Warm Black- 1

Five part write up about warmth and darkness. Inspired by Daehyun Kim.

"If you didn't save it, you let it go"

As clouds gave way to the sunshine that afternoon, her early morning appointment was still on her mind. She wasn't sure if she wanted to share but she was sure she wanted to talk. I let the rays touch my skin along our ride and knew that Now we are in the same place.

:: The numerous, unnecessary and blinding options around us for everything is dangerously coming to bite us. The possibilities each option could lead to and become has rendered us dysfunctional and we gamble only to be disappointed. "What we want" is now replaced by "What's out there" and this vicious cycle has us trapped.

We reached the place and strolled and talked. What we had looked insignificant in the light of what could have been and this scared us. We talked in spirals about the chase and the run.

:: Anything that didn't deserve to be saved must be let go. However, we are so used to holding onto for " a little bit" longer that nothing good can come out of it. The argument of "meant to be" is a man made convenient excuse to be lazy. You dropped it and want the universe to undo gravity for that moment? Of course!

Spiral Limit

He slid his chair hard towards the wall and walked past from behind me. I knew this is the limit and didn't pretend to understand what was going on. I let it be and he came back after 10 min to sit next to me and we sat through a peculiarly boring class. The schedules in some cases and no-schedule in others, have taken weird routes through the dynamics. Its wearing for some and others give up easily to whims of the mood.

Its amazing how we all have come to realize our roles in this deranged set up.This afternoon, I stumbled upon some news and gave it the power. I slid the chair hard against the wall, packed my stuff and marched out. Nothing around me flinched. Its not about not caring anymore but letting it be. As we all drove to dinner awkwardly with disproportionate amounts of silence and talk, we knew this is the new normal.

The importance not trying to figure out is weighing in everywhere positively, The new lows make previous lows seem a missed high. "I am happy for you" now seems the most overused hollow statement. Yet there is a sense of momentary lightness to it. Its so bleak that it is usually easily missed. One can trace it in the knocks and when answered, you let them in.

Living through this will seem hilarious in the retrospect but while we are here it's special. The apologies and confessions, the awkward yes and the unsaid no, the offers and the missed explanations, the sliding of the chairs are all defining new limits. I just deferred a conversation to never and defined a new open orbit. I just held my words and smiled instead. Let it work until it won't.

Iphone 6 you suck

When you frame your mind to blow your money on this worthless piece of shit, you are either drawn by trend, superfluous loyalty or just because you are thralled for no particular reason. You assume it works for a reason unknown to you and then there is the classy launch and raunchy history records for geeks.

For a close to $800 purchase I would prefer making 8 paperboats and sailing them in the sea with each $100 bill than buying this product. Now that I bought this ( Go ahead judge me) I am laughing at how ridiculous can a product get?

Firstly, its ridiculously high priced for absolutely no fucking reason. Its strength is exponentially decreasing as the new models are being unveiled and its UI is trying to create a illusion of being different from previous versions.

Secondly, the namesake service. Lets talk about them even having this non-functional but popular department. They can't even provide basic services for free even for the months to follow, lets not talk about years. At the time of purchase you are told you get 'warranty' (the word is facpalming itself as I use it here). Its so void that it doesnt deserve a sentence for it.

AppleCare Plus? Are you hearing about this for the first time? Well join the club. If you are hearing about it for the first time, you are already late as are we. Its a word you discovered once your phone got screwed and then you realized you should have known about it earlier. But once you cracked the joke you laughed. The joke about a $30 savings at the expense of paying about the same upfront for buying this yet another meaningless illusion of better customer service.

Thirdly, they don't give a fuck. There are several manifestations of this, When you contact customer service they never try to find out a practical way out for you, no matter how grave or different it is, they have 4 meaningless ( this word is getting tired of being used but it understands) options of which you have to pick one, well because you are suffering from lemmingitis.

Lastly, you can't even return this back after a month, just a month. While I spoke to the customer rep, they said " Oh we are sorry you are not satisfied with the phone, but we allow returns only within 2 weeks." Translation- " We are so glad you missed the two week deadline , live with it sucker."
Among the few things I am sure about the world in the future, I am most certain about Apple going down. For the all the worthless glory bestowed on its worthless self, it has no way but down.

