Broken Conscience

The air is hot, stale and nonexistent. Seems like every breath you draw in, is a struggle, a mouthful of nothing but emptiness and fragments of polluted oxygen. Overhead the fan whirs in aimless lazy circles even though it is set to maximum speed. It does nothing to help the suffocating atmosphere as it lethargically stirs up the thick warm air. The sun seems to filter right through the thick dusty curtains that stand still and undisturbed, heavy as if with longing and despair. A musky smell fills the room, saturated with sweat, fear and loss.

A limp hand falls off the edge of the rickety bed, every time someone turns in it it creaks as if taking its last breath. The hand hangs there, the fingers opening and closing ever so slowly, clutching through the thin air. The pillow is a chaos of thick brown hair, combed away from the face and neck, matted with sweat that also glistens on the face and leaves dark patches on the clothes that cling to the body. The chest rises and falls, struggling for breath through excruciating pain. The air wheezes in and out in a futile attempt to nourish the body.

She stands in the doorway; eyes weary and body slump, her eyes fixated on the figure in the bed and the constant whisper of a prayer on her dry chapped lips. Her hands hang by her side in a defeated gesture; as if there's nothing more she can do with them, her legs shaking ever so slightly. As the light recedes from the room, the room doesn't cool.

In the early hours of the morning she turns, averting her eyes from the bed, her feet shuffle towards another door, not so far away, which leads her outside. Her tread is slow and painful, as she walks through empty roads. Eventually her feet give away and she drops down on the pavement, on an unfamiliar. Overhead, the clouds rumble as if with anger, making the little light at this hour look rather eerie and unusual. Her eyes scan the empty roads, the stationary cars and the dark houses, suspending her into her worst fears.

The sound and the dampness brings her back, the rain falls slowly at first. The heat rises from the hot road, pushing its way up, escaping in the tiny puffs of dust that rise as drops pelt down harder. It comes down hard, so hard that it burns her. It feels as though it will cause depressions and groves in her paper thin skin. It hurls down at her as if it were the sentiments that she's lived through, as if it’s the abuse and loss she's suffered through life. It breaks her down bit by bit, cracking the shell, bruising her flesh, her existence, her conscience.

-Momina.

Just The Dark Silhouettes To Illuminate Her Path

What happens when you walk in the middle of a bare road, past midnight?

Nothing, nothing at all.

She walks in the middle of the barren street, illuminated by the street lights at uneven gaps. She walks freely amidst the dark stretches, and then cowers when the unbroken light bulbs continue to illuminate her path. There’s nothing around except the silhouette of overhanging trees and houses suspended in seemingly peaceful silence. To her, though, it’s haunting. The silence, the lights; it makes fear claw at her spine, raising the hair on her neck and bare arms; the fear of being visible in a setting so vulnerable, the fear of an incoming car; the dread that so often stops her in her tracks and shift her head from side to side to evade the feeling of being looked at. Fear haunts her but it keeps her walking, through the unlit and lit patches, through the eerie surroundings and through the distress that doesn't show.

What happens when the lights of an incoming car suddenly, harshly, enters your vision.

Everything unexpected happens, all at once.

Her illuminated form doesn’t pause in its track, but fear leaves, slipping past the hold of her mind so quickly, replaced by something else. It wraps it’s tendrils around her, wounding around her legs and moving them forward so she doesn’t stands still. Escape. It pushes her forward, towards the car. Her life doesn’t flashes before her eyes. There is nothing besides the bright lights blurring as they come nearer and nearer. Her feet pick up pace and she grins in the face of freedom.

Nobody clutches her soiled body soaked in blood. Nothing stops, not the silence nor the night. She lies there frozen, dark shadows hugging her form, a fire burning in her lifeless eyes.

-Momina.

Styrofoam cup and souvenoirs.

The tea splashed a little from the sudden jump and she swallowed hard against the bounce. The scalding tea burned her chest with sudden heat that eventually subsided into a pleasant warmth. Hugging the teacup close, she ran her tongue over her dry lips, shrinking further into the tiny space she occupied. Her weary eyes scanned the scenes that ran past, through the window; the familiar territory and landscape slowly fading, merging into the unfamiliar and desolate surroundings.

