The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part II

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part II

(Continued from Part I)

This has been my favourite bike trail for as long as I can remember. It is about thirty-five kilometres, the entire route, and it takes me about two hours to cover on a good day. I am a slow cyclist, but in my endurance lies my strength.

As kids, we’d be panting by the time we reached the area with the grasslands and the beach. In our teens, we’d usually make it past the jungle but would return after a little picnic at the pier. It was only on my seventeenth birthday that we made it as far as the airfield, and since then I have never taken a shorter route. 

But it was only as an adult that I first noticed the cyclists. The incredibly fast ones. Well actually, Annie pointed them out to me the first few times. We used to think there were five in all, we could not be precise though. They’d zap past us like a swarm of irate bees; it was impossible to tell how many they were. 

We’d see them twice. The first time was always at the start of the grassland where they’d race past from behind us, leaving a vortex of buff-coloured air in their wake. Our second encounter with them was always somewhere in the thick of the jungle. They’d come hurtling towards us like a tornado. We would hear the whirring gears of their race bikes from afar. It was hardly sufficient warning. We would barely have time enough to dismount and step away from the path for safety, and they would have whizzed past us, leaving everything shuddering behind them.

“Amazing!” exclaimed a breathless Annie one day. “They are incredibly fast.”

Her observation was accurate. The gang covered the entire route of thirty-five kilometres in the time it took us to cover two kilometres, which was about seven minutes on average. Which was more than twice the world record. You could always argue there was no certainty they went the entire way to and fro, and that we may simply have been beguiled into believing they were the swiftest. Back then I had no doubt in my mind; the cyclists hurtled at such breakneck speeds, it was impossible for them to stop or slow down before they had reached the very end.

Our hearts and minds, free of the nagging doubts that age brings, we cycled in the East Coast Park as often as we could. As we grew older, we were not always able to go as far as the airfield, but we always crossed the grassland into the forest and waited for our winged cyclists to race past. They never disappointed us.

I married Annie when I was twenty-four and she, twenty-six. We had twin daughters a year later. Little darlings they were, they took to cycles like moths to a flame, much to the delight of Annie and me. 

We moved away from the East Coast when the girls were two. We moved up north, real estate was arguably more affordable there. So it was a good fifteen years before Annie and I decided to move back to the East Coast. By then, the girls had flown the nest. I was forty and disillusioned with life. So was Annie. And because wisdom and good sense tend to dawn upon us only after we have indulged in a bit of foolishness and labelled it as mid-life crisis, Annie and I decided to plunge our life savings into setting up a bicycle shop in the East Coast. 

Business got off to a rocky start. Things had changed in the past decade and a half. We soon discovered that too few people took to cycles anymore. But the ones that did loved bikes with an ardent passion. This was the lot we catered to. A handful of avid bikers. 

They were a delightful lot. They regaled us with tales of their rides, many having scooted past the airfield (we were euphoric to learn that the bike trail there had survived the onslaught of urban development) to discover many more bike trails, all paths leading them to regions of surreal beauty. 

We wondered if the supersonic bikers still stormed the East Coast Park but none of our clients seemed to have a clue. But that was not altogether surprising; not everyone’s paths led them through grasslands and forests and bridges. But even so, none of our customers had bikes that could propel them to inhuman speeds. So when business affairs had settled to a comfortable routine, having grown mostly by word of mouth - the delightfully old-fashioned way - Annie and I decided to set forth on our Kona Entourages to rediscover our path.

(To be continued ...)

The Cyclists on East Coast Park ~ Part I

The Cyclists on East Coast Park

Do you know that stretch of East Coast Park where, once you’ve entered it, the rest of the world seems to slip away behind you in an instant and you find yourself in a place that is at once wondrous and surreal? 

Large tracts of lush green grass flank the bike path. Sea almonds with buttress roots stand in majestic elegance, their large leaves playing with shafts of warm sunlight. To the right, the grassland gives way to a narrow beach of soft, white sand, that spills into the sea, which on a good day like today bears a milky green hue mirroring the skies in a dulcet turquoise garb. Even the ships that are usually docked so as to block out the horizon seem to maintain a deferential distance from the shores here.

