Le Semur: The Sunset

There is a tinge of sunset-pink sadness fraying the edges of the clouds at dawn today. It rained last night.

A single dark bird, a spot of clotted shadows, rose into the air, flapping small dark wings to stir the stillness of a sacred dawn-sky. Streaks of pale grey smoke snake their way into the clear, softly eroding pink fog of the dawn.

On a damp, red rooftop in old Lahore, once carved in all the splendours of an emperor's reign, with ribbons of peeling paint hanging like thatch-eves down the sides, the silhouette of a woman defines itself carefully against the muted symphony of the dawn-sky.In that distinct outline, in all that care and enforced discipline, a single trendil of hair curls into the air, escaping.
See how it dances with arrogance and an enviable abandon. Like the wing of a butterfly in the wind.
See how it scorns the silence.

Somewhere, the dark pink sky bleeds into the lap of a rising sun. A child turns softly, pulling away from the breast it suckles. People huddle together in thick coats on the deck of the departing ship, hazy in the mist, waving at lovers that look on from the shore.A foghorn is heard in the distance.

She pushes in her last pair of socks and zips the bag shut. She takes one long look around the room, trying to convince herself that there is nothing she has forgotten to pack. Distraction, she feels, can sometimes work in the face of "real life". Before she turns the handle of the front door, she looks back. For one split second, everything that he ever meant to her, plays out in perfect silence before her eyes. His words, his pullover, his side of the couch, his claims over the remote control, his hands holding hers, his early morning stubble, him. She wants to stay, and she knows she must not. Twisting the handle, she steps out into the storm. There are some cliffs from where one has to fall.


***************************************

And hail the mighty river of change,
That hits the pulse of throbbing stars,
Sweeping over signposts, and markers, and such,
Erasing directions, while the child sits down on the
doorstep of his house, with his head in his hands,
And cries.
While the traveller, reaches out to smudge the tear,
For the flood that uproots the signposts,
Can never swerve the path.
Fly, my bird of freedom, fly
For memory flickers in the genie's old lamp
in the Arabian Nights of an immortal tale.
Fly, for today, the wind stands ready,
And so do you.


--Here's to everyone who has acted out some part in the Great Game that I have played.More to some and less to others.
To Beaconhouse Margalla Campus. Thankyou.
To the monsoon rain in Islamabad. For the inspiration.
To my books. True love, perhaps?:)

---And finally to Dartmouth College where I head: You're asking for trouble.:)