Neem

Sleep came over her with a vengeance.

The Clouds couldn't hold any longer, they had to let it rain. And because the wind had not let them when they wanted to, now they were going to be merciless. They brought those two fiends, Thunder and Lightning along. And a jolly loud party they had. So there's that.

But she, she just wanted to sleep. She had to. How else would she dream?

The Neem outside her window began to wail. A whiny plea for relief. What had she done now? She knew she would break with the storm. But that didn't make it any easier. An insurmountable bitterness rose through her. She shook with the wind, with anger. If only she could uproot herself and lie down on the soft pliant earth and become one again.

She heard the low patter of feet, a hush paddling towards her. Someone in the next room started clawing at the walls.

No, that was Neem. Her branches flailed at the window. She would have entered the room, had it not been for that high-quality mosquito netting. Lightning. She glowed blue in the violet night.

Someone flicked a switch on in another room. She prayed it was morning and someone had woken up. She chanced a look at the window. She could hear that clawing again. This time accompanied by sound of cracking twigs.

Had Neem really freed herself from the concrete and gone on a rampage? She was not too old, and certainly strong enough. But the Clouds were still there, lashing away at her skin and bones. And then came a deafening roar. Was it her or Thunder?

She clapped her hands over her ears and yawned widely. Exhaustion ran though her veins, the iron in her blood heavy and pulling her down. All she wanted was to sleep. But the noises never ceased. In her head and without.

The gentle drip on her window annoyed her. That tinny tip tip tip, of drops jumping from leaves and eaves into their own hasty graves, melting into mud after the fall. Torrents or drizzles, they all fell down. Descending from the clouds, sucked up by the earth. Maybe that's what kept her calm. Wish she would keep Neem still.

Neem was now sobbing uncontrollably. You could hear her heaving gasps and piercing screams. She was no longer angry, just defeated. Her breakdown seemed to have stirred them. The Clouds started showing off, wringing and emptying themselves of everything that had made them for months.

She heard it then. Someone turned on a tap. Yes, someone had woken up and was going for a bath. It must be morning. Why wouldn't the sky lighten? Does it have to play accomplice to the Clouds?? But her patience was running out. She was agitated and nervous. Some people overshoot on caffeine, she had overshot on lack of sleep. She didn't care any more. She would go to sleep.

And she dreamed. Of brides in red and white on green plains. Of clear summer days seen from under old ruins. Of goats and violins. And bells. Bells rang. They clanged against each other in merry abandon. They shined golden and tinkled. They came to her from a distance, from another far away Milky Way. The sounds pulsed inside her, blinding her million neurons. The muffled rings echoed, fell and rose again, reverberating with her bones.

She felt breathless. Water flooded her. The alarm rang somewhere within the deep ocean in which she was floating, perhaps sinking. She didn't know how to swim. She had forgotten how to. She kicked furiously at the entangled bed covers. But she couldn't see anything beyond green. Rain and Neem were drowning her.

Swiping and swinging her arms blindly, she caught hold of steel. The cold numbed her fingers, the soft breeze biting her skin. With a huge push and rush, she came up to her window. With an effort that almost crippled her, she slid the horrible grimy net away.

And there she was. Neem. Lying on the cold gray street. Broken down, bruised. Stripped naked of her shame, beaten by million sharp needles, shoved and jostled by haughty currents. Her roots were still deep inside. Seemed like she had not been able to make up her mind. Was that why she had suffered this? Was she dead now? Worse, she had fallen. Between a restless sleep and uncertain awakening. 

There was no sign of the Clouds. They had moved on. Emptying and collecting themselves on the way.

Tryst/Cinder

He was standing outside in the cold. She came and stood next to him, uttered an unnecessary greeting in a voice that would be the result of five ice cubes being shoved down your throat. He turned his head, gave a reluctant smile and proceeded to study the huge statue of Venus in front of him.

She took out a pack of smokes from her pocket, lit the only one. After two drags, she offered it to him. He shook his head. She kept her hand extended in front of him, a dogged, shy lover standing in front of her crush to give him a red, wet, blooming rose. Tendrils of blue vapor escaped from the base of the red burning mountain, fogging his view of Aphrodite.

