The Sea - Short Story

She stared at the blank day ahead and wondered what to do with herself. The curse of this western mentality… this need to do. She thought that she didn't want waste even a moment of this life she had been given. She scrolled through names of people she knew in her head but still she was at a loss. She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to share, but she couldn’t stay inside for one more minute.

She heard classical music playing in the background. It was Sunday morning and her housemates were up and making breakfast. She knew if she walked into the kitchen they would ask her what she would do with her day. She knew she would reply vaguely, content to throw them off the scent of her enforced solitude, the unsettled feeling she sat with each day, this feeling of fragility that peaked with every interaction and movement she made.

She didn't want to share this day with someone yet if she lived it alone who would know that she lived? Who would know that her day was not wasted? Later, when someone asked her who she was out with what would she say? She breathed deeply and safely maneuvered herself from questions, and walked into the sunlight. She looked at the most important gift she has received since she had been here - her bicycle.

Within minutes she was out of the garden and safely circling the road, her music on and her heart free now she could go anywhere she chose. It was no secret that she was in love with this city, her heart soared at the sight of the skyline or the diamond glitter of the river but still she pushed her bike on until she reached her true home, the clear salt water that washed away any worry. 

She laid her bike down, stripped off her clothes and walked into the warm waters. As she lay there, floating, she realised she no longer needed an anchor, raft or boat to help keep her safe. She no longer needed someone to give her words to help define her day. She lay bare, floating under the warm sun, allowing the support of the water to help her ride the waves, trusting the universe and its plan, no longer caring what was next. 

She felt complete surrender. 

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Escape - Short Story

She sat at the café and placed her notebook on the table in front of her in case any thoughts or ideas needed to be written. She waited to see if a story would come. Practising patience, with her head held high, she looked at the people around her and watched.

She noticed a woman with her eyes closed, her head over the steam from her coffee. Her blonde hair was slowly falling in front of her face as the pushchair next to her rocked slightly from side to side as a child played with a toy. Exhaustion emanated from every bone in her body.

Across from her were a couple who were on their phones. They were smiling at the words or pictures on their screens, visiting a world that didn’t include the other. She watched the man quickly glance up at the woman in front of him and saw a faint crease on his forehead appear. She thought he looked puzzled; he took a sip of his drink and then dove back into the escape hatch he held in his hands, and smiled.

She moved on and contemplated a lone man reading a book, with a large mug and a half a piece of cake in front of him. His crutches had been pushed to the side and the plaster cast on his leg looked aging, blackened by the polluted streets he needed to swing through to get around. He turned the pages with intent, focused on the next stage in the story. She wondered how he had hurt his leg.

Slowly her eyes passed over people and she looked at each person until her eyes met a man across the room. He was looking at her and smiling. They looked each other as if they both knew a secret and nodded, then they both looked away and retreated into their own worlds.

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Autumn - Very Short Story

They walked into the forest together; the ground crunching and crumbling under their footsteps. Autumn had streaked through the park at night and trees were now alight with reds, oranges and yellows. A cacophony of colour beckoned the couple to explore and walk deeper into the unknown. With fingers interlaced, they watched as birds flew overhead, squawking orders to one another. Squirrels scampered up and down large old gnarly trunks, busily picking up acorns for their food stores. The woods were alive and pulsating, readying itself for the long hibernation ahead.

They shivered and drew each other closer as a cool breeze danced between them. She could see warm breath leave his body and suddenly craved the intimate dance he shared with the air around him. His lips were slightly moist and she felt the deepest urge to kiss him. She stopped walking and pulled him closer to her, her hands clutching at his jacket. He wrapped his arms around her body and drew her in.

The glow of the forest warmed their hearts.

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The Start - Short Story

"You'll live," he said.
She stood in front of him like a broken doll. She turned and he followed her. He took her to the tram and waited with her until she got on.
  "Look after Bryan," she said, seemingly at a loss for any more words.
  "That might be difficult."
  "Yeah... well...." She paused. "I won't be doing this again."
  "Doing what?"
  "This...  Surprising you… I won't come to Melbourne to visit you again."
  "Oh you come round anytime you want." It's a reflex reaction, this politeness, probably derived from his English ancestry. She could see he would rather pull out his own teeth without anaesthetic.  

She gave him a half sardonic smile and as the tram arrived, he reached out and hugged her. She got on the tram. She could see his face from her seat and it was inscrutable. Her face let her down. She said if her face were a friend she would have deserted it ages ago though I have to admit I used to love the way every emotion would be betrayed by her features. She always was an unwitting master of a truant countenance. At the time, she said, her eyes filled with water. She said she cried all the way home.

