Monday, May 24, 2010

I'm a good sport-II

Yours truly has never been the sporty type. But I do come with particularly thick skin of titanium-like tenderness. So when the University Football Association's girl's team lacked female players my recruitment was based solely on my utter lack of shame. But even the shameless cannot be utterly clueless on the field. And hence, in an uncharacteristic fit of initiative, the fledgling footballer in me shuffled into dubious life.

The day of my initiation into the field was an eventful one. Under the able guidance of the football-obssessed Miester and the ever affable Floppy-hair we women tried to learn the ropes of the game.During the course of our exploits, we had gathered other spectators and players in the form of the children of the staff who lived on campus. In the spirit of generosity, they were augmenting our numbers and helping us out with our technique (hah hah hah).It suffices to say that any one of these kids (age range 3yrs-8yrs)could play better than all of us football-illiterate women put together.Even the two-year old who kept wandering near the goal-post knew more than us.(show offs!)While it was a comfort to know that I was not the only novice on the field, a few brief minutes was all it took to confirm that I was the most sports-challenged of the lot. Though aim was alien, speed was MIA and stamina was a distant dream, I did have more than my fair share of thick skin and I have been told that I can be terribly stubborn (not true, by the way). Therefore with the tenacity of Sisyphus I proceeded to continue playing.

Two hours of frustration later, I finally began to get the hang of the game. I was not confusing football with handball, I was making contact with the ball rather than just dirt and the ball was actually going where I wanted it to!At this juncture we decided to play an actual game. And- yes! I was playing! In the rising tide of euphoria I joyously made contact (with my foot this time!) with the ball, sending it flying in a splendid speeding shot straight into the goal post and- SMACK!!!- right into the face of the sportive two year old.

The field froze in a tableau of shock- partly because the kid was hit, partly because the ball actually went into the post and partly because it was me who managed to kick it.While we can call the child cranially challenged for carelessly ambling into a goal-post,we must also take into consideration that there was no precedent of the ball coming anywhere near said goalpost in the two hours that we played. And if it ever did end up there by mistake, it was usually with barely enough velocity to burst a bubble. Either way, we were awakened from our shocked coma by the glass-shattering 'waaaaaaaaah' issued by the injured party.

The kid was soon mollified and probably wont go anywhere near a goalpost for a while, if ever.And I now carry the scarlet-letter of child-abuser. As both Miester and Floppy-hair constantly remind me, I have gained a reputation as having a wonderful talent for kicking minors. They'll probably hire me in juvie-discipline boards soon. Ah well, it's not like I ever had much of a reputation anyway.And besides, I did kick the ball. Into the goal too! Sure there was a kid in between but you can't have everything now, can you.
The irony is that after all the work and rigorous practice everyday, I never got to play. Ah well... doesn't stop me from being a good sport eh? :D

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Apologies and Excuses

I believe the title says it all.
I have been suffering from an acute case of AIDS (Assignment Induced Deep Stress- term courtesy Dr.Thyme; the 'Stress' may be replaced by 'S**t' whenever/wherever applicable)which successfully dammed any creative impulse which survived the onslaught of two years of intense academics. To cut a long and infinitely uninteresting story short: 'writers block' was merely one of the bricks in the colossal pyramid entombing my creative powers.

If this were a marginally fairer world, this post would signal a golden era of increased creativity. Sadly we live in our world. The AIDS (now definitely 'S**t'), has developed complications in the form of rashes of exams and scabs of paperwork which does nothing to dissolve the block in the creative-vascular tissues.

Ah but why do I do this? Why mar your pristine face with the pimples of my failings. I try yet again to fashion a form from the flaky earth of my fancy and all that rises is a the slow static dust of intention that weighs down in your lungs, making you cough up intermittent puffs of that forgotten thing called Soul. I raise my hands, poise my fingers over the board, but gravity and grace fail me. That swell which once rose into your bosom, carrying you upwards until you are balanced joyously on the crest of the wave from which you are not afraid to fall: That glorious swell is now merely a confused trickle too lost to actually make its way out. It is not a void. Rather it is full to bursting: I can hear the voices, sense their scent, feel the hum and the sizzle of the radioactive presence. But, like figures behind a veil, these formless somethings refuse to materialise.I seem to have forgotten the way to that 'Away' that we all draw from.

It was Coleridge who perhaps best expressed this incredible loneliness. Bereft of the words that have always been your friends, what are you left with? What can you believe in? Where do you search to find a vanished door? Faith spins lugubriously, suspended on the gossamer thread of hope and I remember why I began writing this post. They say everything returns if you call it enough. I keep calling with the desperate hope that what is hiding will reveal itself soon. After all, '...if winter comes, can Spring be far behind.'

Monday, May 03, 2010

Sublimation

Something fished out of the archives.

It was all so clear in her head.

She would slip her arm into his, look straight into his eyes so he would know she wasn’t joking and say the lines with the blasé seriousness of someone making a general suggestion on the lines of adding more blue in the wardrobe, a better haircut, the effectiveness of odomos over mortein, a walk around the perimeters. The harmlessness of the tone would befuddle him into indecision, beguile him into consideration, and then bewitch him into acquiescence. A possibility, that’s all. But a possibility, all the same.

And she was confident in her ability to weave an eloquent spell. He would perhaps consent to the careless cadence of her voice or to the simplicity of her logic or the silky smoothness of the summer night. It was all so perfect in the infinite canvas of her flamboyant fancy: A beautiful dance of truthful artifice, performed in perfect grace like an ancient bolero on a spicy Spanish evening. There was no way he could elude the spell. He wouldn’t want to.

Confidence overflowing, she placed a hand on his shoulder and got ready with the practiced opening line.But as she looked into his lambent eyes her tongue cemented itself to the roof of her mouth and the words beat a pulsing brand against her closed lips. It wasn’t dissemblance; she believed every single one of those unsaid words. But the cost of it stared out from his trusting eyes. The steady guileless vulnerability that made him seek her out glinted like the edge of a knife as she tried ineffectually to put her plan into action. People told her he was ripe for the plucking. He would comply simply because he was so alone. Besides, he trusted her...

And the unsaid confessions crackling noisily in her mouth were swallowed in a dry, husky trail of vain hopes withered yet again.

He was waiting for her to say something, but she couldn’t free her otherwise glib tongue. “Why so serious?” he joked and she choked out a convincing chuckle. The conversations flying around the sputtering bonfire permeated the air with a banked buzz, filling the blank spaces left behind by the words she didn’t say. Someone laughed, someone else cried, someone debated, someone else berated. His quiet sadness lay wide open in the noise, crowding her expanding heart into a tight little corner, where it crumbled like dry earth, emptying its overcrowded insides into her more crowded soul. His head hung low, and the words hummed sadly in the baritone thrumming of the blood in her veins. She laid her hand on his and he smiled that familiar sad smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” he says. She smiled eloquently, her lips replete with meanings he could never guess at or wouldn’t see. They hugged each other close with the sincere, comfortable camaraderie of true friends that filled empty spaces regardless of unsaid words. He sighed a quiet sigh. And unseen she sighed silent words, letting them diffuse into the dark night to find their home with the other voiceless words, floating away into the starry expanse of open sky while she remained earthbound in incomplete embrace.