Between the throng of people and the constant bouncy ride she sat stiffly, clutching the disposable cup that was, now the only souvenir she had from the land that she had left behind.

Every now and then she would be pushed right to the edge of the seat due to the gradually increasing crowd and her hand would jolt up fixing her scarf on her head. She didn't spoke to anyone neither did anyone bother with it.

Vulnerable and lone, she picked up herself when the bus stopped this time. Holding on to the cup with one hand and the front seat with the other she waited for the bus to stop. As the people started leaving while an equal amount of people barged in, she stared fixated at the small styrofoam cup in her hand. After much thought as she was pushed by people vacating and hogging seats she pushed the cup under the seat and stepped off the bus.

She never turned back but as the bus started moving the cup rolled out from under the seat and a little boy promptly picked it up and threw it outside

-Momina.

The Last Note A Distant Hum Of Tinkling Bells...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benoitcourti/5057156004/

She blows delicately through perfectedly pouted lips; a gentle blow that causes the shiny liquid layer to swell into a ball and blow off with the light breeze, only to pop seconds later. The air is thick and dry, the atmosphere near barren and devoid of much color. In the midst of it float the few bubbles that waft their way here and there before they snap into tiny unseen droplets of soap. she watches them hover in the air; illuminating tiny rainbows within the delicate little see through spheres, and sighs.

She stands with her back pressed against the back of a red car, a cup of soap mix in her hand, the other clutching a ball point pen lacking its ink fill. Next to her, sitting on the boot of the car is a little kid, like her, clutching half a bottle of slick soapy water and bubble making stick.

They keep there postures intact, not moving besides their heaving shoulders and their cheeks inflating and deflating like balloons as they blow. The midday sun grows fainter over their heads, dropping lower with time while they blow their respective bubbles, watching them flutter in the light breeze. Delightfully, they watch them dance in the wind, enjoying their lives before they are popped away.

At times the little kid shrieks with delight as he streches out to burst a big bubble even before it escapes the edge of her pen, his laugh echoing in the still air, the last note a distant hum of tinkling bells. Sometimes the bubbles shatter as they were blown in. It would burst in their face, smarting their eyes slightly; like a joke with a bad pun.

Just as the sun is on the verge of dipping down and kissing the horizon she turns, tilting the remaining liquid in her glass into the kid's bottle. As she leaves he looks startled, sad and slightly happy at the prospect of more soapy water. Sitting in her car she looks at the anonymous kid sitting in his car porch on his car in the empty neighbourhood who lended her his bubble mix. He continues to blow gently, making bubbles that light up the empty surroundings in the still July air.

She smiles at his innocent form and drives away with slippery soapy hands for a another date with the future.

-Momina.

A Peek into Her Soul

Everyone with whom you share an eye contact becomes an untold story in your head. That day she bacame an unseen story in the heads of so many individuals. An untold story that buzzed with such intensity despite the little place it took in the folds of their minds.

She fled meaninglessly through the empty roads leaving a havoc in her wake. She never got a chance to read into the stories that glimpsed her that day. No, she was far beyond that point; her eyes a soulless abyss that saw through everything without actually looking at anything before them. The despair in her face and the emptiness in her eyes caused many to look back at her once or twice, but she never noticed.

She was not there; wrapped in her own misery she walked through the roads leaving an eerie feeling to those who caught sight of her, stared and watched her go only to be left with an agitation for having glimpsed the darkness dividing her soul.

-Momina.

Until then.

The sky… The sky is a perfect blue. The kind that compels you to hold your gaze there and stare at it until minutes pass .There is a dull golden moon, not half and not entirely a crescent, decorating the royal blue; partially lighting it up. The sky is still a little rusty at the edges; where the ends mingle with the lands and disappear behind buildings, all around. 

And between the tall buildings that surround the area, between the long shadows she stands silently staring above at the reality she shares with a million others. A thousand of who could be stranded alone gazing at this mutual reality, thinking this very thing. She’s holding on to that single thought or else she could sink under the weight that pushes her down. She could drown and she’s willing to but not yet. Not until that thread breaks off. Not until she really knows that there is nobody out there not going through the same troubles.