That was well over a year ago. They barely communicated since. They barely communicated when they were together but that's another story.

They broke up during their last year of College, she came home a shadow of her former self. She was pale, gaunt and withdrawn. She found herself in a situation and was lost to it. She succumbed to a fatal pleasure that left her in knots later on. Knots she couldn't untangle. Knots she would never release.  

I know this because she has been my best friend since we were sixteen. When she came home from travelling, she sat at my kitchen table and confessed all. She told me about how she sent him an email and met up with him. It was as if she wanted me to replace his hands, his words and make everything better. Of course I couldn't. I didn't even like him. I always thought they were an odd couple. When they were together she would hardly speak about him and if she did, it was always in a light-hearted manner. She never acted like she was IN LOVE with him. How could I know? How could any of us have known?

She sat there, her brown hair falling into her long pale prematurely aging fingers which held her head up.
  "It's not as if the pleasure is worth it... The touching of hands was lovely. Just a small graze of our hands set my body on fire. And kissing... Well, that was amazing too."
I looked around.  "Do you want a cup of tea?"
  "Yeah… okay," she paused and then said, "When we first started going out that's all we used to do. Kiss. It used to go on for hours, at first we were all over the place but after some practice we were a perfect fit." She smiled at some forgotten memory. I brought the tea over.
  "Is it worth going over this…?" I asked.
  "I'm sorry am I boring you?"
  "No, it's just… well, so much time has passed, and he definitely doesn't give you a moment’s thought."
  "Time is an illusion."
  "Bollocks."
  "I know," she smiled again.
The tension is relieved and I started telling her the local gossip she missed while she was away. She sat there and listened but I saw her mind and eyes wander from time to time.
  "It's late. I should go."
  "Yeah, okay." We hugged and she left. Only the transient warmth on her seat and an empty mug a reminder of her presence. I wonder what she left him that night, was it the sound of her cries or the blood from her period on the sheets?

A couple of days later I received a phonecall from the Police. They said she had overdosed on headache pills. The neighbour had gotten worried because they heard no music from her flat and she used to have it on all the time. When they knocked there was no answer except for the cat that howled unnaturally at the door. In the end the landlord opened the door with his master key.

The Police said she definitely knew what she was doing. The flat was immaculate and a pile of letters sat on her kitchen table alongside an empty bottle of painkillers and a note with my contact details on. They gave me her keys. I went home with them snuggled into my winter jacket. I sat at my kitchen table playing with them in my hands. Numbness had crept into me. I opened a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured myself a glass. The dryness hit my throat, constricted my thoughts, I dropped the keys onto my table with a clatter, they broke the unending silence between us. Then there was nothing.

I stood up and collected the pile of envelopes neatly stacked, I flicked through each one and wondered what to do with them. They were all addressed with stamps already bought and pasted on the top right hand corner.

  "We were in his kitchen and he turned to me," she said. "He was drunk and I was sober. I should have stood my ground and filled my glass with water. I should have walked up the stairs and closed the door once I entered the spare room. I should have gotten under the cool covers and closed my eyes. I should have fallen asleep alone." Her face was drawn with pain, these 'should haves' biting into her each time.
  "It's done now. Forget it. He has."
  "Just because he has doesn't mean I can," she said. "What's the point in talking to you? You don't understand."

She was right, I didn't. I moved on from one man to the next. Not getting too close but enough so I could call and settle into some warmth if and when I needed it. I had postponed calling her because I didn't want to hear about him again. This myth she led her life around. In all honesty, it was boring me. This unrequited burnt out obsessive love she harboured.

There was an envelope with his name on it. I fingered the envelope. It was quite fat, almost padded. She had taken extra care to put sellotape on all the vulnerable parts of the envelope. There was no stamp.
  "Oh fuck…" I said to myself as I realised what I had to do, thinking of the enormity of the task that lay ahead of me. The imposed curse she had saddled me with.

………

I arrived early and waited for him. I was standing beside a blind girl at the train station, she was so still, at peace, her arm outstretched holding a money box. Lots of people would stop and give her money. She made no attempt at communication, no noise of approval, she just stood still, a solemn statue amongst the bustle of Melbourne's traffic. I didn't give her any money. I just watched her and wondered about her life, whether she was blind at birth or whether it was a consequence she suffered during the course of her young life and then I wondered what would be better. Maybe I should have given her money; I don't know why I didn't.

Finally he arrived. Well, I say he arrived but it wasn't the he I remembered. When I saw him again I was shocked. It looked like a lifetime had happened to him since I had seen him last. In my head he was still a boy, strawberry blonde hair and faintly oriental eyes. In my head he was still her college boyfriend.