He took it, put it on his chapped dry lips, took a puff, and blew away smoke, like an emperor would shrug off sycophantic ministers. He handed it to her, a rejection slip. She took it. Walked away and inhaled deeply. She breathed in the taste with a desperate longing. Between her lips, perched millimeters away from her small, chattering teeth, her tongue exploring surface underneath which were fibers bound together by glue, the chemical additives improving the taste and speeding up the rate at which nicotine hit her brain.

Her heart was beating rapidly, as if it was making an uphill climb and was scared that once it reaches the top of the hill, it will slip and fall and roll down to a crashing death. Her hands and feet felt cold, deprived of any sunshine, any hope of warmth. She walked back to his side, her steps uncertain, with her feet finding their way on their own.Her mind played games with her heart. Reminding her of the insult, pleading her to let it go unnoticed, persuading her to hold up, inciting her to drop her inhibitions and tell him, warning her of expected disappointment, provoking her to be reckless.

Exhausted, she stood there, her hands on her side, hanging limp from her shoulders, the train of ashes teetering at the edge, clouding the upended orange peak. His hand wandered next to hers, distractedly. Their fingers brushed very slightly, close. He took the cigarette from her, his thumb grazing the damp end. His reverie broken, he pulled and was pushed back into his fantasy. He let out his demons in a haze of dreams, handed it back to her and gave the most luminous smile she had seen under a starlit sky. She savored the moist smoke, imagined how he smelled when he woke up in the morning, how his breathing fell and rose, rumblings of a beast caged within.

He turned back to go inside, offering a courteous expression of gratitude. She let the last breath burn her lips and crushed the smoldering stub under her feet.

A Patchwork of Evening Fancies

Straws glued together green,
brushing against cracked soles.
Slithering steps winding along
jungles of ants and rats.

Dried blossoms a few amongst
a field of yellow daffodils.
The scent spreads across excess
of flesh desired, and allowed.

Sixteen pale stars across a red sky,
Silver fern rising from beryl earth,
dancing violently on tender wrists,
pausing to sleep at the neck of a ring.

Lights changed colors, predictably.
Relief and rush mingled and crashed.
She blushed, glowed and sighed
and an eight rolled down with a click.

He chanced a hasty glance at the mirror,
catching an elusive whiff of tobacco.
Streets crossed, lanes changed by turn,
the coin given away by his time.

Scaling a dusty hundred and five steps,
crossed the bridge of no streetlamps.
A minute late and fifteen strides away, only.
But the books had already gone to sleep.

Spill

This is just to say,
that we may now do away
with the trouble of niceties.
Incapacity and a lessened
share of fancy shall suffice.

This is also to remind,
that we may now do away
with bothering about time.
Age and a book full of faces
shall let it pass unseen.

This is now to conclude,
that we have fully done away
with reality without the eye.
Hope and a few old spirits
shall keep us from bellyache.

A Thursday Night's

Dream? No I'd not say that. Let's say Arthur Dent was my wingman that night.

And he went, "Have you met Slartibartfast?"

Recap. That would make him Slartibartfast's wingman, not mine, right? Never mind, cut to the conversation.

So there we were, me, good ol' Slartibartfast (Henceforth I'm going to call him as Slarti, Bart (Not to be confused with Homer's son), Fast and my old man) and Arthur. Slarti seemed kinda dazed and sickeningly smug about something at the same time.

So yeah, Arthur went, " Have you met Slartibartfast?"

"Why, of course she has" "Why, of course I have" We both said it together. Slarti said the first part and I said the second part, but we both said our individual lines together, at the same instant, same point of time. Ok, I get it, you get it.

"Oh, well.. fine then. I guess I'll just stand and skank about", he said. That was Arthur. Slarti would have never said anything like that.But then Slartibartfast is never like anything. I know he's older to me, and I dare not ask how old he actually is.

"So how have you been?" I asked. You have to be really really smart to make small talk around these two men.

"Don't you know already? You've seen it all. Where have you been woman?" asked Dent. If I had been really really smart, I'd have paid attention to address my question properly.

I was about to rephrase and ask again, when clanked in Marvin.

"Why do you ask? What is the point when you know that you can ask this question every second and the answer following will be swept under by the same question being asked the same instant? Why pursue this path when there is no meaning to life?"

"Hey, that's not true!" exclaimed Arthur & Bart together.

"Well, not entirely not true", added Slarti as an afterthought. "We do know the meaning or rather the answer to the original question as to what is the meaning of life, universe and everything."

