Empty Pages Episode 9

This week is again a mash of fiction, reality ( love you guys,you know who you are) and fantasy ( I sincerely hope somebody figures this out). To those who enquired over the weekend for a new episode- I am grateful. Episodes are always given at Word Salad to those who ask for it. Images are courtesy Google as always except for one.

#57 Rebound 


He was sad, sore. Angry. He hated everything. Everyone told him all he needed was a rebound. They tried setting him up, asking friends to meet him.He wasn't interested. It wouldn't be the same.He met people because he was asked to. Somebody had taken the efforts. His heart wasn't in it. 

His ex had long left,but had left his ashes behind. She had burnt him over the years. 
Roasted his dignity. Seared his efforts to keep their marriage alive.  Blanched his self respect. Broiled his public image. She had left him, stewing in self-hate, disgust and doubt.

He had thought something was wrong with him. She was so sweet when they had met, he didn't know she was as poisonous as white sugar. He hadn't trusted his instincts when he married her. Today she had destroyed the said instincts to dust.

He wouldn't rebound with another woman, no. He would rebound with success. He put himself through what can kindly be put as torture. He would succeed in every  area she said he wouldn't. The weight he lost was equal to a whole person. The confidence he gained was of an army.

He was an ugly bird, resembling a half plucked turkey to her.  From the ashes she had left behind,  rose a bird that shone like the sun. She had judged a phoenix too soon.

#58 Moons and stars

He watched the moonlight flitting through the trees. 
His joy was short-lived, blossomed  so soon, waning with the moon. He looked at his frayed sleeves. He wasn't one of them.
 He wished the world understood what he knew to be true.

She had a stellar background, not one she was proud of though. She didn't care  for their familial agenda. She didn't belong. She hated any mention of her roots or her birth name.

 They both were tied to a genus they didn't belong to, she thought.
 The moonlight flooded the room through the window.
 Spasms of darkness, while the moon played with the clouds. 
She hoped his obstinacy would be just as short-lived. 

He went through cycles of change, change he couldn't control.
She wore her feelings, changing every second, for the world to see.
He was acutely aware of the monster that lived in him. Lived on him.
He wouldn't feed it, yet it wouldn't leave. 
He was cursed for life.She loved the man around the monster, she was cursed too. He saw danger ahead  where  she saw an adventure. 

He finally relented when he realised he had very little to lose.
She was over the moon with joy or to be precise ecstasy. 
Their short yet intense story could be counted  in full moons.
Life gave them a very short spell, some would say too short.
Born years apart, death united them in a way life couldn't. 

#59 Tetchy

She didn't get along well with others.

She was always growling, snapping at folks. Some called her crazy. Some called her hurt.Nobody would go too close though, for their own sake.

Till he walked in. He knew she wasn't a bad girl. She just had been hurt too many times. He spent weeks trying to get her confidence. They named her Tetchy, for her nature. Nobody wanted her. Nobody could near her. 

Months later she would let him sit next to her. She was just scared of being hurt again, who wasn't? Maybe he was different, but what if he wasn't ?

He inched close to her. Stroking her head gently. It felt so good. Somebody knew her weakness. He made her felt needed. Safe. Happy. He made up for every other human who had hurt her.

Weeks later, he would take her home with him.She would hide in a corner, too scared to make contact. Slowly she would explore parts of the house, of his soul. 

She looked at her human with joy everyday.She'd wait at the window for him to come home. 

She didn't know anything beyond or better than him. She lived with them for almost 8 summers but left her pawprints etched firmly in his heart.

#60 60

It was her 60th birthday.

Both her children seemed oblivious of the fact. They had had too much hassle trying to decide who would take care of her. Till her husband was alive, the premise had been different, with his passing away, everything changed. Now she was a burden on their fragile existences, sucking out resources. 

She didn't need to be taken care of, she had earned enough, she felt she could manage on her own. She knew they wouldn't listen though, she agreed to join an old age home, on the condition that if she wanted out at any time, she would. She would stay for a few months and then try to find a way out. 

She stepped into the hall, feeling as nervous as she did on the first day of school. This was a collection of rejected, unwanted parents. She hadn't felt that way till she stepped in. Now she did. She slowly made her way around, trying to maintain a low profile, As was with school, everyone introduced themselves, wanted to know more. She did not want the attention. No. She wanted to be invisible. 