The bike path unfolds in gentle curves, its route defined by the trees. But a few minutes into the ride, the path usually veers to the left, trailing away from the beach. On a bad day, when the skies don the grey colour of a mourning widow, and tumultuous seawaves, foaming with fury, hurl themselves on the beach as if in grief of bereavement, the path quickly curves away and leads you to the safety of your home. 

But on a good day like today, the trail meanders gently like a lullaby and the landscape around you transforms itself as if you were slipping into a dream. The tame grassland gives way to a thick forest. The bike trail shrinks as tall trees demand to close in on you from both sides. Leaves on the low-hanging branches kiss your cheeks; it is their way of capturing your scent and leaving their mark on you, that is how they remember you on your next visit. The crisp, salty breeze of the seaside is replaced with cool, sweet-scented air, freshly churned out by the wilderness. You hear the gentle rise and fall of waves on the shore, but it is a distant music drowned by the urgent calls of wild birds and the persistent trills of crickets and katydids.

When the path has had its fill of the forest, it plunges down into a shallow pool of muddy water. As you splash through the puddle, you emerge on to the end of a pier overlooking waters bluer and greener than you have ever known. You skid to a halt, pausing for breath, overwhelmed by the infinite expanse of water and skies. 

When you resume, the path leads you along the pier, away from the waters, and onto a narrow bridge of concrete slabs that go all clickety-clack when you cycle over them, with the soothing rhythm of train wheels running over the joints of rail tracks.

On the other side of the bridge, you exit on to reality. First, you hit a pavement cruising along a mostly deserted road that converges with a larger road a little ahead. You pause at the traffic light. Trucks and cars race past, drenching you in a cloud of dust. The light turns red, and you cross over to the other side. 

More bridges, more roads, and soon you are cycling on the edges of the city. Straight asphalt roads, straighter than a crow can fly, no twists, no turns, no surprises here. When the time is right, you get off the road and push your bike over to the pavement. And then you wait, looking intently across the road. 

The aircrafts are lined up, each patiently biding its time. The one at the head of the line drifts noiselessly into position. The pilot revs up the engines. Then like a bull at the gate, the aircraft charges straight ahead with a mighty roar. Before you know it, it leaps into the skies, flying farther and faster until it disappears from your view. 

You return home the way you came, only it’s faster this time. Every time. 

(Peek-a-boo, here is Part II)

Flowers for When He is Gone

Flowers for When He is Gone - Image courtesy of Wanda Wang

The flowers arrive unexpectedly. 

They weren't suppose to arrive until Valentine’s. 

But here they are now, all these months ahead of time. 

Which means I will not see him until after then. 

A little knot of fear rises from the pit of my stomach, lodges itself firmly in my head, and causes my heart to flap. 

I run a finger over the petals. They shiver under my touch.

I look for a note in the bouquet. There is none. 

I place the flowers in water, and let them be.

It’s been a week now. 

The roses are still in full bloom, the petals soft and tender.

Now it’s been a month and I have seen the roses turn different shades of red. 

Sometimes they are the vermillion streaks of sunset, at other times they take on the colour of blood. 

When the mood strikes, they dazzle brilliantly like rubies.

Sometimes the phone rings and he tells me he is headed to distant lands, at other times I can say he’s been hurt even if he doesn’t always confide.

There are times when he finds the answers he is seeking, and I wish he’d finally make his way home. But then I can also tell he is dreaming of other adventures to pursue, mysteries to unravel.

It has taken me a while to decipher the code but the flowers are my constant companions now. I can discern the slightest shift in colour, the faintest alteration in tint, all in just a momentary glance. And I’d know if he is safe or happy or in danger or sad even if he doesn’t always tell. 

He hasn’t called in a while now. 

The roses have mostly been a dazzling crimson these past few days, so alive, so bright I think there is mescaline coursing through my veins. 

A glint here, a sparkle there. 

Like a candle sputtering and shimmering right before the end.

And now they have burst into flames. 

And before I can do anything, a little ball of fire collapses into itself and vanishes from sight.

