Sunday 24 April 2016

Just stay

So I'm sitting there again, slightly freaking out. I find myself in the same situation time and time again. Different people, different places. Same story.

The pub is almost the same as all the others. The carpet is a variation on the same carpet. The drinks were all the same.

"Fag?" he holds out a slightly crumpled ciggy.

A wave of redish purple social anxiety rolls from the ceiling, down the wall behind me and over to my forehead, leaving a subtle film over the top of my cerebrum.

"Yeah sure," I take the fag and follow him outside.

Rich joins us and we discuss the nuances of the Sunday evening psyche.

"Right, I'll see you inside yeah." Rich stubs his out.

There's a pause until the pub door closes. I back up against the wall and notice that my heart starts beating distractingly hard. It makes me aware of my breathing and then I become aware that my mind is blank for what to say next. It's so hard to describe the overwhelming feeling of social anxiety, but the word panic comes to mind.

Each thud in my chest brings to mind an excuse to use for jumping on the next train.

"...I mean, it's just not right, you know?" Ian weighed up one hand.

"Uh yeah, yeah totally," I stammer my way through the automatic response.

We head in and I go to the bathroom, preparing to make my exit after peeing. The emerald green walls of the toilet are bathed in the warm glow of the eco light-bulb. Light danced around the smooth surfaces of shiny white sinks.

I slammed open the tap and gargled a mouthful of water. My reflection looks anxious so I gargle another mouthful.

"Just stay." She had said on that beach. She had this way of smiling with her eyes that made you feel like she knew just exactly what she was talking about.

So I did. That time, on the beach, I had stayed.

I stayed very still sometimes, on that beach, trying to learn the art of self-control from her. I didn't master it, on that beach, nevertheless good things had come from staying.

So this time, in the pub, I stayed - and I had a cracking time.


Wednesday 27 January 2016

White noise

She pressed her feet into the sand, still slightly warm from the day and looked out over the ocean to the sky, still softly coloured from the sun.

Frenzied seabirds and raging waves echoed off each other, the next getting louder than the last.

She kept an eye out for snakes that might be tangled in the wild vines of the sand dunes. She waded through the beach's white noise on her way to no where in particular.

One foot landed and the other foot lifted. The other foot lifted and one foot landed squarely on a hard-knuckled hand.

Her eyes followed the hand as it pulled back over the head of a young man, sitting crossed legged facing the ocean.

"Why are you crying?" their eyes levelled as she kneeled in front of him. He reached both hands out and pulled her onto his lap. She wiped a warm tear away and he pushed his rugged cheek into her palm.

"Because I was thinking about the way time is," he rested the crown of his head against her sternum and clung to her waist.

Her brow furrowed as she thought for a moment and fiddled with his ear lobes. His shoulders shook and he tightened his grip.

When he looked up at her face she saw that he was laughing. She crinkled her eyes and wiped his nose with her shirt.

"It sounds a bit dramatic when I say it out loud," and they both laughed a little, then a lot.


Thursday 21 January 2016

6th November 2015

On the day of Soma Edirisinghe's funeral. She was an incredible woman.

                                                                              *

I was sitting in an empty Hansa cafe that morning. The barista and I were a couple of coffees into enjoying each others silence. Dust floated in the soft sunlight.

The tiny room was scuffed from countless jazz and poetry nights and was steeped in that post-colonial Colombo ambiance, kind of frozen in the late-50's.

I was staring absently at the space between me and fliers on the opposite wall. Suddenly, the door swung open and slammed against the fliers. The room froze before tipping into chaos.

An older sweaty man in white linen staggered through the frame. He swung around at the sound of the door clicking shut and blinked at the window, tears streaming down his cheeks. He took off his sunglasses and stumbled closer to the counter.

"Can I have an espres- a double espresso? Please," he weighted each word with breathy sobriety.

"Y-y-yes, uhm please sit. I will bring for you," the barista quickly set about making the coffee.

"Can you grind the beans? Fresh, in front of me? What kind are they? Do I have a choice as to what kind of roast I'll be drinking?" he gargled.

The barista hesitated, looking over at me, cup in hand.

"I saw him grind the beans two minutes ago," I raised my coffee. He managed to focus on my face for a few seconds and smile.

The man pushed out a wheezy laugh and collapsed into the chair under the fliers. His left arm hung off the back of the chair and he rested his right elbow on the tiny table. He let his knees splay, melting his back against the wall.