When he walked over she thought, he was going to ask her something too. She internally cringed. He sat next to her, handed her a cookie. She accepted it without question. He laid out a chess board in front of her. She wanted to say she didn't know how to play. He didn't ask or say anything, just laid out the pieces like they were in the middle of a game. He sat there quietly, everyone stopped bothering her, they thought they'd be interrupting a game. 

She felt grateful but couldn't think of the right words to say. Once the excitement in the home bubbled down, he packed his chessboard and left without a word. She just felt peaceful. No more questions about her past. It all seemed like a dream. One she didn't want to experience again though. 

Soon enough she settled down, showed up for breakfast wearing clothes her sons would definitely never approve of, or her dead husband. It didn't matter anymore. She was free. She would do everything she had wanted to but couldn't. 

She started serving herself and hesitated around the cabbage. A voice that somehow sounded familiar said - "Still hate cabbage?"

He was grinning ear to ear, with a full plate in his hand, laughing at her predicament. She couldn't understand anything. 

They started talking, food forgotten. He knew little things about her, things her husband had never taken the effort to even find out. She started panicking mildly, who was he and why did he know so much. 

"Do you remember me?"

Did she even know him? She sat there trying to recollect the names of people who knew this much about her. No This wasn't a possibility. She asked him what his name was. There was no way. 

They had been bench partners in school. Being the same height, they had been stuck with each other for almost all their schooling life. Their days had started and ended together. Their lunches swapped. Till adulthood dragged them apart. Different colleges. They both married people their parents picked for them, so called -"compatible" people. They both had spent a majority of their lives living with inert marriages. Flippant partners. 

Today wasn't the day to discuss the past though. They had so much to catch up on. So many books, series, technology, places. He shared his experiments with foods, suggested books she should read. She shared her travelling experiences, skills she had picked up from different places.Their comatose pasts forgotten, they revived their friendship, or the promise of what could be more.

#61 The Mall

He was walking past the shops.His children excitedly pointing at stores and merchandise.

His wife would spend hours digging into the essence of every shop and leave empty handed. He couldn't understand why she should waste so much time and not buy whatever that was! She would never tell him why.

He  roamed around alone. The kids wanted to hang out with their friends they bumped into. They had outgrown him. They'd have done anything for his time 5 years back. Today walking around with him in the mall was like taking around a dead limb.He backed off without them having to ask.

He tried waiting outside the shoe store but his wife was going to try on every single shoe, walk around in it and in all probability leave empty handed. He knew it. The store boy knew it.They both smiled at each other awkwardly.

He mumbled something to his wife and started roaming around. He noticed the teens who seemed more and more like they were related to the beggars outside the temple on Saturdays. Middle aged couples trying to adapt. Young couples trying to sneak away from their folks. Children ensuring their parents got enough exercise by running around.Boys who were around to checkout girls. Girls who were around to buy branded clothes,makeup so they were checkout-able.

He kept walking. There was nowhere specific he had to go to . It was a nice feeling. Guided by his gut he reached the other side of the mall. Something smelt very familiar. He couldn't understand what. It smelt like his childhood. But in the mall?He walked towards the smell wafting across floors. It stirred some emotions he had repressed in all probability.

He hadn't thought about his home in years. He didn't feel the need to go back now that his mother was no more. He had a fractured relation with his father - something that healed somewhat with his mother and then his wife's efforts. More like malunion though. There was a bond but not what it should or could have been.He had kept his mother alive in their thoughts though. Too alive, perhaps. He taught his children everything she taught him. Fed them the food he had been fed.  Raised them as she had him.

It would be 20 years probably since she had left him. He still sometimes felt like he should pick up the phone, call her and ask her what he should do. Then he'd remember he'd never

hear her voice again.His mind and body came to a standstill outside the shop.

Cinnamon rolls.He had  close to hated cinnamon as a kid. Mostly because his mother liked it and added it to almost all her cooking experiments.

Cinnamon rolls though were his weakness. His treat, when he cleared exams. When he lost or failed. When his dog died. When his best friend left town. When his favourite uncle died. When his first crush broke his heart. They had been his soul food, his calorific friend. 

