Broken Hug

Flutters

It is the way with a roadside child. Imagine yourself to be the view-finder of the handy-cam focusing on a nine-year old vagrant of your city. Dressed in an unwashed and over-sized tee and an equally unwashed and over-sized shorts reaching below his knees, he walks about aimlessly in the midst of pedestrians and shoppers. The lens trails him like a cheetah behind a deer. Very soon he stops in front of the glass window of a toy store. The glass window, standing from floor to ceiling, is covered with neatly-arranged soft toys. The child’s eyes scan through all of them. Soon they rest on a teddy bear, its body in colours of red, purple, sea-green, pale-yellow. For sometimes the child forgets where he is besides basking in the island of teddy bears. His feet begin to ache. The security-man, on seeing a dirty child standing outside the shop, shoos him away. But the child has already given his heart to that colourful teddy, and though he sits alone, his heart cannot shoo away the soft toy. It disturbs his sleep. It swims in front of his eyes.

And likewise, Charoen swam in front of Rohan’s eyes.     

“So which one did you go through?” he said with a little smile.

“I read the contents and then ran my eyes through some of the writings.” She paused. “Finally, I read several pages of the story by Norman Diamond.”   

“Oh that’s impressive.” He said and paused. “Umm, what you should now do is write about this article in your own words and then e-mail it to me. I will high-light those parts which need language uplifting and italicize the corrected parts.”

She handed Rohan the journal, but he told her she might keep the book for reference. “Besides, you have to complete reading the entire interview.” 

Charoen’s fingers fidgeted about on the table. And his eyes fell on her fingers. They were slender, they were smooth, the ends tapered, and the nails’ ends a little pushed, where the pushed-out parts from the skin were white, like half-white moons, against the remaining pink. Feeling of slight emotion swept his heart and the vision of Fai appeared; she holding the coffee cup with her slender and fair fingers. How my heart had described them!  

And the male and female smoky beings became his heart and spoke to him: she is graceful, and she makes your heart flutter. The same, not exactly the same had happened to you with Fai. But there is no whereabouts of her, so if you say we’ll not make her the subject of our conversation. But here Charoen is made of different clay. Look at her face. She has a certain distressed silence etched over her cheeks. And her eyes say a world of sadness has come her way! A set of meandering eyes that wander away; yet in their wandering-away nature lie a compactness that she involves herself in all that is happening around. And that she wants to tell you that she is not far away, she is returning soon. This has been quite apparent as her eyes travelled all over the pages of the Paris Review…

“Some water?” Rohan asked and the very next moment he realized its awkwardness. That’s a silly question in this situation, Rohan!

While she shook her straight-haired head, he looked out from the stained-glass window to his left. The dean, outside his office, was turning his head in quick succession from left to right. The gardener was trimming the hedges of the lawn. There was Harry, the friendly carpenter crossing the asphalt with a care-free air around him, a jockey cap on his head and the measuring tape around his neck.

Charoen rose from the chair, all the while looking at Rohan. “May I e-mail you my writing tonight?”

“Yes. That’ll be great”

He looked around trying to locate a sheet of paper. He picked up his planner, flicked                                 to an unwritten page.

“No, please don’t tear the page, Sir.” She stretched out her left hand, palm open, towards him.

Rohan’s heart skipped a beat, if not two. No sooner did he hold it than the softness of the palm shot electric currents into his brain. It threw him off balance. And he almost forgot his next action. She looked up at him, her mouth open into a slit, the white teeth peeping. Sparkling. With her soft look, with her head tilted to a slight degree and her presence all over in the small office room, his mind eloped to a distant realm.

“Ahm.” She cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

The sound followed by a gentle cough caught him by his shoulder and turned him back to his senses. Put his feet back on the ground. With all gentleness, the nib of the black ink gel pen ran up and down over her palm, careful not to hurt the softness snuggled there.

As if not to allow the e-mail ID to evaporate, she closed her palm. Sliding the door open, she thanked him and closed it behind her.

Inside, his mouth a little dry, Rohan held the door curtain aside and looked at her going away. A straight walk. An unforgettable walk that will haunt my dreams. His eyes followed her. If her palm possesses electricity, then her walk does not have anything less trapping my path. A sigh escaped from his mouth.    

He sunk into quietness. After about what seemed not more than five minutes, but ages, he got up, picked his pocket planner, and walked out, locking the door behind him. The noon air brushed against his tee and some even entered through the fabric, tickling the hair on my chest. He hummed an unknown tune, walking in a rhythm, following a beat his footsteps made, making the body of his mind sway with the rhythm.

Rhythm-Charoen. Beat, beat

Charoen-rhythm. Beat, beat.

                        There’s love in her eyes

There are lyrics in my soul

Love and lyrics join together

Go together for a stroll.

Rhythm-Charoen. Beat, beat

Charoen-rhythm. Beat, beat.

Stroll down the highway

Stroll beneath the stars

She strolls down the highway

Looking into my eyes.

Rhythm-Charoen. Beat, beat

Charoen-rhythm. Beat, beat.

Lyrics and eyes they join together

Together into my soul.

Love and lyrics join together

Go together for a stroll.

Rhythm-Charoen. Beat, beat

Charoen-rhythm. Beat, beat.

He even unlocked his gate in rhythm to the rap-lyric composed impromptu. But, he confessesed, my lyrics need polish. So, after rustling up a lunch dish with baby-corn, peas, and mushroom, all cooked in some olive oil, with some added vinegar, Chinese wine and soya sauce mixed in it, he placed this one-man dish on a lettuce leaf and ate it with two slices of whole grain bread.

Switching on the computer he double clicked on Lyrics. Five lyrics there were, all in all, written till now. Double clicking once again, this time, Words came up:

                        Words, words and words

                        paint out through me

                        a teardrop, a drop of blood

                        blood on my feet.

                        Guide my mind to paint my masterpiece

                        before I sink into the ground.

Masterpiece. Painting a masterpiece, he pondered, can take a life time; can even be done at the snap of a finger. It all depended on the potency of the mind, and the language of the soul; on its concentration; on the concept. There can be a masterpiece lyric. A poem. And sometimes there can be one story that can sweep not only a generation but also the ones to come.

There can also be a stunning success of Nature’s anger. A tsunami of sorts.

There can even be a masterpiece romance. A masterpiece love, but the lovers may not necessarily have to remain together forever. They may break up but the love nurtured and shared till the time they were together always remains alive.

And a masterpiece suicide?

In the midst of solitude, his sight jumped from a random word on one side of the screen to the other side. No, can’t proceed any further with my writing. All he did was stare at the few words he had produced on the screen. Music in the shape of words moved inside his head. Rhythm too. He let out a deep sigh. His eyes fell on the digital wall clock. 3 pm already? Did I really sit at the computer for two hours and only fidget with it? And is this all that I could do? 

Shutting the laptop, he stepped out of the house and into the path. A lone bird trilled a doleful, soulful song from the branch of a tree. Then it stopped in between its masterpiece.

Birds do not need to work on a masterpiece, he whispered to himself (or was it to Fai?). It’s in their nature. Their brains are wired in such fashion. They only have to sing it out; they only have to dance it out from their hearts. But we human beings have to sit through to master our craft! Songs come to birds as naturally as hunger.