-Momina.

Drown With Your Anchors

The window opened with a faint screech of metal against metal that slowly died in the whir of the ceiling fan. She looked behind her one last time and then climbed on the window ledge, rather carelessly; a cigarette glowing at one end held between two fingers and a tea cup balanced on the palm of the other hand. She let her legs hang down the ledge, swaying.

From the ground the figure propped on the window sill of the twelfth floor looked like nothing but an irregular play of the shadows under the dark sky. Closer and you could make out the silhouette of a person, the orange glow at one end of the cigarette, nothing more than a tiny flaming speck moving back and forth in midair.

Her hand moves rhythmically between her lips and the saucer underneath the slender tea cup that doubles as an ash tray. Each puff of smoke that escapes gently from between her lips is like a mere illusion in the dark night, conjured up from thin air.

However she is too occupied to pay any heed to either the magic the smoke presents or the faint moonlight that keeps casting interesting shadows around her. Tears swim before her reddened eyes, almost brimming over but not quite yet. Whether they were due to the sting of the cigarette smoke that she has not yet been accustomed to or the great lump blocking her airway, she didn’t knew. But her throat was blocked; the air wheezing in and out rather painfully. She clenched her teeth against an overwhelming sensation of tears threatening to flow.

In an attempt to distract her own self she looks back into the dark room packed with boxes and shuts the window; her ears ringing at the faint screech. Nothing is visible through the dirty window and the voice that she would soon be hearing is now blocked out.

She lets the tears flow, letting her unwelcome sorrows to mingle with the stuffy air. The air presses down, heavy with the depression that leaks from her. It’s like extreme humidity; it makes breathing and moving difficult as if walking through water or something thicker that fills the earth like a swimming pool. It draws out her energy and will, weighing her down and pushing her away, slowly letting her drown with the anchor that held her.
                                                                   

             ***

From the fifth floor of the opposite building a girl has come out for fresh air; the phone pressed to her ear and a smile tickling her lips. She smiles tenderly at what she hears through the phone but midway through it she suddenly looks up at the sound of a half scream. She forgets to smile or to reply, she doesn’t hears a thing as her eyes follow a shadowy figure falling from the sky.

-Momina.

Suspended

She’s melting away in the white room,

Turning to stone while the quiet grooms.

A sole hammock hangs in a white painted room. Stark white and devoid of everything with the exception of the white hammock and a thick white carpet that covers the floor corner to corner. The carpet and the white walls are so perfectly match that at first sight you are unable to decipher as to where the floor ends and the walls start. There are no windows and only a single door. The room is efficiently illuminated by light bulbs such that there is little shadow play to hinder the dream like reality.

A pale hand hangs down the edge of the white hammock that seems to be floating in the air. The frail motionless figure whose weight presses down on the hammock is not asleep, rather absent from reality and dream altogether. She stands at the mutual edge of the both; confused as to where the reality ends and imagination begins much like the story of the carpet and the walls of the white room she lays in. There is no hurry though; she’ll stay until a state pulls her either way.

For now, everything is peaceful. Somehow right even though incomprehensible. Carelessness assaults her mind. She hasn't moved from her place on the white hammock in the white room. She has been there for a long while and she’s there to stay for a little while more. 

It gives her a feel of floating, her state and the hammock. Of drifting without moving, of defying gravity with logic. Or logic with insanity. Time lapses away; seconds, minutes, hours. A crazy energy drives her, fueling her with the strength to stay. To hold on; to her peace, to this incoherent mix of reality and dream that she is enjoying right now. To not be happy or sad but peacefully satisfied. This is her middle ground.

In the depth of her mind wild blooms,

There is red on the floor of the white room.

-Momina.