"What's that you're reading? I- I- I'll tell you someone to read.. Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote Blink, Runaway, David and Goliath.." he sobbed lightly wiping his tears away.

The barista brought the coffee over and the man drew back slightly. He bowed his head in thanks.

"You know, I- I- you'll have to understand, I lost a very dear.. She was.. The reason why I am so very different to that dear, sweet girl is because of Karl Marx. She never tried to change anyone you know, always accepted people as they were." He pushed his sunglasses back on and sniffed, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Were you close?" I watched as he emptied cigarettes, a wad of cash and keys out of his pocket and onto the table. He cried all the while.

"She was.. You know, we.. What makes the world go round? Some say money, but actually it's the gravitational pull of the planetary system. Round and round it goes, on and on. And we? Well, we..." He pushed out another wheezy laugh.

The door tinkled open and a guy in a grey suit walked in. He ordered a coffee then sat on the sofa next to my chair. He pretended to read documents from a folder.

We listened to the hum of the AC, waiting for the man in linen to speak again.

"Now, now.. Now, you see, this is how I am going to categorise you. What is -" another older man with a pony-tail entered the cafe and the man in linen bolted out of his chair.

"Fancy meeting you here, join me for a coffee will you? I want you to sit right here with me and tell me a joke." He followed the pony-tail to the counter, holding his finger up as he spoke.

"Ah shit, don't do this now..." the pony-tail was wearing a blue shirt and jeans. "What are you doing here?" he sounded fed up.

"No- no- because now, I want to know, just what exactly were you doing before coming in here? Where were you? Come, sit here with me. Tell me a joke, I need one today. You are being very rude now because I have invited you to sit with me" he jerked in closer to the pony-tail's face with every word till they were nose to nose.

"Look, I'm leaving. I can't -" the pony-tail tried to duck past the man in linen.

"Can't? Or Won't?" the man in linen blocked the door, slowly shaking his head. "You, you, you.. You are like the dengue mosquito infecting everyone with your disease," his lip curled.

"Get out of my way." the pony-tail hissed and motioned for the barista.

The barista stood up.

"Okay, okay! Okay... Leave, if you must," he held his hands up and wheezed out a laugh as the pony-tail left. His eye's panicked as he padded around agitatedly, wringing his hands.

"Hey man, do you wanna go out for a smoke?" the guy in the grey suit gently asked.

"Now here is a real man!" gratitude rushed over his tear soaked face. Before the door shut on them he poked his head back into the cafe and laughed.

"Sorry for being, how do they say it? Interruptus maximus! Haa haa haa..."

Wednesday 6 January 2016

Veena

We were all sitting around here and there, under the warm glow of the lamp shade, under the coconut-leaf-thatched roof, under the starry sky.

I can't remember what but we were celebrating something.

The beach was soon to begin that osmosis of becoming saturated with tourists but for now it was suspended sweetly and quietly. It was just waves, clinking from our glasses and peals of laughter.

I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my flushed cheeks. I giggled at my reflection because it was pointless. When I got back to the group, a tall man had taken my place and was talking to Oshi.

"Ah! Hello hellooo! How are you?" He jumped up with a huge smile and shook my hand enthusiastically.

"Ha-ha-hallo, I'm fine! What's your name?" I couldn't help but to laugh.

"Very good, very gooood! My name is Chaminda," he proudly spread his arms, "what is your name?"

"Veena! Nice to meet you Chaminda," I curtsied to him, fanning out the hem of my dress and hopped back up on the daybed.

He took his place at the opposite side of the crooked circle. He held his wine glass to his nose pacing back and forth, thinking.

"Veena, Veena... Ah! Veena! We have a story about Veena from the old times of Sri Lanka. You know the one that people are playing for the music?"

"Ah, ah, what's the story?" I asked.

Everyone was listening now. He cleared his throat and started to perform.

"Many, many years ago there was a Prince in Sri Lanka and he played the veena. He was playing so nicely that people coming from everywhere, even far far away, just to listen. He was famous!" He made a sweeping gesture with his arm.

"Then, one day, a woman coming to listen and she having a baby in her hands." He looked down at a baby cradled in his arms. "She's listening to the sound and the sound is so nice! is so beautiful! that she's falling down the baby!" Chaminda's face creased and he bent over in a roar of laughter. "She's falling down the baby!"

The group erupted with laughter and they started remembering the story in Singhalese. Chaminda stood like a Prince and played an imaginary instrument. "Veeeeeeena!"

I'm sure we were celebrating something but we always used any excuse anyway.