Goodbye

I had too many explanations, some involving bayes networks, and I thought I'd skip them all, and move on to the goodbye. So, uhm, yes, Goodbye.

This pretty little Coppice Gate is closed. 

Now go on and read If On a Cold Autumn's Night. Oh, and for those who care, I'll be back. Sometime. Somewhere.

If On a Cold Autumn's Night

It was another evening at the Broken Mirror. Monsieur Vendémiaire's ale flowed freely, and the company was jolly, and the inn was filled with raucous tales and laughter. In a quiet corner, sat a fair maiden, apart from the crowd in countenance and in comportment. She had a cherubic round face, eyes that could shine in laughter, and golden tresses that caught sunshine in open meadows. But now she sat a pale shadow, shrinking into herself, anxiously awaiting someone, perhaps.

She kept her eyes down, this shy little daisy, except when she dared dart a glance outside the great window. But evening grew weary, and the door remained shut. Suddenly, there waz a roar of laughter and a shout for more beer and she, startled, saw that the lamps were lit outside. And under one such wrought iron lamp and creeping ivy, she saw the Dark Lady, intently writing on her pad.

She wore a stark black gown that seemed still, and yet also to flow in the breeze. Dark hair fell on her pale face in jagged edges, emphasizing sharp features, pointed nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes were blue as the night sky, with the stars bright and a crescent moon setting in the west. And her red, red lips were curled in a curious little smile as she scribbled, scratched, paused and scribbled again. And the clear grey eyes of our little one were drawn to her, strangely fascinated by this creature, so unlike what she had seen in her young, sheltered life.

When at last she stopped with her scribbling, she gracefully rose, tearing the pages from the pad. Her step was light, and she pushed open the heavy, oak door with no seeming effort. The fair child watched, wide eyed, as she glided over to the innkeeper, tearing her yellowed papers into halfs and further halfs, then handed them over to him, her eyes glinting with secret amusement. He cast them into the fire: its flames leapt and crackled, illuminating a scar that ran from his brow to chin. Then he announced a round of drinks on the house, and his customers clapped and cheered, oblivious that their fortune had been writ, shredded and consigned to keep them warm. For that night.

The Dark One walked away, satisfied with her day's work, and the girl in the inn shivered, but continued to stare in her direction long after Darkness joined her.

--
This story was born in a cafe whose layout is suspiciously similar to the layout of the Broken Mirror, where Discordienne and I completed each other's sentences. Then I wrote it up, and we both obsessed over editing it.

In Verse: Still Life

Some things do not take kindly to photographs.
They are entirely too un-still, to be stilled
on film, or in code of ones and zeros.
Take the flight of swallows:
in one click, capricious turns and banks
are reduced to a flash
of feathers, wings and forked tail in blue sky.
You're like that, I think.
One might, perhaps, capture the laughter
about the crinkles of your eyes,
but it is far easier to catch the warmth of sun glint on rivers
than that something in those precious eyes
that hints at knowing secrets to life itself.

Things I'm afraid to tell you.

I do not have, today,
sparkling stories or warm memories,
or glossed-up descriptions of grief.
And I thought, today, I'd be brave.

Write of that that isn't beautiful,
isn't perfect.

Fingers quiver. Type.

Delete. In the silence,
the fan beats out its relentless rhythm:
it's hot, it's hot, it's hot...

One day, love, I will not be afraid
of judgement and rejection.
I will be brave enough
to write of the things I'm afraid to tell you.

In verse: Confession

Ma, I think I found a name
for that sharp feeling welling up in my bosom
when my friends narrate stories of their fathers:
resentment.

Wisps

It wasn't much different from my other dreams. I was having a bad day: I'd done stupid stuff, shown poor judgement, nothing new really. And then, I saw dad following ma into the kitchen. He looked blurred, only a little, and I told myself it was just my imagination. But he felt solid enough when I grabbed his arm, and so I threw myself into his arms and cried.

The next few days, I held on to that dream when I felt lonely; it had been too long since he’d actually held me, and the dream felt more real than memories. Now that dream's faded too, and again, I am left with wisps.

In verse: PET scan

I see a horror movie, a skeleton
with bones that glow bright orange.
(they call it cancer.)

I can't put a colour on the pain.

Drabble: Charred

This one comes before Unexpected Undercurrents.

The story so far.

--.