The Middle Ground

She was senseless; her consciousness was welded deeply into her subliminal mind. She was not asleep yet the slumber had not abandoned her, it hung around her creating a shell that did not let her wander towards either. She was bemused about what was real and what was just a figment of her imagination portrayed as real. It wasn’t such deep a night, she knew that, so then why was her mind playing tricks on her? She knew that the constant drip from the bathroom tap was real, it was there every night, and so was the faint whistling sound. She heard footsteps, and listened hard, staying still as a statue she realized it was her heart beat growing louder by each minute. She saw the shadows playing around and then almost a shadowy figure, which was gone with a blink of an eye. Sometimes the darkness would seem to prevail forever and at other times it drew in light, little fading circles of white and cream. The line between reality and imagination had gone hazy; she awaited the reality desperately as she hung by loose threads at the edge of her dreams. She hummed to herself; a sole sound in the death of the night, as the night became her, and her the night.

-Momina.

As The White Broke Through

Chris Carter Abstract

She was sprawled on the slightly damp grass in the wee hours of the morning; the time between dawn and sunrise, when the sky is a dull blue with white peeking from behind. Everything was silent, there was no chirping of the birds, no rush of vehicles or any sound of life. Sometimes in the back ground there was faint groan of an air conditioner or an occasional hum of a generator.



She lay there staring at the few stars that still twinkled in the sky. Her bare feet resting on the tingling grass, her knees bent. One of her hands ran through her hair that spread out like a coal black fire with blades of grass poking through it. The other hand stretched out to the grass, plucking out wisps of it. The world was just a blur of color through her partially closed eyes, like a water-color painting with one color merging into the other without a specified border.

The red of her dress contrasted sharply with the fresh green of the grass in the dull light. The red geraniums bordering the garden made a beautiful border of swaying red flowers. There was a serenity that flowed through the atmosphere. For once no fire burnt in the core of her being, nothing froze her bones till she was a fragile skeleton of ice. Rather, it was the first time she felt humane. There was no tug of war of love and hate but just an aura of joy and contentment that whipped up genuine happiness on its own. Somehow it was touching the light that was the ultimate solace that she had been fighting for.

There was a looming darkness that rang warning bells of doom and despair for her numb senses. And there was the dark past trying to suck her in, intent on creating a vacuum in her present. But then there was this; this happiness, satisfaction, bliss.

This was her final fight. Her mind urged her to stress upon these thoughts, to draw strategies and sense to secure her but the aura of her surrounding (or was it the light within?) It drew her into a slumber of its own. And she floated like a flail bird, resting, drooping lower and lower into an estranged stupor. For one there was no concern of all the deaths suffered already, there was no wake of fear for the future.

She slept in solace as the white broke through the blue, the east swelled with pink and peach hues and the golden shined upon her as people rushed about where she lay in peace.

-Momina.

Maybe We Need To Stop Living Among Metaphors.

A single puff of dust swoops up from the ground as if conjured by a magic spell. Between the dust that now settles back onto the dry ground, the droplet that has caused this tiny hazard is long gone; already soaked into the depths of the thirsty earth. Gradually the whole space starts being bombarded with such tiny dust bombs, and the burning plane drinks it up as quick. The heat rises evidently out of the ground as the water droplets pick up speed; it trickles out of the ground, prompted by the cooling rain. In no time the rain spell grows in intensity drenching the parched land, the thirsting flowerbeds, the burnt grass, the dry soil. It subsides even before it can trickle down towards an unknown path. 

The drowning sun sends golden waves that glint off the raindrops that cling to each surface. There is a general relief that drifts through the air, soaking people along with the rain. The air resonates with cries of happiness and prayers being send heaven wards. Between the beautiful chaos, that is the rain and the mayhem caused by everything around, she’s caught in the moment. Despair and satisfaction run through her, somehow together. 

The light from the setting sun filters through the window, being the only source of illumination in the gradually darkening room. As if it’s trying to show her the light but she was too much of a coward to break through her cage. Or maybe it was just the light slowly seeping out of sight. Maybe she just needed to stop living among metaphors. 

Between the profound desolation and satisfaction other emotions fluctuate, creating an incoherent tangled mass of feelings that looks like a twinkling star, fading and glowing, and fading and glowing. The satisfaction she was feeling, encased by time in that moment was an oddly familiar sensation. Although, how it sustained with the growing feeling of melancholy and despair was awe engaging. Maybe she had found bliss in her sadness. Or maybe sorrow had become home, the place where the heart was. 

