Numerous stopovers the track passes; and now, the final part towards the checkpoint is in sight.

And I must brace myself for the coming tide. I must dash, with old heart and renewed strength. Nightly breeze and silver moon, beaming sun and meandering clouds; beneath this vast vast sky I must be hasty, I must run.

The Sprint it will be called. So, run, run, like the wind in savanna, powerful, ruthless, with an urgent sense of purpose.

Run, run, through soaring mountains and plummeting valleys; a runner light as shadow, mighty as day.

Run, run, I must run; for not far beyond this distance, I see, the sun winks and beckons.

Waiting is a slow torture. It perches like a surgeon’s scalpel over tender skin, cold metal to cold skin; the suspense a mental pyrotechnics that bursts the sutures, almost.

It is odd waiting should be called just that, waiting — two syllabi, brief, truncated, contrived. I would have expected the lexicographers to call it something else, like con·cu·pis·cence, or perhaps claus·tro·pho·bia. Those sure sound a lot more waiting-ish, eh?

I shall truncate my post now and let you wait. Maybe then you would truly get what I mean.

One thing though, before I end: There is something incriminating about the star on the north-east side of the stamp of sky I can only view from my window tonight. It is its angle, or maybe the way it dances, or is it its colour? Anyway, stars are fickle celestial objects, and my mind is a trifle fuzzy now. So perhaps, I shall just let old bygones be. After all, it might just all be illusions.

I look out of my window. The residence building rises up and up until it winks at the top of it. The sun casts its ray down. Afternoon ray; the kind that makes me remember those dusty sweaty days in the past, when I used to sit by a breezy window, with fuzzy mind, engines vibrating beneath my shoes, blurred conversations buzzing by my ears. Sometimes, a yell or a screech of tyres would jolt me out of my semi-daze, but I was generally oblivious to the vicinity.

How curious it is then that those days now slip so handily into my memory, in their full resolution, as textured as tongue, as thick as butter. I am getting old, too old perhaps. It is a sign. Amnesia only gets that far. Once you are out of the road, you reach the brink, and the panorama — it will be a perfect 20/20.

There is something strange about me these days, staying within this bosom of solitude, this cage of freedom I keep myself within. A safe harbour, an ivory tower, whatever one calls it. An idle mind is a devil’s workshop, but I think my mind is so jostled with ideas that the ideas themselves spawn their own devils. Red little elves, I imagine, tinkering with my vision and my intention, making finger-horns on my head and ugly faces behind my back. And then, I would metamorphose into a malleable dough; and some Dark Hand would extend out of the gloom — my own gloom — and start to knead me with bits of bitterness, and hatred, and wanton wishes.

I become destructive. In this cage where freedom is at its sublime, I descend into darkness and spy into the world of demons underneath. They are green, all green. Even their blood is green. I know, because I have attempted to murder one of them.

Ah, it starts to rain now. The sky outside has dipped into a greyish blue, the colour which reminds me so acutely of my first crayon. Oh yes, I remember how I had used it to paint a sky. But, ha ha, come to think of it, to paint a sky! How I wish it could be that easy, to paint whatever I want with my crayon. Tree, snail, book, a village, and of course, courage, might, wit, love.

But wait. Courage? Might? No, those are intangibles. Even for love people can yet properly portray it pictorially. Those silly little red hearts on valentine and poker cards would have given any self-respecting anatomist a flutter. But I am not an anatomist. I wish I am. It is the closest to understanding humans. Anyway, my point is: I have seen hearts, real human hearts, held them too in my very own hands. And most of the time, they are neither red nor symmetric. They are almost hideous: grey, oblong, with four deep deep punctures.

The thunder is getting scary now. I think I shall go. See you in better day!

The silence, the awkwardness

Fenced by disappointment,

Little teeth of tombs.

It is intense, but it will pass. And when it does, it will be square one. It will be an empty shell, reflecting light, consuming the weighty magnitude of loneliness.

There was chance, but it faded. And it faded. And it faded. Away into the dim light of night; sea singing, breeze sighing, stars blinking blue.

The distance, a heavy trail of shy muteness, punctuated, burdened, conflicted, wounded.

The night sinks.

Like rock to sea bottom.

Like heart to bottomless world.

It is an exotic species of pain. Dull, visceral, nagging, parasitic pain. A pain that latches itself onto the mind and oozes green slimy liquid, that gnaws at the liver and inoculates nasty biting bugs, that pinches at the lungs and pricks at the feet and releases little pixies that play noisy violins at the ears.

It is a pain of its own, and it will go. It has to, because it has been paid.

Go.

The rain that roars, the winds that wails, the sun that spears, the heat that hisses;

Never stop, never hesitate. A heart of faith — worried, tattered — pumping blood, aorta to arteries, venules to veins, whole.

The flame: lit, lilac, alive.

Go, and shine.

  The tree — its tips, twigs and trunk — expresses itself against the deepening sky. A sad silhouette, alone, undefeated.

  Invisible insects cry softly amid the grasses, a low constant tune, calling out for their mates. The wind from the sea snakes unseen through the earth, searching for precious partners. Elsewhere, homing birds fly.

  There is a tale about the tree. Its roots run deep, digging ruthlessly into the soil, into the meat of earth. Into the past.

  It has seen things. Ghosts of restless souls, ghosts of sad souls, ghosts of vagabonds. It has seen them, all alone, with wide wide wonder. And they drench all over it; the feel, the tears, the heart and the pain.

  The tree expresses itself, but it is all alone. And amidst that solidarity, its expression goes heavenward, unadulterated.