, the lost rhyme. She had slept like it was in her mother's warmth, the coziness that only home can bring and was surprising here for her not so far away from home.

She remembered having no dreams at all then, none to spoil her tranquility; no ramdom thoughts, none to shatter her glass mansions, like the ones there were now. Ahchoo!! Another sneeze, a drag at the nose and a curse at the fever with its ghosts from the past.!!

The prodigal hath returned.

Every time, in the past, that she has left that place behind, tears blinded her vision, and she sat there, deciding never to return. Every one of those times she has gone back to the very same place, giving in to reality, accepting divine justice bestowed upon us mortals. What reasons they might be, that drive her thresholds to the extremes, is something we will delve in a little later; but the place that takes her in, every time she runs away from reality, is a haven of its own kind. 

It has always been welcoming;  Every time the prodigal has returned, with eyes hung low with shame and a heart searching within the lost dungeons for itself. She walked back every trip with the feeling of a newly wed, returning home to her parents, to the smell of the house she has grown up to love. Every action, sight and sound here reminds her of parallels from the new world that surrounds her now, some happy moments there, some lost in search for the soul. Every time she longs to prolong the stay to every second; who knows when she might ever be able to be back in the bosom of warmth, who knows what cold winters await her where she has to be?!

Every trickle has a story of a lost temper driving it; every spec has a caustic remark triggering it. And they all loom back as nightmares in the ride that she has out of that place. When she takes stock of what she has and what she wants to have, she realizes that it was never right from the beginning. It dawns on her that she never fit in it from day numero uno, she was always an outsider to this world and shall die one.  Every effort that she has made to change things from what they are meant to be, has been one futile step forward towards this harsh realization; a starch fact that it was not meant to be any different at all.

Grown up and as a confirmed adult, she will now ride back to duty, with her childish dreams intact, her juvenile interests untouched, the she unchanged. The little that she has strayed in the recent past will be rewritten, mistakes undone, things will be forced back to status quo. All will be reset to how it had been on day zero, a few hours into this newfound land, she had beaming with the confidence of the solitary reaper, unaware, untouched!!