Amidst all this, there was never an ounce of emptiness. The despair was not hollow, neither the silence nor the loneliness. Each was a part of her own, entwined so strongly with her backbone, knotted with her nerves and melded with her blood. She was them and they were her. She weaved her anguish in patterns and found happiness smiling in the folds of it. Why did people assume she was unhappy? She was not.

The monotonous despair had shown her so many colors of life and it had taught her well, too. Everything was there and she was the one revolving in the middle, touching despair, sparking happiness, dying a little while she lived each day. Being a part of everything, everything a part of her. 

The grateful exclamations start afresh as the rain comes down in full haste. The light has all but left her now darkened room but she doesn’t flips the light switch, she doesn’t moves from her place for she is content while watching the hues that dance within her; as her realizations take shape.

-Momina

Among Candle Flames

The flames of the candle danced in the darkness. Not one flame but three, although the candle was only one and a single wick inside it burned. The candle was one, the reflections two. And together they were three, brighter and better but from a single source.

She sat very far from the candle, among the shadows that had not been driven away by the brightness. Her eyes, however, were locked on the candle flame, following it’s every movement. The room was enveloped in silence, light and darkness. She moved closer to the candle, out in the light as her shadow grew larger behind her. She raised her hand to cup the flame, enclosing the room into darkness again. The only thing that now glowed was her palm at one side of the flame and her face at the other; intent eyes sparkling mischievously. Moving her hand closer she touched the flame, clenching her hand to a fist capturing it, the light. And then she let go, all too soon as the light scalded her hand.

She slid down her hand, holding it firmly, lighting the room once again. The hot wax that melted close to the flame slipped past the mouth of the candle, sliding down, gathering onto her hand. Stinging and burning. She whipped her hand away in pain, knocking the candle to the floor. She fell back in fear when she looked up from nursing her hand, as fiery arms rose from the burning carpet. Now a new kind of light illuminated the room, the reflections even this time two. Rising spoke, flaming claws; she fainted in the now lit shadows, wasting away in silence and the hissing of the burning room.

-Momina.

Buoyant Flames

With slow steps she descended into the cold pool; each step measured and pondered on the slippery floor of the pool as she had never learned how to swim. She gently walked further with even steps. Arms held outwards by her side, the back of her hands resting lightly on the slick water surface, she submerged herself up to her chin. Tendrils of dark hair, gleaming in the harsh sunlight, spread out halfway around her head like roots of an ancient tree, bobbing gently on the water. 

There was a fire burning deep within her, a mix of vapid anger and disappointments welling up from the core of her being, shattering any wall of peace and reassurance to tiny crystal like jagged pieces that burned and reflected the fire. The sweltering heat did not seep out from all her pores, outwards to the water, as she had imagined it would. The cold water around her did nothing to cool her down. While the sun was another story, showing no mercy, trying to melt her exterior unaware that she was already deteriorating inside. 

With closed eyes, so that they wouldn’t burn in this eternal battle of interior and exterior fire, she began a slow tread forward. Deeper she walked, in the colder water that wrapped around her in a desperate attempt for a little calmness. She ventured into greater depths, the water rising; quivering at the tip of her nose, the bridge between her eyes, feet gradually losing ground. Deeper and deeper she crawled, trying to avenge the blazing fire, to shut down this insane play of incoherent flames, losing herself to the water; trying hard to float in tranquility whilst she drowned in the depths of the pool.

-Momina.

Reflections In The Paper

She sat down dejectedly in front of the mirror with her sketch pad turned to a blank sheet, the pencil dangling from her fingers. What had life become? 

Swallowing back the lump in her throat and clenching her eyes shut to will he tears back into them, she picked up the pencil, holding it just above the blank expanse. Composing herself she began to sketch. Her pencil dragged on the clear paper leaving a grey trail behind as her eyes moved to and fro between the mirror and the paper, sketching herself. She did not have to worry about expressions; she pretty much wore a single expression now. She watched her own reflection and her hands as they held the pencil that scrawled on the paper, bringing to life there a pair of hollow eyes. 