I stand looking, staring at vacant space, not quite knowing what to make of it all, when the doorbell rings.

A Birthday Wish

A Birthday Wish

Happy birthday to me!!

Exactly two years ago, when the date was 20/11/2011, Dream Pedlar was conceived in imagination.

I wrote a piece titled ‘Hello, Dreamer …’, a sort of a ‘Hello, here I am, hear me out’ piece, which was perhaps the first time I came really close to finding my writing voice. 

At the time, I only had a vague notion in my head of what I wanted Dream Pedlar to be like. Although actual work on it began only earlier this year, and it’s nowhere close to the concept that formed in my head during that winter of 2011, I am still proud of how far we have come. 

Although today is not a Dream Pedlar anniversary - well, it partly is, it partly isn’t - I am excited it’s my birthday (even after all the birthdays I’ve had, I love celebrating my existence!) and I am thrilled that I still love Dream Pedlar, the site, the stories, the art, the creation. 

So thank you for being with me all this while, for reading me on good days and bad, through happy tales and sad.

As we light the candles, I take in a huge gulp of air, puff out my cheeks, make a wish, and blow out. And all my hopes and yearnings mingle with the flames of the candles and the air and the wind and I grow more and more certain of this - I am one with the world, and the world is one with me.

A Birthday Wish

I want to be

… the crest of the wave that crashes on the shore and sweeps away all the seashells on its way out.

… the poetry that rides on the flutter of the breeze until the muse traps it on paper.

… the music that emanates from a hollow, broken piece of wood held together by strings.

… the melody that yields a new hidden note each time you replay it on the tape.

… the quiver in the singer’s voice as she lets a note linger a tad longer than you can hold your breath.

… the story you want to read over and over again until you have committed each exquisite word, each beautiful turn of phrase to memory.

… the colours that bleed from the artist’s brush on to the canvas, rich and resplendent at first, but fading away with the passage of time.

… the drop of water that glides down a wet lock of hair and hangs like a teardrop at the end.

… the memory that has lodged itself so deep into the recesses of your mind you know it exists but the more you try to retrieve it, the farther out of reach it slips.

… the heartbreak that sits at the base of your throat like a lump that won’t go away, no matter how many tears you shed.

… the hollow in your gut that your sorrow carves out, inch by hurting inch, as you realise your loss is irreconcilable.

… the slow, steady movement of the second hand that stretches your wait to eternity.

… the faint flicker of hope that tries to warm your lonely heart on a cold, winter day.

… your thoughts, your memories, your hopes, your fears, your desires, your dreams.

… everything that makes your heart beat, that makes the blood course through your veins faster and furiouser.

I want to be everything that makes you come alive.

Well-Intentioned Advice for Children Unattended To

Well-Intentioned Advice for Children Unattended To

Children unattended to will be given espresso and a free kitten.

As you sip your coffee and help yourself to some cookies, your child can choose from among pixie-bobs, ragamuffins, ragdolls, ocicats, persian kittens, munchkins, minskins, Australian Mists, and Abyssinian cats. 

Whichever your little one chooses, the kitten will wrap itself around your child’s legs and cast a benign, binding spell.

The kitten will then lead your little girl or boy to the park across the road. 

(Oh, don’t bother to look. The garden is not visible to adults. Only little children and kittens can see it.)

The garden has a jungle gym to climb on to, rabbit holes to fall into, stars to count all night, and invisible friends to talk to. 

When your child has had his fill of the park, the kitten will lead the little one through the hedgerows to the other side where treasure-hunters are digging a hole through the earth to China. We hear the hunters have very nearly completed the hole, so your child could be the lucky first to disappear through it and reappear in China, halfway across the world on the other side.

(Oh, don’t you worry, dear parents. The children will be completely safe with the kittens by their side. And if you insist, they can always come back from China in a jiffy simply by sailing over the rainbow.)

If the hole has not been completely dug, the kitten will lead your child beyond to meet The Famous Five. The five - (and Timothy the dog will be there too!) - are a jolly bunch and they will welcome your child to join them on their summertime camping adventures.

