The fizz is dying out in the air in the coke can. It rapidly rises to the surface. Then dies echoing in the half-empty aluminium can.

I hope I regain the strength to crush these cans to flat sheets of metal as they say you should for recycling. If it is only a myth, then I've been had and publically so. Except this isn't a public space frequent by public.
I shall live without being disgraced. Ha!

Drama Queen offered to save me some barbequed popcorn I believe and frankly? I didn't know the likes of these existed. Nor will I ever know now since the only BBQ of my lifetime [and all my friends including Drama Queen] is now slowly passing on an island that you can skip to from end to end.
And if I'm blogging while it is happening, clearly, I didn't go.

I wish to delight in writing about obscure references to life through one [Trademarked] ME perspective but it is such a cheerfully sunny day.
That makes you want to take a nap at 9:30 am.

How can anyone not be affectionate with Summer?

Cruel Summer

I wish my mind was preoccupied with summer sales. But no keen interest was ever taken in adding clothing to the closet as a function of hobby or summer.

There is a big fat book to be balanced on my head and I must learn to walk with it gracefully. But I stumble and poise is out of the question much like piano lessons are to the street-squatter.

Why isn't summer an absolute of warmth, sunshine and fun?
Of summer holidays without summer schools, of carefree runs across the lawn dotted with potted plants along its circumference.
Of the pleasure the banging of the 'jaali' doors gave in quiet afternoons that put everyone to sleep.

But none of this is really what I wish to say.
My journal requires my brutal honesty. Mute requires me to be evasive, unnaturally unemotional.

I wish to be neither.

Summer can be difficult too sometimes.

Neat

Is there something wrong with someone if they make separate notebooks/journals for mundane things like 'daily to do list' or 'why my life is more interesting than yours'?

I suppose I'm only asking to dispell this nagging doubt that this may be a problem that manifests into something that leads people to collect garbage because their liking for owning different kinds of stationery blossomed into owning different kinds of garbage.

You know the kind of people whose husband/children/siblings call on the reality shows about throwing away your clutter and creating space in your house to make yourself a happier person. Which is simple logic because you are happier if the former stops nagging you about all the junk you refuse to throw.

Which is a problem because I wanted to be the one who makes a living out of telling people to throw away their stuff and goes crazy with shelves, hooks, hangers, cane baskets, post-it notes in all sizes colours and functions, ribbon stands, coat racks, shoe racks, handbag organizers and all such lovelies to super-organize someone else's closet.

And breathe happily because an organized closet makes the world a much more peaceful place.

Short Story: Mimi and her

"You missed out", she said without looking away from the window she was staring out from.

"And that would be because?", said Mimi as she collapsed on the day bed.

" It rained endlessly with wild sharp splashes against the windows.

The clouds grumbled and steadily moved in their large bulky selves. Over our picturesque little neighbourhood perched upon a hill, above the rest of the city.

It felt like we're an isolated line of few houses. An island of people in the midst of a vast uninhabited land, the sole reciever of the monstrous clouds' thundering tempers."

"Mmm. It was a lovely afternoon."

"But I loved the slate colour that spread into a greyish blue with a light metallic sheen. A colour that looks gorgeous on silk curtains."

"Try it for your new room then?
But that isn't what this is about is it?"

"It is so difficult to step out of circles"

"Nature likes to be cyclical"

"Sometimes it is a punishment"

"Which is why you're stepping out of it"

"I don't wish to"

"You know it would be so much more easier if we weren't a higher order of species with complex stimulations in our brains that have the capacity to act beyond our natural instincts and survival.

Where the meaning of happiness and contentment isn't in a good kill or meal, isn't in a roof above our heads when the weather becomes unfriendly or in mating and being able to pass on your genes. Where they become as complex as our brains and the neural stimulations within them, the hormones that go through crazy paths to make us feel the way we do."

"And yet, it is us who can sit down to appreciate a natural recurring phenomenon of rain. Maybe being complex isn't so bad"

"You're joking right?"

A light sigh escapes her lips.
Her eyes look out as the drooping sun shines a spectrum of heavy yellow onto her face. The colours illuminating the brown of her dark eyes.

"These turn the same colours every year around the same time Mimi. The winds, the rains. The snowfall, the storms. Spring, autumn and monsoons. It happens every year much in the same way with little variations.