After an hour of the tenuous job, she was done. The sketch had a hint of a forced smile; an awkward curl of one corner of the mouth. The person in the sketch was so familiar yet a complete stranger. She gazed at it for a while, altering her observation again between the sketch and her own reflection while her mind wandered off into a completely different alcove. After a while she picked up the abandoned pencil again and began to shade. 

She shaded half of the face into the darkness of the gray lead. She then looked once again at the sketch, this time in satisfaction, at the dark and bright side of the sketch, the truth of the human face.

-Momina.

Visual Satisfaction

She puts the glass to her lips and leans her head back, letting the last few drops slip inside her mouth. She places the glass back and leans against the sofa back, landing her feet on the table. She hits the remote, and music begins to flow through the stereo at the corner; beautiful wordless music. She taps her foot and nods her head slightly, with her eyes closed as the melody strikes in high and low notes.

It is a fact that the peace of the moments never lasts as long as you want it to, and as the phone rings, it jostles her awake, she hits her foot on the glass at the table, as she gets up. She hears it crash, a reverberating sound, and looks at it in disbelieve. It looks whole from her angle. She forgets about the phone and settles into the sofa, looking at the glass that rolls from side to side on the glass top of the coffee table, slowing down. The glass is broken. Quarter of its length, one third of its width has broken off, and it rests a little further away, whole.

How queer, two things so whole, yet together they are broken. She doesn’t register the phone as it clicks off. She puts the glass upright, leaving the chipped off piece further away. She leans forward, and runs her finger on the smooth edge of the cut glass. Smooth until it cut through her flesh, stinging and drawing blood. She sits still at the alien sight. She watches as the red drops drip, staining the glass and the coffee table. She snatches a couple of tissues and wipes off the blood. Pressing onto the finger until none leaks anymore.

She looks at it curiously, the cut has formed white edges, and red wells up deep inside. It is a sight so rare, so mysterious to her; the one who has always suffered unseen pain, with no visual aid to it, it fascinates her. She draws the broken glass closer, running her fingers over it, letting it prickle and wound, allowing it to coat it all red, finding satisfaction in the graphics of her pain.

-Momina.

Faceless Existence

She gazed back at me dryly with a piercing gaze that seemed to penetrate right through mine. Everything about her appearance was flawed; her weary eyes, dirty clothes that were badly creased, bits of nail varnish stuck to her nails, most of which had been chipped off. Her long tresses had once been in what looked like a braid, her cheeks were stained and swollen red. She stumbled on her tiny steps but her eyes were as piercing as before, unfaltering. The disturbing thing was that her eyes were as powerful as they were empty, there was nothing in them, no pain, no fear… no hope.

So I didn't knew why they had me smiling, we were like two strangely different people, connected in the crowd of unseen faces, through dots. No, I didn't know her, neither did she know me. We were strangers, unrelated yet somehow linked, something put us apart…together, but distant. As I smiled at her, a faint smile touched her dried lips, only for split second, after which it turned into a grimace; her eye brows knotted together in worry, her face distorted into anger. And within that very second she ducked her head and disappeared into the throngs of people.

She left me there, though, paused and alone while strangers blurred past. They were faceless, for me. I didn't search for her in that crowed space, but I stood there and wondered what I hadn't before, in the sole minute that I had felt a connection with her. I pondered about her unknown past and future as I stood there, alone, while she blurred past me. This time unknown. 

-Momina.

Insomnia, when nights stretch out to become infinite moments. And nights for her were similar, undying. She’d sit there, in the same spot, night after night; filling sheet after sheet of unappealing white with words that poured out from the depths of her mind. Breaking complex thoughts into simpler words and shaping meek opinions into pretentious ones. Quite a sight she was, if someone could see her in that hour of the night; bend over a notebook by the glow of a bedside lamp, hair hanging in loose strands all around her face, hands scribbling furiously as if time wasn't enough to pen all her contemplation on paper and an ever present cup of coffee going cold beside her. All she could do was write before the dawn broke, ignoring everything; the hush around her always sustaining, the occasional shot of pain in her head and incredulous bearing of hours as they passed; all too soon.

