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.

Are you looking for beauty or finding faults?

Love is a very simple thing, and we tend to complicate the simplest of things. It’s unnecessary to go in the details of everything, to discover its chemical basis, its origin… the first story. I don’t feel the need to do any such thing. Even though love can be quite vast in its meaning, it’s really not that difficult. We make it difficult though, categorizing it and sizing it up. Why? What’s the point of falling in love with a single person when you can fall in love with so many things, over and over again?

We’ve all heard the about the difference of loving and being in love. Why? Why can’t we fall in love with everything? Why can’t we sincerely like all the things that we want to? We can, but we don’t. We don’t because there is this general hype about falling in love with one beautiful person.

I do not believe it. I fall in love with so many things, people, deeds etcetera. Not love them, but fall in love with them. I fall in love with words; random words scrawled on walls, on paper, on blogs, on social sites, by people I don’t know and I might not ever know and I fall in love with them.

I fall in love with poetry, not necessarily famous poets, like Whitman, Plath, Yeats… no, everybody loves them. I fall in love with poetic verses that bloom out of nowhere in the minds of random people all across the globe. They jot them down and forget, but so many people fall in love with them.

I fall in love with deeds; a tiny gesture, a smile. A stranger smiling at a stranger, a scene I only witness, a scene I am not even a part of and I fall in love with it.

I fall in love when I see two people falling in love. I fall in love with their love. I look at them, once practically strangers and know so close and dear to one another. How can I not fall in love?

I fall in love with the nature; clouds, a sunrise, a glimpse of the dark sky where only a single star gleams, an eclipse, the expanse of water stretching out till the ends whilst I float in the middle of it, the promise of land beyond. I fall in love with them even though I know that they won’t come again as themselves. The next sunrise would be different, the sea will be taken by a tide, and the clouds will change form. Everything will become a new something to fall in love with, only to change again.

I fall in love with art. All sorts; decorating the corners of a notebook, painted on walls, an incoherent mix of color in an adolescent’s sketch-pad. I fall in love with laughter, echoing from the house next door, the table beyond ours; people reveling in their own personal and private jokes with laughter echoing out as one.

I fall in love with so much more, and each time I do, I fall slightly in love with the people associated with it. And you do, too. You are falling in love, too, not just once but over and over again, with people you don’t know, things you don’t understand, stories you haven’t read… you are falling without categorizing, you are falling in love genuinely without thinking about the consequences.

The world, you see, is a beautiful place. And it’s filled with so much love that if we consider it, we can take over the hate. Fall in love with it.

-Momina.

I Have Enclosed Myself In An Infinity Of My Own

It comes down in an even sprinkle, falling straight; gently beating the ground. I watch quietly as each drop falls on my clothes and gets sucked up by their fibers leaving nothing but a tiny dark patch. It would have been nonexistent if it wasn't for the rest of the rain drops slowly soaking me up. My clothes gradually turn a shade or two darker than their original color, my hair dampens and water droplets slip past my face and my half bare arms.

I had dragged a chair to the center of the driveway where there is no overhead shelter, now I sit on it with my feet up, the rain water swishing around the legs of the chair. The heels of my feet rest on the very edge of the chair, my arms around them and my fingers intertwined so my feet won’t slip due to the wet tension. Hugging my legs, my face turned sideways so that I can feel the rain on my face and dousing my carelessly knotted hair.

For a moment I had considered making myself a cup of coffee but I opted against it. So now nestled in the pocket, in the arm of the chair, are several rain-sprayed jasmines that I’ve picked from our garden. Their scent floats all around me, fusing with the smell of the rain. It is so incredibly, crazily beautiful, this moment, sitting enveloped in a self-embrace with nothing but the mingling scent of rain and jasmines and the occasional tweeting of the birds shattering the silence. My far vision blurred for I have long abandoned my spectacles in the wake of this morning rain, hence, I am enclosed in a tiny bubble of my own. It’s so personal, as if the rain falls down for me, only.

