Pieces

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

‘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

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

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

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.