As the first of the lights appeared the stars still in presence, she looked up, skeptical, as if the time had passed away in a blur. She sighed in disbelieve as people begin to stir, putting an end to her peaceful ruminating.

-Momina.

Red Shadows

Her big kohl lined eyes peered from behind a pair of rectangular frames which were slightly askew. Her eyes were dark and intent, seemingly different and apart from the rest of her face which was distorted and twisted in pain. She breathed heavily, her mouth slack as she tried to utter words that were already lost.  Her hand clutched her side that was smeared with red, seeping through her pastel colored clothes, turning them dark and ugly.

Fear flicked through her eyes, her breath coming in jagged whispers. Hands gripped thin air _the wound forgotten_ splattering a few drops of blood on her clear face. Her hand fell back, all motion sudden and then halted, forever. Stillness and musk swayed in the air, pausing every movement and silencing every noise; except for the blood, that continued to gush from her side.

-Momina.

Unobstructed

http://www.facebook.com/Urbah.V.Photography

She stands still in the center of the park, staring somewhere in the distance, unaware of the way people eye her. Half wet hair, blowing in the breeze, the length of her scarf flapping around her neck. Yet, her gaze is intent, unhindered; settled on the single fluffy cloud that adorns the sky, so lost in its beauty that she cannot see the setting that hold my equally committed contemplation. My view is completely different but similarly beautiful. Our unwavering gazes settled upon the sole scenery that connects us. The only difference is that I am the sun, peeking from behind those very clouds.

-Momina.

Locked Up In Fog

‘Always aim for the moon, so even if you fall, you can land on the stars.’

She played with the word of the quote in her mind while tears streamed down from the corners of her eyes and disappeared somewhere in her hair. As she stared at the bunk above her, even the stars seemed too far; past the two bunks above her, the roof, the second story and the limitless distance towards the sky. An impossible journey.

She looked at the hardwood of the bed above, staring back at her and wondered where her life was going. She was nowhere. Life had always been so perfect for her, the choices were never her own, just an illusion at that, but she enjoyed them nonetheless. She had honestly nothing planned for her future, and it wandered off in the forbidden lands of nowhere. But finally a decision was reached and she struggled with all her might to take it from there; she had an aim, a door to reach.

But karma, karma was a pain in the behind, the door of opportunity was nothing more than an illusion, a mirage in the dry dessert that she had taken to be an oasis, a disappointment that sent her crashing down, with all her spirits drowning in self pity and accusation. Before her lied nothing but a barren land, she had journeyed from nowhere to nowhere. At first she had had a goal to chase, that would have been her way out, but now there was no goal, no target. The planes of disappointment spread out vast in every direction she looked. They were limitless and she had no clue where to go and nobody to guide her.

Tears came stronger than ever as she realized the reality of her situation again. She considered calling her best-friend and spilling out all her worry to her but she had probably done all she could; she had helped her up after she had crashed down under the weight of disappointments and dusted her down, raising her drowned spirits. She had felt a lot better then, but now, weighing her options she had to admit that she was stuck, her mind clogged.

She heaved muted sobs in the dark room as the night grew longer. Eventually she fell in a chain of weird dreams that woke her up every half hour or so, every time greeted by the everlasting darkness. At sunrise she sat up in her bed with a throbbing head and stinging eyes that were red and strained as she contemplated on her series of dreams, they had felt so meaningful but now they just seemed like pointless gibberish. She sighed, but couldn’t bring herself to sleep again.

The days became unnumbered as she went through her daily routine. She felt bored out of her wits yet there was so much to do that the day passed away in a blur. The nights were the same; an endless series of little sleep and deep dreams that lost meaning as soon as she pondered over them. Her thought had attached themselves to her mind like a leech, they sucked all energy out of her, her state was all she could think of and it always left her with a numbing headache that sent shivers down her spine and flooded her in cold sweat. She was stuck in the dry planes of nowhere looking for answers while her life had become a struggle, a question of her existence, an effort to live everyday one after the other in a single hope that somewhere she’ll find a response, a sign, a guide.