Ashi was waiting at the door, immaculately dressed as usual. ‘You’re zippy today!’ Her tone was pleasant, and it sounded all the more accusing for that, for her roommate was unusually adrift that morning. Rohini hesitated, then spoke softly, ‘I had a strange dream last night.’

Ashi, too impatient to notice any implications beyond the words, snapped: ‘We’re already late, wake up!’

Rohini, suddenly furious at herself for bothering, threw down her comb with force and flounced out the room. If she wasn’t feeling zippy, it didn’t mean she inflicted it on others, not when she didn’t understand it herself.

#beams#

A young teapot reflects inward on its self, and its purpose.

taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10P_PC_Vjnc

pome-let.

When I die, my dear,
think of me,
a flower that bloomed
along a quiet path.



---
I wrote it about this time last year.

Random awesomeness

Between March and June, last year, there was...

"A King!"

No, my dear readers, you're mistaken. There was a piece of wood. Oops, that's Pinocchio. (Ahem.) Between March and June 2011, there waz Crabby. He began as a ghost, and... well, read on.

He's a thing of the past, now. We'd once speculated that he was scuttling around in ze sand, looking for gems for sister dearest, but he's gone. When you go, you're gone forever, and all that.

You come and go

When you go, you're gone forever,
you string along, you string along.

-Culture Club: Karma Chameleon

Double Drabble: Pleased to meet you, I'm sure

Advait, I'm told, is quite fond of narrating this story:

--

There he was, he begins his tale, minding his own business, and suddenly his books are gone, and this petite girl is scurrying away with them. She leads him on a merry chase (everybody's staring at them) and stops only when he upsets a chair. 'Shh,' she then has the audacity to say, 'we're in a library'.

He sends her his most fearful glare: 'Give me my books.' She flips over the cover of his notebook. ‘My apologies, Mister Advait How-ever-you-pronounce-it,' she says, and hands it to him. He looks pointedly at the reference book.

‘Nuh uh,’ she says, smiling brilliantly, ‘this ain’t yours.’ And you really can’t blame him for exclaiming, 'you, Madame What-ever-your-name-is, are insane!' But he's beginning to smile back.

She tucks the offending book under her arm, and starts counting on her fingers. 'You're the seventh person who's said that,’ she says, finally looking up. 'Seven's a lucky number, isn't it?'

‘Remarkably so,’ he agrees, smiling fully now; he'd pinched the book while she was busy counting.

--

Rohini, if she's present, always mutters 'lucky bastard!' at the end of it. But her eyes are laughing.

----------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and, I compiled this index of them stories, 'the story so far', so to speak. Which, if you think, in context of this p'ticular post, should be, 'the story after this.'

  it will never
  pass into nothingness; but still will keep
  a bower quiet for us

--
From Endymion, by Keats

This one's for jiji:

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you."


-A. A. Milne 

And because I can not resist adding another pic,

Something like a rant

I'm talking, today, of a movie called 'geet gata chal'. I loved it, I did. I thought the hero had too much of that goodness, and innocence, and that that we call तेज in Hindi. But I hadn't much problem with that, no, I delighted in it all. Got a lil wistful, too.

And so, here's the story. He finds himself invited to a rich family's home. He shows more of his too-good-to-be-true-ness, and there's some comedy, with their spoiled brat of a daughter. Then, madame falls in love with him, acts all possessive of him, and they decide to get him married to her. Now, this guy's a free spirit, belongs not to anyone, ain't tied to anyone, and inordinately happy that way. And so, when he finds out, he runs away. Don't get me wrong, he loves her, and all, but he feels like a caged bird, he does, and they play the title song in an appropriately plaintive tone. Perfect, it waz. 

But then everybody had to scold him for ditching her, and he goes back, and everybody forgives him (ha! as if he needs forgiveness) and he meekly gets married to that spoiled child of a girl. 

I tells you, I hated it.

I've since maintained that they should've ended it when he walks away. And today, I found a short story called 'Atithi' by Tagore. Some half way through it, it began to remind me of this movie, and further events corresponded prettily. I, rather impatient, skimmed through the imagery, and when I made my way to the end, I gleefully saw that it stops right where it ought to stop. I'll quote the ending for you:

In a cloudy monsoon night, before love and emotional ties could encircle him completely, this Brahmin boy, thief of all hearts in the village, had returned to the unconstraining, unemotional arms of his mother Earth.

Home.