Beyond. There she was, standing under an umbrella.

Large drop, small drop, round drop, oval drop. Swaying her umbrella a little towards right, a little to the left just so that the drop wins this race. Was she sad? Was she happy? I couldn’t determine. All I could see was drops of water rolling down through the undulations of her face. She was creating ripples in the puddle of water with her toes, trying to catch herself in those perturbations. I moved one step closer, she dipped her toe a little more. I was closing on her and yet somehow she seemed to be captivated in her reflection. It was her world. A world of magic, a world free from chagrin. Should I call her?

I always wanted to be right about everything. I always wanted an answer. Yet there she was, flickering in water with her umbrella. Things don’t always need to be plain, they can be blurred. Just then, she closed her umbrella spraying water and went running away.

Life’s too short to be wait around and ponder over has beens. So I went after her because I had to. The way her dexterous anklet brushed the waters made me think about a certain necromancer weaving his occult fields around me. A certain sway of her fabric, a certain curb in her charge and a definite consonant in my heartbeat.

She stopped across a wall. A wall full of graffiti. Standing in total congestion with the art people think as vandalism, she looked at me with a face tilted to one side. Some deep treasures were laid inside her. Yes, here were the colours that she would mix in: red, pink, yellow, green, blue, black. She touched those walls and whispered to them. Moving her fingers slowly over the brick walls, feeling the elements within and inhaling that smell. I called out to her, ‘Hey there!’ She came close and thrusted a crumpled piece of paper in my hand. She wasn’t the kind of art people had seen, she was the kind walls wanted on them. A pastiche of directness and yet elusive. A caricature of sheer panache! I opened that piece of paper and it was written, ‘Not yet.’

She ran across the length of the wall. Grotesque and lingering with that miasma, I was surprised how could she keep so close with that wall. Just as I was running out of breath, I saw a sudden haze around me. She was nowhere to be seen. Just then, she tapped on my shoulder and pointed towards a ladder leaning on the wall. A world beyond my rationale, a fog beyond my vision and a girl beyond my ground. How could she conjure up the ladder out of thin air? When the boundaries of emotion get tangled into a brew of confusion, life is a meandering river through the plateaus of malaise. I wasn’t yet ready to climb up that ladder as my logic advised me not to. So I ran around through the whole length of wall just so I could meet her on the next side of the wall. There she was, laughing at my enervation. She was lovely.

Here we were, among people. She bustled her way forward amongst the thick crowd. I stood up on a high parapet and watched her sail through people. She had a camera in her bag. Clicking random pictures people and their faces, I could observe her making some kind of fractal art. Look at her, she won’t appeal to you. But look at her and she will take you on a journey of passion. She will make you her fanatic and yet you would keep sane. Slowly adjusting her lens, she captures you in a moment, a snapshot of your desire, she would beguile you. I shouted out loud, ‘Hey there!!’ The winds only brought me a whisper, ‘Wait.’

She was sitting on the ground with some children. They were making random drawings in her notebook. She sat there with her face on her knees, smiling. I knew she was taking this all in. Was she giving the kids the gift of creativity or was she imbibing these nascent thoughts? I couldn’t guess. I could notice that she was making the exact shapes with her fingers on her skin as the children were in the notebook. She was the needle I needed to stitch my cloth but I wasn’t able to weave my thread through it. Putting on her glasses, she brushed her fingers through those kids’ hair. A powerful trail she was. All I needed was a whiff.

Just as I was about to catch her, she stood up and went to a store. I followed her into that store. It was a furniture store. Shapes. Square. Rectangle. Trapezium. Circle. She went towards a big cabinet of shelves and leaned on one side of the cabinet. I too went after her. For some time, I stood silently keeping my ear to the wooden cabinet. As soon I started to speak, she would open some random shelf. Up. Down. Right. Left. As soon as my mouth opened, she would open some shelf blocking my view of her. Hidden through this game of hide and seek, I could catch a glimpse of her. Her eyes. She was my synthesiser, a tuner to refine my symphony and a force too skilful.

Just then the lights went out and I could hear a loud crash. I got worried and scampered in darkness to find her. I spotted her outside the shop staring in darkness. I went outside and held her so she wouldn’t run away. I assumed that she wouldn’t talk with me so I just held her. The signboard above us flickered throwing intermittent pulses of light on our faces. One moment we were, the other we weren’t. She was, she wasn’t. There were so many things I didn’t understand. The world I couldn’t explain. She was a house whose door I couldn’t find yet. But she was here. I could hold her. See her for a moment. Capture her for a moment. One moment ,her world, one moment, my world.

Eyes so deep I couldn’t find a door out. Her hair smelled of a weird odour. Her eye liner, the shades of dusk and yet so mesmerising. Go near her and you wouldn’t feel a force field around her. Touch her and she wouldn’t let you go. I remember her touch. She was the synapse I needed. Her hair, short but not brutal. Her nose just so like humans have. Her neck gliding smoothly into her body which I could hold. Her voice. Not yet . Chandelier of hopes she irked in me but she was never a depression. I said to myself, ’Hold on.’

Image Credits- Simran Lakhiani