Abandoned

The morning hung out in the sun for the dew of the night to melt. And the memories of darkness, disinfected by the light of a new day. You turn around, murmuring in your half-asleep state of mind. The unruly mass of hair that you often play with flows away from my grasp as you turn towards me.

I kiss your forehead. You move your neck upwards. I plant one on your left eye. Your eyebrows bristle over my lips. I wonder what you would say about my personal hygiene as I lie there smelling of yesterday’s dinner. I smile as I imagine you shaking your head exasperated at what you call my “caveman approach to hygiene”. I see, in my mind’s eye, your nose scrunching as you refuse to believe that a modern man wears the same, unwashed jeans for three months. I thank my stars for not bringing my non-existent cleanliness to your notice and chasing you away from me. I kiss your unscrunched nose.

You cuddle closer to me. The sun peers through the window to catch a sight. I hug you, hiding you away and claiming you for myself. I raise an arm to shoo him away. You move painfully close, for me to let my thoughts stray. 

The sun lights your brown hair golden. Poorer is the man whose wealth rots in metal safes, for his dream carpets aren’t woven with live strands of gold. I let those strands fall on your face to see how they hug your smile. I probably imagined it, but I hear you murmur the name of a place we once were at. A lively, joyous place, where no sun woke anyone up and people knew how to live. Away from the busy chaos where the dead moved so brisk, we lived a lifetime there, unperturbed by the torturous rigor of the clock and the calendar.

Another day, another world. Early morning hours. The maiden of night was reluctantly wrapping the folds of her shroud together. We lay there, folded into each other, with no time for the sun. As his scorching glare penetrated us, we moved on, to shadier places. A hideous shack, where we’d talk all day long, you said. So scary looking that nobody dares disturb us, you said. It had been a railway maintenance men’s waiting room. The railway authorities had been frank in pointing out that it was no longer in use.

“Abandoned”, it was written on all four walls, on the outside. Dark, stern lines of black soot, written using the coal they used for the steam engines, I said. 
“You know so much, so, so much about things that are obvious. How do you do it?” you said, kissing me.

“Well, considering what I get for pointing it out, you know…” I said, kissing you back.
And then we spoke. About a million things. Life, youth, the railways, the telegraph lines, the dirty window glass, a kite flying in the distance, steam engine coal, steamy sex, old age and a house. You wanted to settle down right there. “Paint it blue all over and write “Occupied” on all four walls, inside and outside” you said.

“That way, from a distance, a passerby on his long journey won’t know where the grass ends and the sky starts and we’ll live here forever” you said.

“But won’t that offend the Gods?”

“Ya, it might. But who cares? We’ll paint the roof green. Looking from above, they won’t know which is grass and which is home.” 

And that convinced me. 

And so, in this house where I die, I paint the roof blue and the walls green. So they all know where to come to take me away. Where I lie, breathing fully, without your comforting, secure arm across my chest, living a toxic existence.

As the sun withdraws into the clouds, he furls the images away with him, of the shack, of the telegraph lines, of the kite flying in the distance and of you. All that remains is the warmth on the mattress where you lay. Ya, that and the word “Abandoned” written with the indelible ink of memory, all along the walls.