Home

I wonder why I was there. But from the window of my room, the endlessly looming street appeared like a pathway to Arcadia. I saw its end gleaming with an austere lambency similar to a widow’s tear. It all appeared like a conjurer’s trick but then again… maybe it was…

The night looked like the soaked remains of a once burning carcass. The rain had been friendly in the evening and stuck around till the night like an overtly compassionate lover. The day had been hot, very hot, and the hefty downpour had been a necessary relief… till the time the amount of relief exceeded the necessity and now all but remained was a murky street with black pools of water shining at its end like polished onyx.

Beautiful crystal droplets formed at the top of the windowpane, silvery blue with the image of the world in it, and in the next instant abdicating its hold from the wooden frame… free falling… a leap of faith… till it crashed in the palms of my hand and slipped through the gaps between my fingers taking another leap… finally the droplets formed a pool of their own beneath the window. Broken glasses and wooden splinters lay in the debris beside the pool which shone like emerald… unlike the onyx one… which had previously caught my eye…

Listlessly I put on my boots and walked out my homely premise, pushing apart the heavy steel gates with all my brawn. It seemed the rain had added strength to the metallic gate whilst depleting some of mine. The heavy downpour had subsided to a moderate drizzle. I had cared enough to carry an umbrella but it seemed the night wished for a discourse as I looked up… and saw the heavens… it was dark as obsidian with globules of grey floating beneath that giant pearl in the sky overlooking the onyx pool.

I stepped out; a wet chilling breeze surged passed me and slapped me across the face. It felt pure and scouring, like a mother’s woeful slap, indeed Mother Nature was sad and angry for she had wept all though the evening and even in the night. And here I was impeding her peaceful rest after a prolonged state of mourn, I deserved a tighter slap… she had been too kind…

From the window, the intricate details remain hidden in the murky and sombre street. On a closer view, the smaller things sprang to liveliness. A suckling huddled inside the warmth of her mother’s embrace, a shelter from the drizzle, the suckling nibbled at the tips of its mother’s fingers, sucking and biting, asking to be fed. In a moments time the suckling was drinking its mother’s nectar, arduously draining out the milk from her swollen breasts. She looked tired and weary; another suckling approached, feeling jealous it started bawling relentlessly waking the three who slept nearby and a few more inside. I left her at her dismay.

Further a bunch of boys were playing a game of paper boats and were setting them at the firth of a runnel. They were to chase the boats through their journey downstream till finally the victor boats reached the end of the runnel at the onyx pool. Some boats crashed against the stream, some sank midway owing to faulty craftsmanship, some collided amongst themselves and some sailed heroically through the ebb and flow. Amidst the chaos, the group of boys ran alongside, the order decreasing by one as each boat crashed. The captain would fall back to attend its fallen galley, as the rules implied. I remembered playing this game in my childhood; I was always the faulty craftsman. At the egress, the water had accumulated to form the onyx pool, where a lone child stood with a soaked boat in his hand and head high with honour. Drops of water trickled down his brow and fell on the paper boat; the child wiped it clean and raised his left hand signalling triumph… The Columbus of my street with his immaculate carrack, La Santa Maria…

Lost in his conquest, I had unknowingly stepped on a pile of muck and filth. Drenched garbage accumulated at one side of pool, stench of faeces and morass filled the environment. On the opposite bank of the pool, an old man lay inside his shelter of plastic shed and weathered bricks. His face marked by scar tissues, deep wrinkles and soot on his pale cheeks. He blew out clouds of smoke, making it harder for me to see his eyes. I understand a man by his eyes, but the old man shut out that option.

A bitch meandered close to him, waggling her tail. She licked his face clean; the old man got startled and dropped his smoke in the onyx pool... A hiss of smoke and steam…a painful grimace drew across his face signifying disgust, hate, anger? I could not comprehend for it quickly turned to a smile. He clasped the bitch’s head in his hand and kissed her on the forehead. The man cuddled the beast in his warm laggard arms and placed her under a torn quilt spoilt by the rain. As he turned his eyes caught mine, grim and mucus laden they were, but spoke a word which never had a more defining significance…

‘Home’

The old man was at home than I have ever been; I couldn’t bear to watch him any longer. I turned around quickly and starting walking back. I saw Columbus sleeping on a single cot while his friends slept in groups of twos or threes around the cot. To the victor goes the spoils of war, I thought… A smile on his face, the comfort of home after a gruesome battle…

Further the mother held a myriad of children in her arms… six… seven… or even more… her eyes deep closed, moonlight shone across her face. She looked beautiful. The sucklings grabbing onto every inch of her beautiful gleaming body, her arms around them like a giant cloak of comfort. She was their resort, their refuge… their… home…

I was tired of watching, I hurried across them and pressed my hands against the metal doors, it took more strength then before to move those iron barriers. The gates opened with a crash, rain had improved from a faint drizzle to a light deluge and I had lost the umbrella somewhere.

Soaked in Mother Nature’s tears, I gazed upon the house in front of me.

Home Finally. I thought

Or am I?

He left a home they called his house

For a house they call his home

They made a ghost out of a human being

Now that ghost forever roams

And this is how we are fading…

And this is how we are fading…