He smiled remembering the good and bad times and went to place an order. His wife appeared with what looked like bags full of books. She seemed eager to get refuelled for another round.  How she found him was always beyond him. He couldn't keep track of her for more than 5 minutes. 

As they were glancing over the place, the kids showed up. Fights. Teenage hormones. Anger. Unfairness. Immaturity. He offered the medicine that had worked for him  

"This too shall pass."  And a cinnamon roll.

Soul food always healed the fractures people seemed to create with their words. 

#62 The flower girl  

( Image courtesy @LebaenesePapi - this is a story I imagined based on this image I saw while scrolling down my timeline. Would love to hear the original story too someday though)

She couldn't hear a word but was thrilled. The sights left her speechless, in awe. She stood there, bouquets in her hand. Was it real? Was she imagining things? Surely her imagination wasn't capable of this.She lived in a different world entirely. One that was dominated by the color brown. The world on screen was filled with abundance. Colors. Sights. Foods .Festivals. Customs.

She'd almost forgotten that she had flowers to sell.Today it was flowers, the good changed every day.Some days she would sell reprints of books.She didn't understand the words but pretended to do so. She wished someday she would be able to read them.Flags were a good stock around Independence day. Santa caps around Christmas time, with lights. She tried her best to sell their merchandise. If they collected enough money, or a little more. Maybe, just maybe, she could go to school?Maybe she would visit the places she was seeing.

 

She was trying to dance like the girl on screen. Flowers at her feet.Soon the other kids joined in, pretending to be in sync.They squealed when they saw the giant sharks being fed for real. They laughed when they saw an orangutan. The white man trying to dance at a Asian festival. They sat tongue- tied as the show took them to monuments around the world. Most of them were convinced they would never see it in reality. This was it. She hoped otherwise. A girl could dream.

A glass window apart was a woman travelling to the airport.

She would visit all those places for sure, then?

The only difference being she didn't want any of that. 

She would spend time clicking photos from the hotel pool.

Wanderlust, she would call herself. Airport - hotel- airport. 

She was more of a passport stamp collector down deep.

Back on the road, the girl lived for those few moments.

They would be the best part of her day or week, possibly. 

She couldn't believe this world existed alongside hers. 

It seemed impossible to even imagine such sights.

It wasn't even the swanky houses that caught her eye. 

She wanted to visit those places. See those people. 

Eat all their local food. Dance with them like that guy.

Feel that breeze. Touch those intricate historical buildings with her hand. 

Her mind was flying between such thoughts  Fantasy.

Filled with hopes and dreams of such an experience. 

The electronics shop owner could see her through the glass. 

He knew she was a regular, to see the other side of the world.

Folks told him it was bad for business, letting those kids around. 

His grey hair told him otherwise, and he believed his gut more.

The astonishment on their faces, the pure joy in their eyes.

No customer looked at his TVs the way those kids did.

#63 Locard's principle

Really wanted to have an image here of the real heroes of TFI and MAD 💓 but couldn't get it in time. You are heroes whether you know it, or not :) 

White walls. People trickling in and out of the canteen. A large group walking towards their unit, like a swarm of ants. There were very few words spoken. Most people were still groggy from the morning ride to work. 

Chitchat would happen over lunch if at all. There was very little to say otherwise. Some were here because fate brought them here. Some because this is what everyone in their family specialised in. Few because this is what they like doing. Most of them though, were here because it was a stable job that paid well, that is what was expected of them.

He walked in like everyday, feeling empty. Lacking. He felt like a rat in a huge cage. He would run around like every other day, but what was he doing with his life? He felt worthless. He needed to do more. Be more.

He was searching for things to do. Not once did he think of teaching, he wasn't the best at academics. Heck , he had struggled to get through his finals. Yet something about teaching underprivileged kids seemed like a thing he should do. He didn't know why he chose to do that, he just did.  

He was nervous on his first day. He didn't even know enough. What if the kids asked him something and he had no idea? He took a leap of faith and jumped right in. Whether he changed their lives or they changed his more, nobody will know. He understood them because he had been them, been average. He learnt every single chapter he had never paid attention to during his own education, just so he could teach them. They taught him how to learn, how to be silly, how to just be. Their innocence spoke to him on a level, the wisdom of his corporate bosses couldn't. He joined as a teacher, and left enlightened. The kids had schooled him.