Thursday, November 13, 2008

Another Chapter in the book of Cell phone Drafts.

(This is not writing, it’s learning how to write but mostly I just want to tell you these things)


To go above and beyond what he could ever expect, to make a grand gesture, to dramatise the surroundings, to make a point of it. The gravity of the thought stayed with her, and excited her so much that she stopped her work and sat down to explore its depth, Where would she stay? How would be look? What would she say? When will he ask her? and so on. It takes off then, this galloping, all encompassing, deliriously colourful and hopeful world, it fills up her day, and when she pauses to trace back the cause of this vague contentedness, it’s only too obvious. Dreams tend to be that way. Cause she has already done so much and had been so many people, how’s she ever going to top it? The feeling that nothing will be the same again, in a lucky, positive flourish that changes the realities of existence, the practicalities of a routine, and builds in its place a fondness, a nostalgia for what is lost.

On a unimaginable scale, that’ll require numbers not yet discovered to tabulate it, lens powerful enough to capture it lie yet undiscovered, hidden in chemical codes of silver evaporating, aluminium, bromide and we haven’t made it just yet - a canvas big enough, to hold that pulsating growing hideous mass of thoughts continuously extracted that make up the parallel worlds in our heads.

If only things were that easy, to break them up into seasons, into terms and when one is desperate before exams, sick with worry, with guilt and self loathing, our writers disappoint us, glossing over, pushing all that tension into one flippant sentence. For as long as I can remember I’ve been reading novel after novel before the most crucial, supposedly paramount, exams of my life. I want long in-depth discourses into this distraction, this preoccupation, this inability to focus, yet they all seem to have just a page or two on it, I want to read a whole book about just the last twenty four hours before a test, so that I can viscously, sickeningly, put my teeth into in, and hold on desperately while my own deadline approaches closer.

As for those people that authors thank on the first and last pages of their books - my heart wells up with jealousy; possessiveness creeps in as the tale gets going, I want to be there, by his side, for him to consider me beautiful, to inspire the writing, the greatness, the most wonderful literary-ness, which so many have rediscovered time and again, and it forms an exclusiveness which is far from elite, it is the very pulse of our temples, of our language, or the vast filing cabinets in our heads. To be there while she writes, talking things out, dreaming things up, sorting out erased memories and engineered ones; and it overtakes me, this urge to know them, to be near them, and I think, how can they not know? How can they not feel this power, that seems to have consumed every facility of my being? And I can’t bear it anymore.

If the voice is not given any air, no gentle flap to encourage the cinder, it dies suffocating on its insecurity, on its unsteady beginnings, and I find myself utterly unable to write. Let that never happen, let there always be an avalanche of words - however unworthy, however cringe worthy, and may I never settle, never fully understand, but always try and try and try. If only you spare five minutes, to make a genuine recommendation, or a heartfelt critique, dismiss with style my inaptitude, with significance; I could travel far, very far. For the people I want most to be read by, I can’t let them, because they’re all over these pages. It would come glaring into light how much under my skin they are, exposing the very stitches that hold together my tacky faux velvet costume dress, and it would be a betrayal of sorts, but a wonderful coming out as well, and I wish nothing more, little darling, sugar chicken, blue honey bun for you to have your eyes on me, right now, quite like this.

3 comments:

tangled said...

Oh, my Lord! I know exactly what you mean. I just don't have the literary chutzpah you do, so I ended up re-reading my Heyers before exams more often than anything else...

El said...

HA, exactly, it kills me but I can't seem to stop.

Anonymous said...

seriously, i did not quite get it. let me have a go at it again.

but maybe that is because i am a dunce. or maybe it was just too personal.

btw, what's the fascination with chemistry? used to be my second favorite seubject in school :P