Lives after pages

Beyond 'the ends' and the closing lines, the characters are busy living on. They are making their beds, commuting to work, finding love, losing, reconciling or dealing with loss - coping with the last page. You get to decide, where to stop telling. The story, however, never stops.

In the chess game,
with destiny,
are not the pieces,
all the same colour?

Gliding,
in air-loved abandon,
the spiders sway,
and acrobats swoop.
No surface to waltz,
none needed.
What earth, where sky,
Gravity,
steps aside to watch.

Globular,
rounded water monocles.
Drips, drops, scatters.
A shuddering bird's pearls.

Scattered pearls,
rolling die,
wet-tyre tracks.
Racing,
to different finish lines.

Would you like the rain,
if it asked before pouring?

If it was mindful,
not to dive into clothes,
drooping over the line.
Brutish blotting.
They had just about dried.

If it did not startle,
those shy fragrances,
and make them dash out,
from their earthy retreat.

If it sprayed evenly,
careful not to dig up puddles.
Or make raging seas,
for paper boats.

Would you like it
if it tip-toed past the window pane,
politely, not disturbing.
Not making drippy faces,
urging you out.

Silent curl,
of burning paper.

Ember glow,
writing in air,
with crumbling black.

Visits

I have been to a place twice. Once in bustling daylight and the other, later, in imagination. When sleep sings in slow breath and time smudges night, I go there again. The charred souls of dying lamps, brim over to meet the dark. Their wicks lie limp, swollen with oil and hope - pale glistening yellow, like stained teeth. The winds sweep their burnt slippery scents through the hollow pathways. A few flecks even reach where the stone gods rest amongst fragrant bribes.

Grown-ups

I'm fine,
how have you been?
The usual flurry, I said.
We then spoke in courtesies
and pauses.

I cut the call
realising,
that she has learnt
to mouth,
unconvincing lies,
in the fidelity of the night
and betrayal of sleep.

Evenings

Streetlamps glower on at the darting birds. I always skip the time they are turned on. They droopily watch the turn of events, gazing at their feet lost in whizzing traffic. Evenings slowly dim around them like a deep inky sigh.

Green

Syrupy eucalyptus oil. It sat sulking in a tiny glass bottle marked by a label with Mandarin script. It had traveled all the way from China to the wooden table in the old house, thronged by other ointments, phone books and Quality Street tins with sewing tools. It was a stark green. Like the mouth-watering thought of raw mangoes.The potion found it's release every night when it was rubbed onto grandmother's aching knees. After she dozes off, it would drift out and wander around brutishly. So pungently stubborn, as if to say that this is how green smells like.
She had forgotten to cork it once. The gluey oil had silently left till it was nothing but a thin green scented line. The scent was now tainted with other things that had drifted in and taken refuge. There were choking fumes of the mosquito coil, the smell of the sweetmeats she stealthily ate, the odour of the musty wooden beams, the scent of voices which reached late and the thoughts which were shooed away among many others. When I found it and sniffed what remained, it stung and watered my eyes.

Catnap

You sleep, unfettered by the frail evening shadows that slowly settle on you. The shapes of leaves, the indecisive light of passing clouds. Lazily moving along with the rise and fall of your breath. Be still. Sleep calm. Lest they wake up and scamper away when you stir.