It comes down so silently, getting lost amidst the whir of the ceiling fans and the hum of the air conditioners. Nobody wonders how they manage to sleep so soundly when the heat otherwise woke them up every day, every hour. The perks of being an insomniac include experiencing these exquisite early morning rains, whenever they come; earlier than the early risers. You connect with the silence and the beauty because it’s only you.

I've been sitting in the red canvas chair in the center of the driveway, in a sleeping neighborhood with the breeze playing with the hair that has come loose from my bun and the rain drenching me, for the past two hours. I got up only once to encase the sheer ecstasy of these blessed moments in the fold of my words; adding another piece to the plethora of such captured moments.

I am sneezing and slightly cold but it doesn't matter. I've waited for quite long to feel numb like this as I

cherish the rain, silent and lone.

-Momina.

A Conversation With Conscience

“Give yourselves the reasons, if you don’t trust anyone else’, she heard. The sudden interruption caused her to forget about her muttering, look around and then think the situation through.

She rarely ever started a conversation but this was fascinating, and hadn't it been initiated already?

“How so?” she asked.

“You know the rights and the wrongs, a few if not all. You know when it’s okay to ask you, and you know when it’s not. And you know that anger is pointless when it’s something you can do, under your control.”

“But it’s not… destroying my peace, my contemplation. It’s wrong. Of course I am angry. Giving me an illusion of choice is wrong. Deciding my future for me is wrong.”

“Is it? Didn't you have your moments of peace? One cannot live in peace if there is a war going around in the surrounding or inside you. The illusion of choice was wrong, but so is this illusion, that of peace.”

She is speechless. It waits for her to speak; it gives her time to let it all sink in.

“The illusion of choice is given to you, you can however, correct it. Have your say. But this delusion, you have created it yourself; you've made yourself believe in it.

“You built your own shackles, you hold the key; it’s all you.”

“It’s all me”, she said to herself as her mind wrapped about this.

She lifted herself on her feet and looked at it, staring at her with similarly curious eyes, through the mirror.

-Momina.

Your Insistence Is Adorable.

Everything in the vastness of space is in a state of perpetual motion. Every tiny speck and every gigantic object that exists because several such tiny specks came together... everything, is moving. Shaking. Hovering. Vibrating. From the tiniest electron revolving around the nucleus of an atom to a huge star in a galaxy eons away. It is all moving, gently and crazily. Silently. And I am sitting here, still; suspended in all that motion. Waiting to be lifted. Waiting to be moved or removed by an unseen force. I am the glitch in the system, the nut that refuses to rotate while the rest spin in wild, silly circles. I am right in the center of a moving world, stationary. Useless.

I can see you, sense you, reading me, following me around. Trying hard to decipher me and my struggle. Putting such great effort in thinking about my past and my future. And I don’t even know about my present. I see you trying to visualize my story, trying to adapt it, picture yourself in it.

“What happens? What happened?” I hear you ask yourself, incredulously, as you turn another page to my story, as you see me running from the horrors of an unexplained monster. Running in vain. I see you crease your forehead, run your tongue over your dried lips, change your drooping posture, so that you won’t get tired. So that you’ll be able to read a little more without interruption. Your insistence is adorable.

You are tired. You didn't sleep all night, you were so engrossed in reading me, thinking about my story and tweaking your perspective as you moved further, word by word. I was there with you, without you realizing. I was watching you enthralled by a story that wasn't even your own. So I asked myself why you did that? Why did you hurt yourself over someone else’s tale? Cry over another’s pain, laugh at someone else’s joy? Why do you sit here, your eyes following me, your mind wrapped about me, when your own story remains abandoned, unwritten?

I've chosen to be the glitch. To stop, to drag on so that you’d become agitated. So that you’d put me you aside for a moment and look around and see what your own world has come to. The ignorance of your own reality so that you can indulge in mine is flattering. But I realize I've been doing the same. Trying to indulge in your story, figure you out while you try to decode mine. I've been trying to stop you from interpreting me, all the while looking forward to your reactions when you finally unveil my end. All the while we've been simultaneously reading one another, embracing tales not our own. We are linked this way, you see.