When the summer holidays are over and the Five have to return home, the kitten will lead your child to the wise man’s hut, where he has a stash of fairy tales to regale them with. He will read stories to your child until the little one falls asleep, and the kitten will then bring your young one back to you. 

You must then take your child home, tuck him in, kiss him goodnight, and leave him to dream of fairylands and magic and adventures.

The only trouble is, when your child wakes up the next morning, he will go looking for the adventures he dreamt about. Nothing you say or do will dissuade him. 

So, dear parents, if you don’t want your children to go seeking adventures you think do not exist, please do not leave them unattended to.

The Street of The Dead

The Street of The Dead

The street is thronged with dead beings. 

Zombies, vampires, ghouls, they rule this place. 

Like monsters running amok on Halloween, the place is littered with all kinds of dead beings - the half-deads, the ones barely alive, some who died barely a moment ago and are only getting used to the sudden turn of events in their lives deaths, and then those who died several deaths every day, and then some more.

Every evening they emerge on to the street, dressed in their finest, from the edges of existence. They wriggle out from the cracks in tombstones. They bleed into existence from the horizon. They surface from the walls that partition homes.

The vampires sashay in their overrated capes, hissing and flashing their fangs at innocent bystanders. Some of the dead are reduced to bare-bones, their dead, decaying skin clinging to their skeletal frames. Some others, freshly lowered into their graves, appear rosy-cheeked and wide-eyed.

There are no leaders, no followers. There are only those who have walked the street a countless times, and those who are new to the ways of this world. 

Every evening they stomp down the street in revelry, sharing stories of their past lives, and their hopes and dreams for future ones.

Some look forward to their new lives, other are unhappy to have lost their old ones. 

Sooner or later, however, they make their peace and step off the street, back into the world of the living. 

Truth be told, even on the street they are more alive than dead.

Painting The Pots

Painting The Pots

The pots and vases stand bare and nude, having just emerged from the potter’s wheel. 

Each one is different from the other. 

Each is unique. 

But you can choose only one each year. 

If you choose a pot that doesn’t like you, you will have to give it up and wait an entire year before you can choose another.

Curved and moulded and shaped by the potter’s hands, they stand tall and firm, and wait to be coloured and painted upon.

Some are painted in the colour of sunsets, the reds and yellows and oranges merging and fusing in a jovial dance.

Some are painted in the colour of peacock feathers, blues and purples and greens twirl and converge and diverge in little rivulets of colours.

A few are painted in monochrome, several others in motifs and designs painstakingly repeated with near-precision all over the surface.

Some are painted into invisibility. 

Several others are painted into life, and they have minds of their own. They walk into houses they like and out of places they don’t.

Every year people flock to the potter’s to select their pots. Some opt for the large ones, others are content with smaller pieces that are just as exquisite. Some are drawn to the bright coloured ones, some others rub the rims of the pots to see if any have magical wish-granting traits.

But no one thinks to look inside. 

None of the pots are painted on the inside. 

Each bears a gift within. 

Some carry the gift of happiness, some carry the gift of life. 

A few (I can’t quite remember exactly how many) bear youth, and only one holds immortality. 

But you can pick only one pot each year. 

They say immortality resides in the prettiest abodes, but I can’t quite be certain of that. 

The Letter Box

The Letter Box - Image courtesy of Bridal Musings

It is our secret hiding place, where we leave things and stuff for each other.

At first we looked for a hollow in a tree, but most were already in use, crammed with other peoples’ secrets.

So we decided to exchange our secrets in plain sight, in a letter box. 

Mostly we leave letters for each other, sometimes written in code or using symbols, just to build an air of mystery for prying eyes, but usually stating nothing more than our love for each other.

When we are unable to write, we leave snippets of conversations. Words mingled with lilting voices and whispers.

Occasionally we leave songs, or poetry, or an oft repeated refrain, or other plays of words and music and melodies.

Sometimes we leave each other our thoughts, and that is how we find we can read each others’ minds. 

Sometimes he leaves me a rose, and I am enveloped in its fragrance all day. 

I leave him a feather and his imagination takes flight. 

That’s how it works each time. 

One from him, one from me.

Once he left me a life, and I used it to cheat Death. 