Dear Apple,

The huge customer base you boast of is a result of the quality you once offered, see through yourself as we see it. Get your shit together.

This rant is not to create a judgement but to save souls from rewarding a bad product.

May you make sense soon.

Onion sort

Holding an Indian version of pita bread bites, I noticed the cottage cheese had turned a little less softer in the five minutes I took to get to that piecemeal, the last bite of the meal. I contemplated reheating those five pieces and wondered about the specificity of human desires- the right temperature, the perfect seasoning, the heat in the dish, the heat outside, the cold outside, the right sunshine, the right amount of stars, the breeze so fresh, the love so tender, the love so hard, the love so wrong, the love so strong, the one so close, the one so far.

That very day it all happened. The much-needed-to-be-forgotten drama settled in the deepest of the surfaces in my heart. It stayed calm but it was there. It warned me it could resurface. It wasn't overthrown by the trained confidence or the new found acceptance, it proudly negotiated the terms it pleased and chose to drive from the backseat. It knew what its doing. The smugness growing only to drive the rest and itself into an abyss.

Amidst this, I was extrapolating a mere suggestion into a story and lying to myself, I added all the flavor and the garnish to please. I lived few years ahead in five minutes that followed and rejected that future. I contrasted it with five years of the past and smirked. I weighted everything against perfection without giving imperfection a beautiful chance to prove me wrong.

This is what we've become, We've become the annoyance we can't handle, the discomfort we cause and reject all that is happening. The joke is on us however. We reject every possibility of the possible and demand chance to finally play out. We don't even want to give 'fluke' a chance. It has to be all fabricated and then surprise us? What it didn't rain when you wanted it to? How dare you (nature)! Granted that wish but its 'kinda' not what you specifically wanted and it should be ctrl-z-ed? Of course!

The settlement should be nullified, the love should be glorified, the green should be amplified and the happiness testified? I can't wait to lose!

Absolute

As soon as she could fathom the good news buried six feet under the brevity of the text, Claire rushed to rest her demons waging against the happiness. She knelt down in front of Him, hands folded , tears in her eyes and begged for forgiveness. It unreasonably yet instantly occurred to her that she needed to give up something secretly important to be granted this new wish. She gave up on a fading dream close to her heart.

The roads were flooded. The rains knocked her window in an attempt to touch her. It was a gloomy dark morning. Several calls followed and the power of perceived slight relationships amazed her yet again. Her happiness confused her and she broke into tears, happiness and anxiety shifting their weights among themselves. To be happy for others was something new to her. The dramatic emphasis added by the weather provoked her to empathize for the first time. She felt an instant gush of shame and guilt knock her down. Among the firsts, she realized she badly wanted to be there for her friend.

When distance is chosen, one cannot be surprised at the compromises that follow. The next two days were tense around the subject and she prayed to the gods and demons alike. It gifted her a sense of belongingness.

Finally, on the third day she heard from Zara. The news wasn't negative and they rejoiced over the 'not bad'. The signals couldn't transmit the relief but helplessness reached each other in abundance.

"Hard is not relative, it is absolute." This scraped her mind.

If you didn't speak, how can it be heard? If you didn't show, how can I care? If you don't want, how can I let myself in? She thought to herself, if its not shared, its heavier and unfair.

The liquids, the flesh, the skin, feed them all you want. The covers, the face, show them off all you want. The stack, the height,lose them all you have. While at it, touch a shoulder and borrow a tear but above all let it happen.

Premonition

She walked into an empty home and sensed something abnormal. Suspiciously she called out her roommate's name and then hoped to hear an answer. There was no answer.

Convincing herself to relax, she took a long shower and deferred the thought for later. After few hours, it grew uncomfortably silent around her. Now she was worried. She texted her roommate and left few messages over voicemail.