So, when I see you handling me with such care, adoring the curve of each word, cherishing the way every scene of my story falls into the other, melding beautifully and unlocking a mystery, I melt. I see your eyes shining at my happiness, you cheeks wet at my sorrow, I never realized I became so much to you. And I never grasped how focused a part you became of mine. After all, without you I am just a dying script, drying ink that will eventually fade to nothing. But you never let that happen. You've treasured me, spending so much time with me and thoughts about me when I wasn't even there with you. You became the lips that spoke my story, the syllables were written but you sought people and shared them. And I have come to realize now that I fell in love with you every time you opened my story, over and over again just to share my repetitive joys and tears one more time. And each time when you held me carefully before giving the story to a friend and whispering a loving, ‘Take care of it’.

And I have fallen for you each time I heard your sigh of relief when you once again held me in your hands.

-Momina.

*This piece has been written keeping this in mind: 

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.

Crazy Rambling #10

Lately I’ve been finding extreme fascination in withering flowers, roses, to be specific. I pluck them off from our garden a little before they are about to shed their petals, and arrange them into an oasis. Eventually they become limp and flaccid and dry out in their dropped posture. They are incredibly fascinating if you take your time to look at them, to really see them, not just a glance. They are untold stories, incomplete, yet they hold a charm far more precious than all the finished stories, all the happy endings. Even though they dry out, they are pretty, worth saving. 

I've never understood why people press roses between the pages of a book; there is little beauty in something you are forcing to die. And personally, I find nothing interesting in looking at a rose flower that is pressed until it’s flimsy and lean. It’s a full blown rose that darkens in color, that closes upon itself as it dies and dries that holds my attention. It’s beautiful, still intact. Somehow still living and fragrant. It’s the incomplete story of those roses that fascinates me, and I've always been a sucker for unfinished stories.

-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.

Twist A Zero To Convert It to Infinity.

Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Sometimes I stay awake all night. Writing and trying to fill in the blank spaces inside of me. As I add word after word, they become tinier and tinier but louder than screams. They do not consume the blankness that resides within me, they fill every other space, cramping into nooks and crannies, become tiny in themselves but they leave the empty space as it is, undying; never growing any less or more. The mayhem of the words is so calming, just as unsettling the nothingness is. The shouts of them so chaotic yet so distinct, each word, a sea of thought. Together they become an ocean that flows over the galaxies. But the empty void is still there, the disturbance; the iceberg that wouldn't melt away. It floats along, as outstanding as the words, as silent as their screams. 

It sometimes intrudes with my thoughts so much, I go blind. But then I realized, it’s the blankness that is the root to those nourishing words. It is the one holding onto them so they do not go astray. The blankness is where they birth from. The nothingness is the seed. And it’s there so that the words would never die. As long as the empty void is there, there are words forming, for me to write, for you to read.

 I am the sheets of paper that I fill with my words day and night, but I am the blank pages, too.

-Momina.

Illusions on the loose.

Holding onto my tea cup with both hands, I sit in the garden, staring as if sitting in alien surroundings. I do not drink the tea, I hold on to the mug only for warmth. So, I imagine that it gives of warmth forever, and that it doesn't goes cold, and that I don’t let it spill onto the grass, deliberately.

I watch the jasmine hedge for several minutes; it’s just up to the boundary wall now. I envision it growing and growing, until it sways violently in the wind, its top amongst the clouds. Ignoring the reality where upon it was cut down each time it grew to the level of the wall.

And there are several unseen rainbows in the sky, the ones that only I can see. And those people in the stationary cars that weren't there. The Kite that flies, cutting through the trees, yet moving only in that particular square that is bounded by those barbed wires. For these are those moments that I experience now, the ones where imagination becomes reality, and there is truth in the moments that were not even happening. But they were, and only you knew.

I look on as something falls from the nest in the tree. It falls down fast, blurry and off white. An egg. It runs down rapidly, landing somewhere in the green, that cushions its fall, maybe. Hopefully the mother will find it there, whole. And I’ll pretend that later on I did not see the carcass of a tiny featherless bird with thousands of ants moving to and fro over its lifeless body.

-Momina.