I have yet to figure out what to give him in turn.

The Seeing Eyes

The Seeing Eye

The eyes, they glow in the dark.

They watch, even if only in turns.

One keeps an eye (pun unintended) on your past to prevent it from slowing you down.

Another keeps watch on your future, ensuring it remains unknown and unpredictable enough to make life and its living interesting for you. 

(No one watches your present, that responsibility is solely yours.)

The third monitors your friends, and the fourth, your enemies. Too many of one and too few of the other throws life out of balance.

The fifth eye keeps track of your luck, making sure you have enough when you need it the most, and others get their fare share too. 

The sixth eye watches behind a closed lid. Every move, every breath, every thought and every hope, every heartbreak, every moment crushed under the weight of despair, every laughter that filled you with an indescribable lightness of being, the sixth eye records and remembers. 

It flicks open only at the fag end to help you remember an entire lifetime in a matter of moments. One last time, a final memory, before your past and future, your friends and enemies, your good luck and bad, all cease to exist.

The Man who fell in love with The Moon

The Man who fell in love with The Moon - Image courtesy of Laurent Laveder

“Legend has it that the man was banished to the moon for a crime he did not commit,” Grandpa began, in that deep mysterious voice of his that made fidgety children sit still and listen to the story with rapt attention, even if they have heard the tale countless times before.

“Why Grumpa?” curious little Pippin piped up as always. “Why was he sent to the moon?”

“Because,” Grandpa said slowly, “people are afraid of unknown, unfamiliar things. No one had been to the moon. Back in those days, she was still a strange, distant, unfamiliar land. People saw her only at night-time, and no one knew where she disappeared during the day. So they thought it was a lonely, terrifying place where unspeakable things could happen to you even during the day.”

Grandpa wrapped his shawl a little tighter around him and huddled closer to the fireplace. A little shiver ran down our collective spines as we momentarily wondered about the unspeakable things that happened on the moon.

“But good things happen to good people,” Grandpa assured us. “So when the man went to the moon, imagine his wonder when he found that the moon was in fact a lovely, little lady. A misunderstood lady, as she liked to refer to herself,” he chuckled.

“Why Grumpa?” curious little Pippin piped up again. “Why misunderstood?”

The other children shushed him but Grandpa waved a hand to quieten them.

“Well, people have always believed it is the moon that drives people mad. They have always accused her of causing werewolves to emerge from hiding. The oceans turn restless at the sight of the moon, they say. They also claim she steals the light of the sun and calls it her own. And to this day many people continue to accuse the moon of all these wrongdoings,” Grandpa huffed.

And then, as if some faraway memory had suddenly returned to him, his face creased into a million wrinkly smiles and he said, “But of course, it doesn’t matter what people think. Because the man who went to the moon saw her for what she really was and fell in love with her.”

“Did they marry, Grampa?” it wasn’t curious little Pippin this time.

“Of course they did,” Grandpa beamed.

“Did they live happily ever after, Grompa?” another not-Pippin chirped.

“Of course they do,” Grandpa said. “But that is not where the story ends. Because you see, the man was banished to the moon for only two decades. When his sentence was over, he was summoned back to the earth. He pleaded with her to come with him to the earth, but her abode was in the skies and she begged him to not leave.”

“But she is still up there in the skies,” another little voice piped up.

“On most days, yes,” Grandpa said.

“Does that mean he left her behind?”

“Yes and no,” came Grandpa’s reply. “It is true the moon couldn’t leave the skies and the man had to make his way back to the earth. But when the man returned to earth, he brought back with him a small part of her. And he promised to visit her every night, which he did, and each morning when he returned he brought back a little part of her with him.

“With each passing night, the moon waned in the sky, a part of her having made its way to the man’s abode on earth. So when it was new moon and the moon disappeared from the sky and the world barely gave a second thought as to where she had disappeared to, no one knew that the moon was playing in her lover’s backyard unknown to the rest of the world.”

And this is how Grandpa always ended his story.

Sometimes one of the kids would ask him how he knew all this. And if it were a new moon night, Grandpa would take us all into the backyard where the lovely moon would play with us until bed-time. And in the cover of daylight, she would return to the skies, bit by bit, sliver by sliver over the course of a fortnight until she was a little globe of dreamy white again.