"But 42 is too absolute an answer. It doesn't take all the improbability factors and it was computed by only the second best. Why, if I'd asked for the meaning of life, universe and everything else would the answer turn to 43?" said Arthur.

"Of course not. It's not as simple. And what do you mean by everything else?"

"What would you mean by meaning of life, universe and everything then?", interrupted Marvin.

"Errr..."

"Yes, I know you all erred. Now don't burden me with the obligation to accept your apologies and do something about it. I have enough to do as it is."

I never thought I'd wish for Marvin to disappear with as much intensity as the atmosphere allowed there as this time.

"So, what have you been upto Slartibartfast?. SHUT UP Marvin and Arthur"

"Same ol'. Same old. Getting ready to design the new Earth. Though I don't know if I can repeat my award-winning design of creating fjords in Norway around Africa this time around!! For Chrisssake, it would still keep Amazon and Nile running for being the longest and widest rivers on planet earth. Boy this sleepover party was loooong!!..."

Fast could talk and talk fast while he would walk and poke around and fix things all at once. I realized I had missed him. No, I had in fact forgottten all about him. Till this night. And it all came back in a sudden rush. About how delighted and amazed and awed and completely bonkers I had gone when I had first met him. I used to think of Ford and Zaphod once in a while because they were..well, funny, crazy and they were cousins. And Marvin used to keep me OD-ing on LOL with his depression, but tonight, somehow, it's all different. I can't find anything but the heart of gold to blame for all of this. And no, I have nothing to say of Arthur.

And I was glad he was still trying to make headway in an argument with Marvin about feelings. It wasn't clear how one with too much feeling and one who felt but didn't realize it often enough could argue about such a thing as that.

"But why are we making earth all over again?", asked Arthur putting on the airs of one who thinks he has asked the Utimate Question ever. (That would have kept the mice happy, if nothing else.)

"Why, to sell it, of course. That's what the mice intend I assume. After they get the Ultimate Question", said Slarti, " And this is what would make one of your earthmen write a song about the mice who sold the world in the somewhat near future. "

"But if the mice would be selling the world, there won't be any earthmen left to write the song.", pointed out Arthur.

"Do ya think they will only sell property??? It's not mere real estate. It's exchange of refugee camps, if you may have it that way!!!!You only pray that you don't listen to Vogon's reciting poetry about their throat infection while your throats are being slit!!!" Slartibartfast started shouting as he said this.

Arthur cowered behind the aircar's seat while Marvin gave another resigned-to-depression sigh and his shoulders sagged while his eyes drooped.

"Well, now am going to drop you folks off at Frankie and Benjy's office and you can decide how you plan to go on about it. I have to create fossils and scatter them around Africa. And yes, a tip- Be nice to the mice. And another tip- if you need to escape, remember, just close your eyes, concentrate really hard and get the hell out of this dimension, squeeze into another, shift back, set your time zone and land. And don't press any red buttons unless you feel you're gonna crash."

I had one last thing to say. One last question to ask. " I've missed you Slartibartfast. Have you?" I realized I won't get a good answer to this one, so I asked another last question, " So where will I see you see next?"

Slarti gave me an enigmatic smile and then said " I know you know that I know what's gonna happen in the future, but will you puh-lease not make it so obvious? Well, to answer your question, I guess I'll see ya people on Krikkit. Or maybe not. Or I don't know. As for your previous question, I don't think I can. You see me missing you would be like Puck missing Shakespeare, not that you are Shakespeare nor am I a knavish sprite in a midsummer night's dream. Though, that would be an awfully good break from this tedium. Maybe I should go catch a show some time.. But the travelling kills me..Ok let's see, another example... yes, it could be like Adam missing the bloke who wrote the Bible and we all know what that was all about.. well, let's not go there.. See, I think you get my point. Now, be a good lassie and take these men off my hands."

"Ok. I will see you soon then...?"

"All right, I will. Here's looking at you, kid." With that he was off. Gone. I didn't know why he quoted Bogart then. He must have had his reasons.

I only wish I had pressed the red button in time. The mosquitoes I killed during my crash landing would have been glad.

Disclaimer: All the characters, with perhaps the possible exception of the character I, are fictional and have been picked up from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy written by dear Mr. Douglas Adams. I hope he doesn't turn in his grave after coming to know of this dream.