Yet they all come back to see our open arms. Maybe not the tornadoes and hurricanes. Or monster amounts of snow to be shovelled off the driveway in the chill of minus 35 at 6am before a final exam.

But maybe we do have to be complex to appreciate what is cyclical, what returns every year."

" Well, the goldfishes also delight in the 'newness' of the world they keep learning every 4th second", Mimi said making a face at her.

She throws back her head to laugh even if it wasn't as funny. " I don't feel like I've stepped out of the circle", she said as the creases of her smile left her face, laugh lines quietening down.

"Must you? You don't wish to afterall"

"Happiness is much too complex to be found with simply following this wish."

"Your own wish."

"Yes my own wish. But not my only wish"

"You just contradicted the point I made with an air of importance", Mimi said making a face again.

"Let's treat my definition of happiness as an outlier then. No such thing as 100% probability anyway."

"But one drawback is enough to nullify a theory in sociology!"

"That would not be counted as sociology Mimi!!"

"If this was a story, this would be the point the readers would mentally chalk me down as a Valley Girl"

"No they wouldn't.", she said laughing easily now.
"An excerpt is rarely informative enough. Besides, everyone is entitled to have their own blond moments."

"I'm grateful I was too Indian to consider Philosophy as a field of study in university.
We'd have failed miserably. And then we wouldn't even be good enough to be married"

"Well we're a bit late for that. We no longer get an education in order to be married well."

"Oh right. I had the wrong South Asian population in mind. My bad."

"You're awful!", she said laughing loudly.
"That's yet another reason to not be called 'desi' ", she said playfully carrying in on Mimi's thought.

"Let's not begin on that. It gets me riled up for no reason."

"Yeah let's not. It was a lovely afternoon.
For now, that's enough."

Even if our characters can't philosophize..

It is a queer time.
Had it been a musical, it might have been the moment Julie Andrews breaks into a comforting song about "brown paper packages tied up with strings".

It is difficult- to wish to be honest with yourself and yet not be vulnerable to the eye of the reader. It is alarmingly difficult to write this and work the nerve to not censor or delete this thought.

But it's ok to be human sometimes.
Even for Mute.

Return of a favourite item on the menu

As is usually the case with a blog post, it is an unearthly hour in this part of the world.
The back is whining and not being paid attention to only makes it scream. It's a bit unbearable and shall be shushed up soon.

But right now, a cool breeze blows bringing relief into the night of a hot humid day. We're not very far from being Delhi right now (of course I am exaggerating ).

Iit makes me wish for a walk down to the village for a bite of Osmow's shawarma.

A spicy bite and many more seated on a wooden bench near the square.
Where the children, youth and adults congregate with waffle cones and cups of homemade ice cream dribbling onto the huge slabs of concrete that make the sidewalk a strange assortment of sweet smelling thread paint designs that makes summer longed for.

It makes me wish for the wind to gently wrap its fingers around my hair while we spend another night not noticing the stars as I let my head relax and eyes close briefly taking meditative long breaths.

It is difficult sometimes, to notice stars, when you're not on the 26th floor of a highrise facing the lake which hogs your daytime view as it changes into all the shades of blue on Benjamin Moore paint cards.
To not have the luminous night sky unfold in front of your solarium and transport you to the view from a Star Trek enterprise. The view of a vastness of the universe you'd never known to have existed. That glitters shyly with a smattering of stars as it hides many exciting worlds inside .

I miss feeling that awe sometimes.

Did I tell you of the many months we spend not seeing the stars?
Sometimes because we can't.
Sometimes because we've forgotten to notice it.
How odd it must sound. It sounds foreign as I write it but maybe that too will change.

but when it changes, will I have the courage to stand boldly in front of the tall bay windows that envelope the room?

To tell the moon our romance was over several transatlantic flights ago. For even if he was near, his glory is not his own.
The stars soothe my eyes still and maybe we can renew our affair this fall.

I am hopeful.

Your eyes sparkle while your face looks soft with a shy smile.
The french beard suits you.

You look relaxed stretched out like so.
This new space seems to have been grown for you.

A brief pause as I wonder if I had been wrong about you.

A shake of head, a dull thud within.
Memories don't die like that.

No. We couldn't have been friends afterall.