But what the little kids do not know is that Grandpa also leaves behind a part of him on the billowing moon after each visit. There isn’t much of him left on earth anymore. One day he will be gone for good. And it will be up to me then to tell the children to look for him not among the stars but to seek out the man in the moon. I know the little ones will believe me.

The Whimsical Dance of Snowballs in Transit

The Whimsical Dance of Snowballs in Transit - Image courtesy of Cornelia Konrads

The snowballs flutter above the piles on the ground. 

To a casual onlooker, it would appear as if they were rising from the ground, defying gravity, flying towards the skies. 

Another would think the snowballs were falling gently, returning home, coming to rest on the piles below.

The little boy says the snowballs arch into a portal to another land.

His sister, the younger one, says she has seen fairies living inside the snowballs. 

The elder sister says it is something like a mistletoe. You have to kiss your partner when you walk underneath the white archway, so you better be careful whom you choose to accompany you on a beautiful night.

Their mother says all her children are blessed with very active imaginations. Truth be told, she says, it is simply a creative’s imagination, an artist’s creation. If you look closely enough you can see the blue-black threads of steel on which the snowballs are suspended. (But of course I won’t go looking for them threads. You knew that, didn’t you?)

The wise man asked me what I made of it all. To me, I said, it appears like a moment frozen in time, caught between breaths, the snapshot of a dancer in motion. Difficult to say whether they are still or in motion. If in motion, whether they are rising or falling. Perhaps if we watched long enough, I imagine we would see the little globes of white floating up and down in little, gentle motions like the rise and fall of breath under the skin of our chests.

The wise man cackled with laughter and said that the snowballs kept up their whimsical dance to keep us trapped in our imaginary illusions, so we remain sufficiently distracted from the mischief that goes on beneath the harmless looking piles of snow, right under our noses.

Reflections

Reflections

The little boy skipped through the forest as surefooted as someone who has been on the trail a thousand times blindfolded. I had to run to keep up with him.

He was leading me to the waters, so I paused for breath and drained the remaining drops of water from my canteen, but not without a second thought.

“Hurry up,” he whooped from somewhere far ahead of me. 

I stumbled after him, praying once again (to any God that cared to listen) I wasn’t being misled.

In my mind, I was convinced we were heading in the wrong direction.

The cave from where the waters had gushed forth relentlessly, we had long ago lost somewhere in the wilderness behind us. The boy had said the best water would be found downstream, and although he was merely a child, he lent a certain conviction to his words and I had found myself incapable of doubting him.

But that was then. Now I realised that with each step forward, the roar of the waterfall had subsided imperceptibly. At first it had reduced to the gentle gurgling of a little stream, and then there had been the occasional swish of water lapping over pebbles. And even that had died away when I wasn’t paying attention. When I asked the boy about it, he said we had to leave all the noise behind and that the growing silence meant we were on the right path. 

Now and then I hear the sound of a drop of water falling but we are so far away from the waters now I am convinced it’s just the voices in my head playing tricks with my mind. We have come so far ahead now that even if I were to retrace my steps, I wouldn’t be able to make it back alive. 

Lost in these morbid thoughts I continued to plough ahead, head drooping so low in misery  I didn’t notice the little boy jumping up and down excitedly ahead of me nor did I hear him whisper out my name. He grabbed my hand when I reached him and pushed through a lump of overgrown weeds. 

On the other side was water, clear as day and quieter than silence. It lay in a narrow pool that stretched endlessly up and down the forest. The water was so still it felt sacrosanct to disturb it, I thought for a fleeting instant, before putting my lips to its cool, shiny surface and hungrily swallowing it in huge mouthfuls.

Only when I was satiated did I lift my head and the waters returned to a stillness that did not seem incongruous to its nature. It carried in it the reflections of the clear skies and snow-capped mountains, as if a whole other universe existed peacefully in its confines, mirroring the one above, so you couldn’t tell which one was real and which was merely an echo.

