Author: PS (Page 2 of 29)

The pressurised doors open and I am back in my terrarium.

Bodily autonomy is just a farce when the elements really want you out of somewhere. Therefore, I am adapting, embracing the moist state that I will be in.

I am wrapped in warm air, a feeling that I have been longing for ever since I last felt it. Even when it is not there, I create it artificially. The blowdryer of the subcontinent is coddling me into thinking of more innocent days.

It is easy to complain, mostly because some are not used to it. They tend to run, away into conditioned rooms, conditioned trains, conditioned cars and ultimately, conditioned state of mind. Artificial in nature, but nature knows better. It will strike you as long as you don’t pay respects.

So I here I sit again, swathed by humidity and hot air, in the stream of my very own gigantic blowdryer, watching the denialists produce sweat on their bodies working overtime.

Behold, a man!

Diogenes might have been right after all.

Wishing to fly without any feathers, I look at the seemingly superior creatures that roam the sky. Now here I stand, plucked and ridiculous on two feet. I wonder what the desire for leaving the ground really means, where it comes from.

Condemned by gravity, forced to walk upright. In an evolutionary sense, quite unstable. Birds, much like us, are bipeds as well. They even look ridiculous doing it. But at least they can leave the ground and defecate on us to mock our human-focused sense of superiority.

There I stand, plucked and always in the reach of a bird showing its superiority. Jealous of not being able to leave this plain, not for a few minutes. So I must be content, doomed by evolution.

In the end, Plato should have been more careful with his words. But the desire to have feathers never really vanished.

So the only thing I can do right now is to imagine, closing my eyes and listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s music. You know which one.

Everything I need fits into a small cube.

It shifts in all directions, discreetly as to not awaken those oblivious to my mission. The cube signifies my limits but offers vast opportunities. It gives me borders and an uncompromising view to material things I can take. Once filled, it provides me with autarkical freedom, if I wish to take it.

My cube never leaves my side, it is watched by me at all times. I leave it to rest only in confined and safe spaces. It takes on mileage, just like me, but it doesn’t age.

It glides on wheels, much smoother than me. But we become the same, silent and waiting, for whatever there is to come.

When the wheels leave the ground.

I am the space between seconds and I hate the rush.

Humans try to decipher and make sense of things. They aim to have everything in categories, putting things, emotions and even other people in order. Even time cannot escape the seemingly intrinsic desire to be cut and chopped into digestible pieces.

How much I love the space on a classic watch between the seconds. The indicator jumps. It is one second now and suddenly, just as you’re reading this, the next. It’s hard to fight this machine.

In fact, you’ll never win.

I am trying to fight it, foolish as I am. I wrangle with it to be faster and slower, wishing for the indicator to jump faster, to salvage me of my burden. To go slower, to savour the moment. But many times your dear Papa has mentioned that this is noble but futile, foolish.

So I keep my time, every second. As a reminder that I am not in charge. Time is my master and so is it yours. We can be meticulous as much as we want but the indicator will jump.

Will you sit in between the space with me and watch it jump, again?