The Leaky Cauldron

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force, and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Elizabeth Drew

I sit at home day after day...waiting for the phone to ring or the mail box to beep....with some good cheer. That someone has found something that will keep me occupied for the upcoming months....while they throw in a little something to keep the debtors away....

Alas I wait in patience...Wonder at every little loud whisper that crosses my window...whether it aint someone wanting to have a conversation....to share my misery....to tell me the light at the end of the tunnel is so bright it will burn to ashes these moments in the dark....

For the first time the prospect of what many a woman goes through or willingly accepts stares me in the face....I shudder thinking how one can voluntarily surrender to a life which has no meaning, no consequence, no use, no art, no beauty, no music, no laughter....when everything in your life is borrowed?

The two rooms and their little furnishings don't keep me occupied enough ....even if were to re-arrange the house and its things ten different times, showered five times, ate another five, and watched mindless soaps for 4 hours, I still would be left wanting. So how can I plaster a smile when someone walks in tired after the trials and tribulations at work, wanting to crib....how can I lend him my ear when I am sobbing inside as my little upper floor leaks out through those thin black strands each day as I stand under the shower pretending that the water flowing down my cheeks is but the one from the tap......

I live a lie...A forced lie....

I no longer feel like I am me....I am an apparition of my self....somewhere lost in transit between the two abodes....my home and this temporary settlement....

Why is everything eluding me alone? Am I suddenly so untouchable? Should I have then left the comforts of my home, my friends and everything I consider dear to come to this alien town that treats me like I am a leper?

Something inside sobs. I dare not let the walls hear....They stare at me in smug satisfaction. They are slowly succeeding in ruining one more thinking being. Save me from this torturous world of mirages. Throw me the life-line. My eyes are so used to the darkness I will not miss the little clink.

Jobless!

The bustling maid
The shrill milk whistle
Towel clad husband
Bread burning wife

Perfunctory goodbye kiss
A slammed front door
Still yellow walls
Empty windswept bedrooms

Lunch-break call from friend
Abrupt end
The call of duty
Alas a jobless wife!

Boiling tea, hot cakes
Clean beds, steaming hot dinner
Ironed shirts, washed floors
Smiling wife, dog tired husband

"Goodnight wife", lights out
Reverberating silence
A deafening road!

July 14th 2006

Shifting Home

Stained coffee mugs
Soiled, sweaty clothes
Unopened suitcases
Space occupying cartons

Small paw marks on the dust
Little feet running by
Screaming mother on the top floor

Arguments with the agent
No more green bucks passing hands
Vociferous land lord on the landing

Tenant absorbed by woodwork
Memories wiped out by strangers
Little boy sobs in his bunk bed

Sweeping strokes of the broom
Lives, histories swept away
New stories being crafted
The traffic goes by.

July 14th 2006

Back in Action!

Finally after the deafening silence, sound waves have crept into my life. I am alive and there is some validation for my existence on this lonely planet. Someone somewhere wants me to magnify my presence for all those sundry mortals to see and envy while I bask in the glory of inertia…..

This truth negates the vacuum that had engulfed my upper faculties in the last few hundred hours….


I am alive and the universe is crying for me to make felt my little being in this vast expanse….


It’s good to be back!