I asked the little boy about it. And he said one was the other and vice versa too, so it didn’t really matter which was which. Because, he explained, if you left the noise behind and stared long enough at your reflection, it would reveal your true soul.

The Unknown Destinations of Paper Planes

The Unknown Destinations of Paper Planes - Image courtesy of Fiddle Oak

Paper planes are easy to make. The hardest bit is getting them to fly.

The first time I flung one, it soared upwards, hit the ceiling, and nosedived to land on my right foot. 

The first time I managed to fly one well enough was during Maths class in third grade. The plane landed below Suzie’s desk and tickled the nose of a little lizard that had been dozing under the desk in class. Shaken up by the flying piece of paper, the lizard darted across the desk, leaped on to Suzie’s lap, and made a bolt for the wall but not before she let out a shriek that caused our teacher to faint and brought the teachers from all other classrooms rushing into ours. And my paper plane lay innocuously under Suzie’s desk as an incontrovertible proof my guilt. (No one believed my story of the lizard, and Suzie insisted there had never been one, though she did roll her eyes and stick her tongue out at me when she thought no one else was looking.)

Sometimes my planes flew up and got stuck in the branches of trees. 

Sometimes they’d manage to get themselves snared in the jumble of electric wires atop tall poles. 

Often they’d just somersault in place and fall on my head. 

The only person I knew who knew how to make paper planes fly was my brother. And he refused to let me in on the secret. For seven years he derived pleasure in watching my clumsy efforts and laughing at my futile attempts. And when he planned to move to the city (in search of a better life), I worried that with him, his secret too would be gone forever. But when he boarded the bus and turned to wave at us from the window, he looked at me and yelled that they need to be told where to go.

I have since figured there are many ways to guide the planes to their destinations. Sometimes I just whisper to them before setting them on their way. Sometimes I scribble the names of places on them. My neighbour’s rooftop, the haunted oak tree at the edge of the fields, as far as the summer wind will take them, into my lover’s home, as high as the eagle soaring above the mountaintops, on the other side of the horizon.

I try to make bigger planes now. I hope some day they will be large enough for me to ride on them. And I will tell them to take me closer to you.

A Happy Place

A Happy Place - Image courtesy of Yume Cyan

And I say to him I am afraid I can’t put up with it anymore. And he gives me a half-bored, half-quizzical, half-I-know-where-this-is-leading look. (I know I have put three halves in there and that such a thing is logically not possible but that is hardly the point and he knows better than to argue about that right now.) 

And he also knows that the thing I think I simply cannot put up with anymore has nothing to do with him. I am only scared the well may have run dry and that I may have not a single story left in me and that I don’t want to turn to the big, bad world out there for inspiration because it is a world filled with mean people who do not believe in stories and fairness, I sob to him.

And so he says he will take me to a place where all my miseries (both real and imagined, he mocks) and all of the world’s problems will disappear. He blindfolds me and leads me through many places and like a tour guide he keeps up a commentary on the destination as we go. But as far as I am concerned the only thing that appears real to me right now is that I am stumbling through a dark, unlit passage that seems to never end, and I fervently pray he never lets go of my hand.

It is a forgotten place, he says, the place he is leading me to. People know it exists but no one really remembers it does. Like houses not lived in for centuries. No one ever goes in or out. But if you look hard enough, you will see lights shining from the windows as if the house were having its own personal sunrise after the rest of the world has turned in for the night, he says.

I am walking more steadily now, my hand in his, and I trust he will keep me from falling as I lose myself in his narration. He asks me what I’d like to see when I reach there, this forgotten place. I am beginning to like the game he is playing, and so I play along and answer fairy lights. He says I will not be disappointed.

A few steps ahead, he slows down and reveals this is as far as he can go but that I must carry on. Only a few more steps, he insists. I hesitate at first but having come this far I do not want to return without knowing where it was we were headed in the first place. 

I push ahead, guided by my senses now there is no storyteller to lead me on the path. The air is crisp and wintry. I hear the leaves and twigs crack under my feet. Night creatures are playing their music and singing their songs, and I don’t feel lonely. I keep thinking of the fairy lights I want to see. 

