Pieces

Posted June 12, 2009 by cosmicdust
Categories: Uncategorized

The woman who brought me coffee was a man.

I saw a dog in the street and wondered if it was a cat. Then a kid kicked his friend in the groin and laughed. His friend cried like crazy and shouted crazy words.

Sitting around the corner was a couple, whispering words of love, and perhaps words of wisdom too. I heard them giggle as they shared an ice-cream that they bought from a motor-cycle ice-cream vendor outside. The woman who was a man looked at them and then to me and smiled.

I stared at the coffee, a thin line of crack on the rim of cup, an undissolved piece of sugar. A tiny bug…where did it come from? I blew on the bug. It flew away but landed in the cup. I dipped my little finger and fished out the bug and drank the coffee. It tasted like shit.

Crowded street – loud and hot and humid. People mopped off sweat from their brows with tissues or shirt sleeves, except for a beggar who let sweat run down his face onto an old coke-can filled with coins.

Some whores hung out their heads from the windows of a brothel, their lips red and cigarettes white, looking amorously at some passerby. Smile. Wink. Smile. Hair long and wet. A white kite flew above their heads, its string tangled on an electric post. A bird on a wire looked tired and bored.

An old man smiled at a dog. The dog was pretending to be asleep.

My coffee was cold and tasteless.

The woman who was a man fixed her look on me and smiled, suggesting so many things at once. I smiled and walked away as soon as I could.

Once outside, I thought, ‘What if…?’

Bizarre.

Twigs of our time

Posted June 11, 2009 by cosmicdust
Categories: Uncategorized

‘Push the buttons!’ I heard him say, panicked.

“What buttons? I don’t see any button.’ I said. I didn’t see any button, only twigs – dark and menacing - reaching out to the sky.

‘Those buttons,’ he shouted, ‘press them…now!’

For a moment, I didn’t trust him. What buttons? It was meaningless.

‘Am I supposed to pull these twigs?’ I asked.

‘No! Just press the buttons.’

The buttons! What buttons?

‘Too late!’

What? Strange noise. Darkness. Was it raining? I felt sharpness flow down my left ankle. Warm and itchy.

What’s happening? Hello! Anyone?

Silence.

‘Am I dead?’ Was I dead?

I reached out my hands in darkness.

Twigs. Silence. Darkness.

Songs of a beggar

Posted June 9, 2009 by cosmicdust
Categories: Uncategorized

Sometimes, dreams can ruin your life, sang a beggar raising an empty can.

Hundreds of people walked by, no one looked or listened.

I’m, yes I’m just a poor old man, blind and blinded by fate, invisible – why must I sing my pain? What sorrows do I sing?

Sometimes, time can only harden pain. Time left me begging off my dreams. Sight blind, I reach out my hands for truth.

Then a philosopher walked past me and laughed. What truth do you seek? Asked the philosopher.

Every truth, I told the philosopher. He was not amused. Nor was I.

This is a joker’s life that we live. Oh, people who can see the world, just look around you. Why won’t you tell me what you see?

A fool, I hear a voice say, a fool who sings the pointlessness of his life…

Get out of here! shouted a policeman, fiddling his gun, his hands itchy at the sight of the blind beggar.

A policeman came, a policeman came, asking me for money. I too am begging for money, sir…

There was a loud thud and the singing died.

Shadows on the wall

Posted May 12, 2009 by cosmicdust
Categories: Uncategorized

He laughed.

I tried to laugh along, my voice popping like corns in the oven.

It’s not funny, he shouted.

What is? I tried to justify.

What? he shouted.

It was pointless.

The smoke from the kerosene lamp was killing me. I was sure my nostrils were black like the furnace.

I stared at the shadows on the wall and smiled.

What’s funny? he shouted.

Nothing, I said, and counted cracks on the wooden floor.

The Waiting

Posted May 11, 2009 by cosmicdust
Categories: Uncategorized

The corridor was filled with people, seemed like hundreds of them. They were whispering and signing to each other, afraid of their own voices. Afraid of the truth.

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