The Decoys in the other side of town & The Morning After!!!
“The city lights shine so bright, but no matter how bright, we still find ourselves trapped in the comfort of alluring darkness, hopeless enough searching for nothing of value to hold on to”
There is something that has always intrigued me about city lights. Something so profoundly deceitful, yet unknown to me. It might lie in its sense of satirical humor. Its nature to possibly shine to give idealistic hope to the hopeless, or rather to instill power to the most powerful. Like I said it’s not known to me. The city lights portray itself as a decoy, something so immensely attractive that has made mortal man susceptible to social allures. I ain’t sure. This is just another side of town.
The grass is always greener on the other side, the weather friendlier and the women all masterpieces touched by the goddess Aphrodite, that takes us to the biblical adage – ‘do not covet your neighbors’ possession.’ Yet. I loathe this place, wait, I’m getting way ahead of my words. Sometimes my mind jumble ideas and often when I lay them down, I doubt whether there is a sane lunatic out there who’ll add up the twos and threes and make sense of my words. Nonetheless, not any single mind has failed to make sense of my shambolic works, this is whimsically confusing, I know…. sorry for that major digression, thing is, I usually get carried away anytime I get an audience like yours, oops! Here I am transgressing again…. Let’s go back to the other side of town.
It’s an ever busy place, people always motile, this and that in disarray, the air deaf with booming music, unprintable insults from hawkers and reeks of sweat coalesced with bad breath. This place makes the beehive a mild analogy to the word ‘busy’. At a corner there is a brawl, apparently someone stepped on the other’s toes, then the other pulled the other’s ear, the cycle went on till mini-hell broke loose. It’s midday, the sun is at ninety degrees – I doubt that’s right, I dropped out of math class because I was tired of solving its problems. Every inch of exposed flesh is covered in sweat. I was once told, the sun’s rays are like the gorgon Medusa’s gaze, you can shade from it but when it finds you, a rock you remain.
EVENING
The sun is heading west, a respite from its fiery job, I wonder if he will one day be fired (pun intended). Darkness begins to engulf all. As dusk approaches, the skirts get shorter, the trousers tighter and everything becomes livelier. The crickets intensify their chirps, fireflies flicker here and there…. All these, an opening act to a play within life’s play.
Forget the fireflies, forget Vegas…. Neon lights flicker on and off in a pulsating manner brightening the night. The mood is ecstatic alternating from euphoria to gut chilling happiness. Ululations and phrases such as YOLO punctuate the air. The night clubs are open, despite the exaggerated entrance fee everyone digs deep into their pockets. The long queues outside can mislead a Martian (someone from mars) that this is the gateway to heaven, we earthians know better. Tables are full, everybody is in tow, cuddled and sandwiched in the comfy leather couches. The sipping begins. That’s when I notice her.
ELEVEN JUST BEFORE THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT
There is nothing so captivating and so disturbing like watching lonely hearts of women and men; some younger than me, some older than me, drinking together in a show of salacity. The music isn’t that loud, at least from where I watch I can’t tell what music is playing. There is a distant mourn of a woman being pleasured, it dimes away slowly by slowly as the music keeps to its’ tracks. Beautiful girls nudely dressed in white and black are busy moving around carrying glasses of wine on trays. In the front of the stage, where almost every man is eyeing, there lies a naked woman. Dancing pretentiously. Swaying her hips in all kinds of manner which seems to fascinate the underdog boys seated at the front seat. Leaving their trousers bulging out, mouth salivating lasciviously with desires to quench their thirst. To set free their out bursting pintles. I know am an artist, but The beauty, the exquisite features of a naked woman goes beyond my imaginations. Poets will write, painters will paint a portrait. But none of these artists’ work will ever surpass the art of God.
Tables are still full, albeit with glasses half empty. Smoke from smoldering cigarettes unapologetically attack one’s nostrils. Everybody is effortlessly dancing to rhythm, well, some are trying doing their best just to stay in tune, carefree laughter fills the air. Some lads grab a drunken lass, pushing her to a corner, touching her in places that my mom can’t allow me to print. So its midnight, some leave in drunken pairs, others might just dance the night away, others are still signaling the waitress for ‘just one last one.’ The ladies of the night are still fixated at the same places they were, waiting for a hapless victim to pounce on. This is not Sodom and Gomora, just an epitome of it.
. IT’S ALMOST LATE
Yet, the night is still young…. most are still caught in their drunken stupors, some have sobered up a little and have started scratching their heads over their expensive indulgences. In the morning after, curses shall be muttered, questions shall be asked, who, why, where and how… And they wonder why I loathe this side of town, with its greener grass, friendlier weather and exquisite women.
She, the one I’ve been glaring at, particularly liked the foggy nights. The ones in which the air hung heavily and draped its shoulders as if gasping for the very same breath, still and pregnant with anticipation. She loved it when the fog concealed, albeit momentarily, who she had chosen to be. A night that the clouds crowd so protectively around the moon as if shielding it from the nonchalant stares of humans, so effortlessly oblivious of its presence. A night full of so much energy yet exhibiting so little. On such nights, when even the coldest heart would ache for some warmth even though it would mean thawing. Yet change, even the slightest is uncomfortable. She marveled at how even the strong shook at the soft whispers of the wind, the tumbling finality of it all.
She stood by the lone lamppost on 5th street. Propping her weight on one leg and raising the other to touch the lamppost to form a perfect four. She hated her bony knees. The neon light fell gracefully on her in a way that it caressed her face and cupped it so gently in its arms unlike the men she knew who would fall for her head first. Nina, she was the epitome of beauty. Her high cheekbones, silk hair that flowed so smoothly without even trying (unlike those of her counterparts that seemed to defy all the laws of gravity and stand up on their two feet as if in protest) she always found that funny.
All she needed now was one more round and she would have enough for her completion. Just one round. Snapping her out of thought was a car that halted right at her feet. He knew the drill, and so did she. In cities like that, on nights like this, in places like that where you could read the raging lust off people’s faces, how could they not?
But she had learnt to be numb. How to never get her feelings intertwined. And as he went on with his guilty pleasure, she couldn’t help but stare emptily at the ceiling trying to whisk this moment away. She drowned his moans in the sea of her flooding thoughts. She closed her eyes and waited for the weight to lift from above her. Nina, she was like a cardboard that too many nails had fit in and pulled out, leaving her with too many holes. She held the crisp note in her hand and handed it over to him. He held her life force and took the note as one fully aware of his vantage point in her life.
“Such a crisp note, almost feels …holy from such an evil thing…the paradox in it all,”
he chuckled at his own wit as he pressed a puny sized sachet into her Palm. Her completion.
The walk to her shack was punctuated by fits of running. She felt desperately the need to be complete. She like many other people are not really looking for the meaning of life but for the experience of being alive. Lost in a world that moves too fast, like one in a maze, concepts of life too subtle to grasp and too vain to clasp.
She sat on her couch, burnt the powder, held her pipe and took it all in. She watched as the perplexities and worries of life merge into one sheet of complete nothingness. She passes out, only to resuscitate the morning after.
If perhaps she would wake in the morning after, I’d let her know that in the other side of town, where the city lights shine so bright, beautiful things that quench our thirsts are nothing but a bunch of decoys that plot to rob her soul from her.
©Heart¬_Art_Poetics
All rights reserved
®2016
Leave a comment