pinch me!

No more nasty wails whipping me awake from above, no more fear of being split haphazardly into pieces of gut and sticky flesh and red. My fan’s got a bush. Ahem! Yes, apparently it’s a gadget that muzzles it into place instead of letting it swing wildly in hallucinatory rings. Oh and it also makes it meek. Before, at around 3am or so it gets guttural and starts hiccupping and when it goes into the final lap, it begins to screech like a banshee! Without it is so silent. Without it means growing wet like frozen lemons out in the open – slippery, slithery, leathery. Without it means no sleep and squinting at it with disdain in the dark. With it means wind (it’s got four blades). No, actually a mini typhoon. With it means I get into my frog position and say ‘so screw you! I’m gonna sleep nice especially if it’s my last night!’ Now, it just wisps along demurely. Patriarch I sound like.

Gummy day yesterday. Juiced and stretched beyond wood pulp. Made quite a purchase. 7 meters of upholstery and a lovely dhurrie. My aid was a good bud, quite uncomplaining till my bike shuddered to a halt. Bledy drunk had walked out on me one more time. I rolled it up to a bunk 200ms ahead. And good bud cum aid turned coolie, lugged dhurrie, profusely sweating, cussing and hoping no one caught him trailing with a big brown mat, especially in his red jacket, which almost did well as a uniform. Sorry Kuku.

My nights slip into days considering I’m usually jilted by sleep. And what a day. Hot chocolate with good friend and a midnight chat with her lying on a hospital bed! Ankle broken in 3 places. Wired and bolted this morning, she’ll be up in 4 weeks or so.

The fragility of it all is freaky. It seems to be the only thing that’s real. Everything else, the means, the whole being perched on things that flit, is surreal. The only thing we wake up to is a tap on our porcelain window. And then quickly, it’s all plastered over and the grooves grow thick with the muck of life, only to crack up a lil later. How many wake-up calls I wonder.

She was on a bus heading home, and midway, the front tire exploded tossing the crowd out. In all that metal and meaty bodies a woman lost her leg and my friend thankfully just an ankle, temporarily. MTC will pay up I hope. But being just a statistic doesn’t help. Don’t think there’s a long wait to be barcoded. We already are. Busses will be overcrowded. People will footboard. The entire frame will be falling apart. It will still run. It will still be spitting out black fumes recklessly, with no emission control in place. Women will be pinched. One woman to another woman will advice on how modestly to drape a dupatta. Women will take men’s seats in the name of positive discrimination and holler when an old man takes a lady’s. Babies will relentlessly wail. My friend will walk. We will be numbers.

Oh yeah and then there’s Hope.