Alexandria

With a large dose of aphrodisiacs in their bloodstream and each other for company they could hardly be bothered by a few drops of wine they were spilling on each other. They were enjoying the cosy pleasures of an embrace. The setting wasn't much different from the ones before. The candles were still shimmering in the light breeze from the intricately carved glassless windows. The decor was still as baroque as ever, 'very oriental' as she would put it. The mud walls were alive with splashes of colour from the carpets and the dance of the shadows. The bed was generously littered with a melange of bright cushions and cosy rugs. Two dark glass panels opened to a small overhanging balcony with rusty wrought iron railings. The smell of roasted meat wafted by seductively. Overhead the gliterati was in full attendance. Far across the distance was the magnificent Bibliotheca Alexandrina. And further away were the entycing waters of the Mediterranean Sea... But all that had to wait till morning. The doors had to be shut, the candles extinguished and the night allowed to unite them under the cover of darkness. For now they could only bask in each others radiance. A radiance kindled by the pleasure of company.

Kaalboishakhi

The calmness, the wait, the smell of scorched air.

Shimmering stretches of interlaced asphalt amidst a dense outcrop of dull concrete. Harassed entities scampering mindlessly, cowering from the obstinate show of igneous fury. A desolation that transcends all attempts at comprehension. The city was engulfed by the fiery tentacles of an obdurate sun.

A pair of anxious eyes peered through a pane of tinted glass. They were oblivious to the depredations outside. She felt protected but somehow unsatisfied. “Do you think it’ll rain today?” she asked slowly turning towards him. Their eyes met for the first time. She had avoided his gaze all this while. His eyes pierced through her soul igniting an overwhelming sense of longing. Somewhere deep inside was a feeling of injustice.

The stirred tranquility, the hope, the smell of distant earths.

Horizons evanescing in the shadows of conspiring giants. Ravenous outcries blaze through the kindled heavens. Ominous, wicked, threatening. And yet alluring. The bleeding skies satiated the thirst of a parched earth. The trapped earth resounded with a cacophony of destruction.

She lay amidst the disheveled white linen with her head on his chest, staring at the rain beating against the tinted glass pane. She felt every roll of thunder, every flash of lightning. They reminded her of the emotional turmoil of the last hour. She was swept off her feet, ravaged and indelibly scarred. Now she felt protected and satiated. The longing had vanished, the injustice dispelled. His eyes were closed in a deceitfully peaceful sort of way. She felt an irresistible urge to close hers too and seal the moment for eternity.

The resurrection, the dream, the smell of wet grass.

Conversationalist

The night was anxious with rain. The moon was out in a crumpled way. The wind quivered a little and a bell somewhere chimed midnight.
A door creaked open.
It was stiff and had to be wiggled and cajoled a little, but eventually it was open.
A figure tardily moved on to the roof and then stood and watched the sky in silence.
The night seemed like an alive thing to him at this moment, the dark earth around him a being in which he was rooted. He could feel like a tingle on distant nerve ends the flood of a far river, the roll of invisible hills, the knot of heavy rain clouds parked somewhere away to the south.
From one direction he felt the sensation of a sheep startled by a flying saucer, but it was virtually indistinguishable from the feeling of being a sheep startled by anything else it ever encountered, for they were creatures who learned very little on their journey through life, and would be startled to see the sun rising in the morning, and astonished by all the green stuff in the fields.
He let his mind sink slowly and widely into the earth, rippling, seeping, sinking. He was following the earth through its days, drifting with the rhythms of its myriad pulses, seeping through the webs of its life, swelling with its tides, turning with its weight…

Trying to figure out what all of that meant, slipping straight into the realms of dastardly behavior. Farcical afterthoughts floating about in a soup of accented visions. Backdoors to the dreamy infusions subtly ruined by the slow osmosis of outrageous manifestations. Fictitious blackouts of all reason and intelligence amidst agnostic glitterati. All the while the fragments of a latitudinarian imagination conjured up an illusion of focused revelry.
I was there when it happened. I saw it all. Vacuous phrases all tumbling down the slopes into the shadowy depths. Gaping crevasses all ready to devour the unsuspecting. A delusive hope still persisted amidst the cacophony of deliberations and yet the peak was unattainable.
She looked back to find nobody there. I wasn’t there. I could see her look straight through me. She would never find it. Without my help at least. Now I was lost too. She just stood there on the verge of calculated hysteria. I was there, just by her side. I saw it all.

He loved to see her smoke. She just sat there on the red plastic chair and smoked her third cigarette, trying to make smoke rings but failing every time. It somehow made him feel good to see her doing that. Why? He didn’t know. Just made him feel happy. He didn’t want a reason.
“So, where is this leading to?”, she turned her head slowly and fixed her eyes on him.
“Huh? ...What?”, he managed.
“Where is our non-existent conversation heading towards?”, she explained, slowly drawing in the smoke.
“Oh!” he said, gathering himself, “Well, nowhere in particular but then again, there is a finite probability that it’s heading towards an infinite number of conclusions.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”, she retorted, blowing out slowly towards him.
He blew back playfully at the smoke, “Well, it’s very non-existence implies an infinite imaginary existences, and…”
“So, what you mean to say is that…”, she cut him off.
“…Is that instead of taking something to be non-existent, why not imagine a whole plethora of possibilities in its place. It’s a cool thing to think about.”
“So, that’s what you like to do all the time? Sit and imagine?”, she asked, looking up at the garden umbrella.
“No, not really. I just like to keep my head open to all possibilities”, he paused for effect.
“Hmmm…”, she pondered. The cigarette had almost burnt out.
“So, we can’t be entirely certain about the non-existence of the conversation and hence we must accept the fact that there could have been an infinite number of conversations between us during that brief moment…”
“Have you always been this logically inclined?”, she enquired, flicking the cigarette butt away.
“Well, most of the time, I speak utter nonsense. Like the last few minutes in our conversation. And the interesting part is people are easily convinced that whatever I say is very serious and ‘logical’. Not for a second do they think that I have been pulling their legs all along. I like it that way…”
“Hmmm…really?”, she said, smiling a bit.

Thwarted by the palisade of a hundred connotations,
The arrows of ardor disperse in a mist of impuissance
While the object of all deliberations stands proud
In all her resplendence and glory.
The surreptitious advances are drowned
In a sea of non-acknowledgement.
Harking back to the extravagant display of blatant ignorance,
the belligerent thoughts subside gracefully.
The clandestine moments differentially experienced
In the labyrinths of a sanguineous war dutifully reflect
On the delirious intentions of a chained identity,
But the songs of a distant earth are inebriated
Amidst the undulations of insanity.
The creator stumbles upon a forgotten past and love melts away.

He danced dizzily over the edge as the dreamland dropped sheer away beneath him, a stupefying precipice into nothing, him wildly twisting, clawing at nothing, flailing in horrifying space, spinning, falling.
A cold breeze brushed the feverish sweat standing on his forehead. The nightmare was spent and so, he felt, was he.