When I know I have arrived, I open my eyes and see a million tiny lights floating all around me. Little green pinpricks of light shining, gliding, disappearing, then reappearing elsewhere in the dark, as if bobbing about to the music of the creatures of the night.

I turn to tell him I know where I am. 

I know this is my happy place.

Conversations

Conversations - Image courtesy of Jumbo WallPaper

The thing I miss the most about us is our conversations.

Our frequent rendezvous at the coffee shop where we discussed dreams and drew up plans for the future.

Moonlight trysts and the ghost stories you used to spin, knowing how much they terrified me. And despite all my outward protestations of fear I had a secret longing to be terror-struck, and you knew that and that, your knowing is something I miss too. 

The conversations at the park bench after a morning run, our breaths frosting in the cold winter air as you whispered sweet nothings in my ear.

The late night telephone chats when you were continents away. Words that travelled across time and space, their meanings sometimes failing to keep pace, but the words always stayed with me long after we hung up and went about our separate lives. 

Then the I do’s.

And not long after, the I don’t want to’s. 

And then there were the things left unsaid but more real than spoken words. They hung between us in an invisible bubble that kept us apart and grew larger as more things were left unsaid. 

And now you are gone.

And I can’t remember your voice anymore.

And all that remain are the voices in my head.

A Cinderella Tale

A Cinderella Tale - Image courtesy of Terra Kate

When she received an invitation to the ball, Cinderella scurried about the house looking for the things she would need before her fairy godmother arrived at dusk.

Cobwebs spun by twelve-legged spiders would be woven into a fine gossamer dress for her to wear that evening.

One large pumpkin she had stolen from her neighbour’s garden last Halloween (but she couldn’t remember how), this would become the coach to take her to the ball.

She wasn’t particularly fond of mice, so she thought she would instead ask the white doves to draw her coach.

We could transform the stepsisters into horses and make them draw the coach, a little voice piped up.

Cinderella shushed the voice and busied herself in her household chores.

Think about it, continued the voice. The stepmother would make a fine coachman, seeing as how good she is at using the whip.

Cinderella ignored it, and dusted the furniture.

What if the pumpkin is all rotten from the inside and the coach collapses as soon you step on it?

Cinderella shut out the truth of possibility, and swept and mopped the floors. 

What if the fairy godmother doesn’t turn up?

Cinderella told it to shut up, and did the dishes.

What if the prince already has a lover leaning on his arms?

Cinderella sang aloud, and washed the clothes and hung them out to dry.

When evening came and her stepsisters and stepmother left for the ball, Cinderella ran up to the attic to wait. Evening bled into night but no one came. Cinderella started to sob at the realization she was doomed to a life of eternal slavery, and that there was no happy ending in store for her.

Look, said the voice. You tried it your way and it didn’t work. You might as well let me have a go at it now.

Cinderella kept mum. And as suddenly as grey clouds conquer a clear sky, Cinderella stood up and shook herself. She wiped the tears with the back of her hands, landed a swift kick on the pumpkin and sent it hurtling down the stairs, and tore around through the house like a whirlwind. She picked a rucksack from one of her stepsisters’ room and filled it with good clothes, sensible shoes, and loads of money from her stepmother’s wallet, and slipped out of the house.

The stepsisters and stepmother returned home to find a note from Cinderella saying she was gone and that she had paid herself in cash and kind for all the household services she had rendered all these years. The note also carried a warning against reporting the incident to the police or attempting to track her as she would then be compelled to produce proof of how her father’s death came about at the hands of her stepmother.

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

She is writing a book now, titled Cinderella and I, recounting her escape and subsequent adventures across the world.

Preface to ‘Cinderella and I’:

I am sorry to break this to the world but Cinderella was damaged goods. Who wouldn’t be after years of domestic abuse? She needed someone to look after her, someone real, not illusory figures like Prince Charming or fairy godmothers or some such fantastic figment of imagination.

I am happy to say Cinderella is well and recovering now, under my careful oversight and guidance, though she keeps mostly to herself these days. The miracle was that she found it within her to bring about the transformation. As her closest friend and ally, I am honoured she considers me her true voice and has given me this opportunity to present her story, our story, to the world.