Reverie

aximili.jameel (40)in #poetry • 7 years ago (edited)

Pay attention!!
Shouts the professor.
Generally toward you.
But your attention is long spent.
Running on fumes.
Engines long shut down.
Gliding.
In the classroom.
At 2:30PM.
In the blistering heat.
The backup generator has given up.
A classroom full of versions of yourself.
To each his own destiny.
Every breath you take.
Has been already breathed in, on an average of 20 times by someone else.
In that heat.
Life slows down to a pulse.
Each drop of blood.Labouring, screaming, stretching, crawling through your veins.
Your eyelids, the density of a neutron star.
Each tick of the clock rings heavy and searing.
Like a whiplash.
You’re just there.
Staring straight.
Ignoring the drop of sweat on your brow is just too much to bear.
Yet moving your hand to wipe it is blasphemy.
It would disturb the fragile and suffocating equilibrium of your current posture.
Your tunnel vision fluctuates through the narrow slit that you manage to keep open.
For it is a herculean task.
The professor’s Words are empty echoes.
They float by you.
They mean nothing.
The guilt of tuition.
Stands shamelessly overshadowed by daydreams of freedom.
Your feet never do seem to settle.
The desk is hypnotic.
It calls out.
Rest upon me.
Go on.
A day later.
And a 100 kilometres away.
I stand on the seat of my faithfull scooter.
As it reaches a healthy 85 mph.
On empty roads that do not twist.
The helmet in my hand.
My arms wide open and the wind in my….. well, fingers.(had a jacket and a beanie on).
The balance wavers to the road’s imperfections.
And must not be trusted.
Like the most of us.
And you must carefully sit and proceed to stop.
In the middle of nowhere.
Lord.The verge of absolute quiet.
If only the damned crickets would shut up.
But im glad they don’t.
For it would suggest the presence of a higher predator than me, in the shadows.
The fresh air.
Very pleasantly contaminated with the smell of grazing cattle on the horizon .
I take a deep breath.
Very highly invigorating.
A true characteristic of natural air, that you’d find only in my beloved Country.
In these moments.
I realise.
That my mind , atleast.Does not absorb.
When it is embalmed in four walls.
Crown me a retard.
I’d probably accept, though I’d prefer, different.
Yet, when I am out here.
Alone.
With my thoughts.
Without my lovely astatine.
I am ready.
To accept what is given.
And give what is accepted.
Given, that it would be accepted.
With grace.
I climbed back on.
It was time to go further.
Run away from my “Successful, Financially Secure, and Well Settled Abroad” future.
And create my own.
But my scooter had other plans.
She decided not to go any further.
And the fuel rendered empty.
The Pre-monsoon clouds looked ominous as they broke free of the horizon and,
like vikings who were, very surprisingly, welcomed, as they rushed toward me.
Reaaaaaaaaaalllyyy slow.
Three hours of that revered silence.
Was disturbed,
Gratefully,
By the sound of my incredibly angry mother arriving in her car with a can of delicious smelling petrol and a new-found wooden stick which, interestingly, was a former culinary member of her beloved kitchen.
What follows.
Is exactly what your intuition prophecises.
Here I am.
Living the future I fervently foresaw.
Deviant returned to the ranks.
Court martialed.
Disciplined.
Broken.
Yay.
I now believe I can see the future.
Because everyday I repeat the same routine.

Image Source : Original Photograph. The inside of a plastic file-binder spine. Taken with a moto g.

Yours Faithfully,
Aximili