We looked at one another solemnly and he took my bag and led me to a coffee shop. It had started to rain outside so we sat and casually watched the water hit the glass. I pulled out her letter and gave it to him. He took it and played with it in his hands, his name subtly folded in the creases.
  "What happened?" he asked.
  "Maybe I should be asking you that… Sometimes I forget what she said to me, as if I half listened only."
He nodded and opened the envelope. Inside was a silver bracelet, chunky and square, very unlike her. I had never seen her wear this piece of jewellery but then she never wore any jewellery whilst I knew her. Some paper fell out and he sat there and read it. The rain poured and some time passed before he put the letter down. He just sat there completely still. His face did not change. He folded the letter.

  "Can I read it?" I asked. I was desperate. I wanted to know more about her, suddenly, now she wasn't here. I wanted to know, I wanted to hear everything.
  "I guess" he pushed the letter across and our fingers touched lightly. I took the note and started to read. It was his turn to sit and wait.
When I finished he looked at me and said "She was always into hyperbole."
  "She was in love with you."
  "I know."
We sat in silence for a while. Both of us tried to digest her words, the words we didn't want to hear whilst she was alive. I looked up at him. He said "Don't get emotional. Come on, let's get out of here."

We stood and walked up the street and into a pub, he ordered a beer and a white wine and I found a booth for us to sit. He brought the drinks over and we drank in a moody silence.
  "I bet you never thought this would happen," he said.
  "A slight understatement," I replied. Now I had given him the envelope I didn't know what I was doing here. He was not in the mood for a post-mortem and I felt uncomfortable asking him personal questions since he seemed strangely unmoved by what he had read.
  "Was she your best friend?" he asked.
  "Yeah, I mean, yes, she was," I said. Then it suddenly hit me. She wasn't coming back. All the memories I have of her are mine alone. 
  "Were you ever in love with her?" I asked him.
  "At one point… yes I was. But she wrung out every last drop and towards the end I didn't even like her."
  "She just wanted you, no one else in her life came close."
  "She wanted a version of me, not the real me."
  "Really?"
He sighed, "I don't know now. Those words suggest differently. She could never speak clearly in front of me."
  "I can't imagine that," I said.

He looked and touched the envelope, "When we were friends she was vibrant but as soon as we became lovers it was as if she lost her power. She wilted…' Almost as an afterthought he said, 'Yet she could always speak to Bryan as if he were a close friend."
  "Bryan?"
  "He's my best friend. Bryan and her always got on really well."
  "Oh I vaguely remember that name."
  "Really?"
  "Yeah, I think she mentioned him once or twice."
I look at her handwriting on the front of the envelope. Once a teacher at school commented that her handwriting looked like it was trying to hide something underneath the twists and turns of her pen. Her writing always looked neat and tidy but you couldn't read it unless you took a closer inspection, even then it could be difficult sometimes.

  "I don't know why I didn't listen," I said.
  "Don't beat yourself up about it."
  "You're not very forgiving are you?"
  "What does forgiveness have to do with this?" 
  "What a waste."
  "I know," he said.
Then suddenly I was angry at him. "You bastard, she was in love with you and you don't care."
He looked at me, his face was so calm, and quietly he said, "You don't choose who you fall in and out of love with." Then a little louder, "Anyway, why are you getting angry at me? You are the one who said you didn't listen to her."

I wanted to cry but instead I finished my wine and stood up. "I've done what I came here to do. I am leaving now."
Suddenly he said, "Don't go."
  "I have to… I…" I stuttered.
  "Really don't go. I don't want to be alone."
And so I sat down again.
                                                           ………


Both of us cradled a cup of coffee in a café, we had been working in town. She was saving to go away again and I was saving to do my Masters. Not for the first time our paths were diverging but we sat in the warmth, laughing about the Messenger in my office who had taken to dropping in on me whenever he could. He was old and full of wrinkles but obviously thought he had a way with the ladies and I gave her an impression of his slow Australian drawl, and described the force of his breath reaching across the table towards me. She was laughing so hard it pealed in the coffee shop. Some of the customers looked up to see what was going on.
  "It stank!" I cried.
  "Don't tell me anymore! Stop! I am going to piss myself," she clutched her stomach.
  "Well, all I can say is that I am staying sober at the Christmas party this year," I said, trying to keep a straight face before I collapsed into giggles with her.
  "Oh, no more no more…"

On the day she left to go travelling I picked her up very early in the morning. Her neighbours were going to look after the cat and she had paid the rent six months in advance. She asked if we could stop at the beach before we went to the airport. She asked me if I would come in the sea with her but I had tonsillitis and didn't want it to get worse. I watched her from the car park. It was a wild windy day and the sun was just changing the colour of the sky. The whole beach was deserted. She walked to the edge of the ocean and stripped naked. She walked into the sea as if she would never come out. She was as wild as that sea, I could hear her whooping, screaming, crying and I watched her cavort in the waves, body surf to the sand and then plunge into the next depth.  