Alone by herself she was forced to visit a day from her past. Fours year back on her way to work, she sensed a similar silence in the cab. The driver and she were beyond the professional constraints that limited them from sharing personal stories. The silence brought in some unpleasant thoughts in her mind which were so random that they could bear no real validity. Among the many that crossed her mind few of them were gravely unpleasant, cruel and risque. She was used to them. The driver observed her in the rear view mirror and decided to broach the subject. He chose to greet her just as they were about to reach the destination and shared the incident that destroyed his life forever. Right when he was uttering it, she had a lump in her throat. However it was not because of the description of the incident but because she had processed the same incident in her head seconds before he told her. The premonition scared her against her. She couldn't choose how to react to the information almost guilty of being responsible for the incident in some capacity. It appeared to her that the perceived prescient thought that crossed her mind was responsible for the event that occurred last week. She was embarking on a journey of putting herself on trial when the phone beeped and woke her up to present.

Mirror Mirror

I just broke out before another stranger ( complete stranger) #FML and I gave up on being embarrassed. I walked swiftly judging myself in every mirror I crossed, did I put on weight? May be not...I stuck with this option. I reached my teammates showing no signs of my embarrassing encounter and restarted the conversation. Then, suddenly I decided to announce " It's done". They smiled and congratulated. Within this I still couldn't help myself and shared how I actually felt about the decision.

Once I revealed my unnecessary blown-out-of-proportion anxiety, she exclaimed almost histrionically though unintentional- 'Oh my god, I totally understand!" It soothed me down instantly, just that reaction. This precisely is the new thing with me, things happen instantly or nano-instantly to the extent that I forget what's happening, happened, what's going to happen. We continued talking about it at length embarrassing the only guy sitting with us who had absolutely no clue how we got there through the conversation. We were too excited to care and shared all the insecurities we are trapped in. At this point, I felt validated for being normal. Being vulnerable isn't a choice.

One of the our sorted friends walked in and she was confused by our raised voices and overwhelming confusion about basic things. Another friend who is famous for being composed, warm and cheerful joined in too. The only male friend was now crafting an exit strategy from this inevitable grave uncomfortable conversation among us. By now our married friend had decoded the essence of our previous conversation and she blurted out her recent encounter with one of the possible solutions. She spoke about how she decided to seek and make the best of the free therapy sessions the school has to offer. While this probable solution was only being announced sarcastically until now, with our heads under water , any twig meant life. It was a healthy discussion, we all decided to defer it till the pool party scheduled later that evening ( Of course I didn't join!).

Despite the momentary comfort the discussion gave me, I wasn't sure if that was all I needed. Like always I decided to fight the battle solo and not yield. I know I am losing.

One day, we were dispersing into our study schedules when my friend and I stole sometime to talk. She knows a little about me as a person, a lot about people in general and holds life through it's tail. I like the spirit of the unknown and the acceptance in her and it's always respect and love from me to her. We walked through several doors until we reached the patio and decided to talk it out. Its through her I realized and told myself what I was going through. At the end of it I felt connected and put straight. The disorientation in me was blurring all that I see.

The next day, I received a text while I was walking home for lunch during the break from an all day class. It said- "Where?" It's probably the most comforting text I have received in a long long time and I was thankful for precisely one second but it stuck.

With a million assignments due, I was only left with a super-public spot to study, a set of cabins offered with noises from revolving doors, walking students and public at large. I sensed I neither had the patience nor the drive to accomplish my tasks. I still decided to stick and try, when walked to my side and flung open a project discussion. I wasn't part of the project he was here for.

After 14 hours in school, we still had one more project to be taken care of. One of our teammates requested to visit him home and offered to cook us dinner. We gave in for the greed of food and sight of a bed. It was immensely challenging to pretend to concentrate. The man among us realized and got up to cook. We, the left two, stole this moment to talk her botherings out and exchanged thoughts on things we didn't want to face in life. The man came back with food and we were excited about the food, we felt so taken care of at that instant - he serving us and we enjoying the food, hot, tasty and irresistible. He felt uncomfortable participating in our conversation and left us to ourselves for few minutes at those late hours. The girl had to take a dump , leaving me and the man alone to talk, leaving us some time to talk about his insecurities.

Before I drift further away, the point is we are all holding back our vulnerabilities swamping ourselves with meaningless ungiving goals. Some of us probably even look down upon sharing insecurities.