I had made some Green Tea in a flask and she sat sipping it in the car. Her hair was a salt mine and she brought half the beach onto the floor. She gave me the biggest smile. "You know I am probably making the biggest mistake of my life."
  "Maybe."
  "But you know I have to do it."
  "Yeah I know." 

She had only been back a few days when she came around my flat. She had hardly told me about her travels, she just spoke about seeing him again.

She had said that once they arrived in his house he just sat down in front of the television and ignored her. After that he started to read a book and when she would start a conversation he diverted it to the trivial. She wanted to get to the axis of which their relationship was based but he was happy to stay on the fringes of such a shadowy abyss. She had thoughts that she wanted to share with him yet he ignored her pleas and pretended ignorance. He compelled her to see only his reality, that of an austere environment where his bitterness kept him from understanding.

  "I'm powerless," she said.
  "No you're not."
  "I am in front of him. It's a battle of wills always and I cannot and do not want to fight him. It's easier to let him think he is right and I am wrong."
  "Does that bother you?"
  "It must do because I keep trying to go back and explain. But the more I do that the more set in his ways he becomes. I can't fight a misunderstood memory no matter how much I have changed."
  "Then let it be."
  "Guess I am gonna have too."
  "You'll still live." I said.



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Cremation is Education. Burning is Learning - Blog Post

The alleyways in Varanasi are narrow. No cars can drive through them and cows frequently block them. I heard a group chant getting louder and louder ‘Ram Nam Sat Herr’ (The name of God is truth) and suddenly I am pushed aside and six men carrying a body wrapped in muslin walk past.

   ‘They are going to the burning ghats, Leah. Let’s go there now.’ Meenakshi said.

We followed the procession with great interest and I noted there were no women around. Meenakshi told me they aren’t allowed to attend the cremation, ‘Women are too emotional… traditionally they would throw themselves on the pyre in grief and I think the men are still taking no chances.’

We sat down on the steps of Manikaran Ghat which is the oldest and most sacred cremation ground for Hindus and suddenly men urged us to move on. Gesticulating towards me, they told us we couldn’t sit there.
   ‘Why?’ Meenakshi asked ‘There are so many people here.’
   ‘Well… you can sit here but she can’t,’ they pointed at me. I was a white face amongst the sea of brown. ‘She’s not a Hindu.’

Of course I had no idea what they were saying. My Hindi is limited at the best of times as I generally spend most of my time in the laidback savannahs of Tamil Nadu so I watched with ignorant interest. Of course Meenakshi, my own personal Hindu Goddess, translated for me later…

‘You fool. We all are born and will die, she is no different from us.’ There was a certain logic to her argument and so in the end they allowed my presence. We haunted the Manikarnika Ghat for days after that and they only registered us with raised eyebrows and occasional mirth.

Literally, all we did was watch dead bodies arrive at the edge of the River Ganges, be placed on top of a pyre and then systematically burnt until only ashes remained. The process takes about 2 – 3 hours and all that remains are the pelvis of a woman and the chest bone of a man. The most recent body was so fresh it bent at the touch of the poker. I watched the head shrink, the torso being pushed into the flames and a wayward foot be guided back to the fire. Only hours ago this person was a living human being who breathed, talked, and ate yet now they were mere ashes.

The wind changed, we faced the heat, breathed in death and it was more than I could bear. The smoke and ash filled my pores and made my eyes water but still we stayed and fought the rising panic inside. Inside all I could hear was, ‘I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to die.’ To counteract my inner realisations of my own impermanence, India being India, the air crackled with commotion. Cows followed the calls of their owners, dipping in and out of the river, foaming at the mouth. One caught a death shroud on its horns, a pretty decoration all gold and red. There were men hanging around smoking, spitting and chatting and what surprised me most was the lack of emotion involved, it was all very matter of fact. There was one group where a man even brought a radio down with him so he could listen to some music whilst it was all happening. Yet when the body had disintegrated the men would dip into the river and wash their karmas away.

‘Cremation is education. Burning is learning,’ a young man told me. It was then I realised that we always live - our elements transform but they still remain, from the bonds of our bodies to the boundless.



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