PART 1 (7 days ago) – DAYS DARKLY

 PART 1 (7 days ago) – DAYS DARKLY

Sheets of winter rain battering my window. A dank day like today, generally pretty nice. But today I felt a little restless. Agitated even. Couldn’t quite figure out why. Just one of those days I guess.

Alice sensed my mood. Asked, ‘You okay?’. I felt too spaced out to answer.

I opened the windows. Dark, low-hanging clouds wafted in with the cold breeze. The sporadic thunder roared.

A breakfast of champions. Gin soaked coffee and nicotine soothing the shards in my mind. I stood in the center of my room, still a little dazed. Looking around and perusing my mind. Trying to think what exactly I should be thinking. My eyes caught sight of the newspaper shoved in under my front door. Picked it up. Don't really know why I still subscribe.

Alice said, ‘I know why. There’s always a war going on some place or the other. Reading about the victories in war, the violence of the valorant, the bravery of kill-mongers, the sadism of the 'good guys'...that stuff is wicked amusing’.

‘But not today’, I remarked. As I glanced through the headlines. ‘Today? Nothing amusing. Somewhere there’s incendiary bombs being dropped on schools. Burning children alive’. The thought made me feel even more queasy than before.

‘Well....At least the children aren’t being harvested for adrenochrome,’ Alice said. Perverse sense of humor she had.

'You know you are toxic? You talk and only sick things come out of your mouth' I said to her.

'And you somehow think the shit you said is clever', she said plainly.

I didn't reply.

'Oh, come on', she then said.

'It's children we are talking about', I said grimly.

'We live in a dark world. But a little dark humour? That never hurt anybody', she said. But with a kind of double voice. Or so I imagined. The other almost inaudible voice was trying to phase her out.

'But it leaves a bad taste in the mouth! You know?', I said.

'Okay', she sighed, 'I'll behave'.

I stood there in my room for another moment. Pondering whether to skip work. But remembered that it was the last weekend of the month. The day that sent me to the outskirts of the town. To a, let's say, special kind of event. It was a much needed catharsis for me. To purge the monthly grime of work and life, that keeps piling up on more grime.

So I got dressed. Rummaged in vain through my apartment for ten minutes, trying to find my umbrella. Gave up and went for my jacket.

A light drizzle. I pulled the hood over my head. Trudged my weary way across the few blocks. To the garage where I worked.

The drizzle left the streets deserted. On the opposite pavement, a little ahead of me, were the only people out there. Parents and their kid. I laid my eyes on them. It was immediately obvious that something was going on. Some familial friction that wasn’t subtle.

On the edge of the road, the drunk dad was revving his little scooter. His little boy on the rear seat. The woman was standing behind. Desperately holding on to the rear of the vehicle. As if her life depended on it. The severely distorted expression on the lady's face was like a bloated toad. Both woman and scooter started skidding forward. Screeching sounds from a snail’s pace.

Didn’t want to be roped in. So I continued my brisk walk. Tried not to look at them.

But she called out loudly across the road to me for help. I walked over to her. She said, ‘We had a fight and my husband got, like whole-sale drunk’.

‘Drunk people! Me detest!', Alice murmured. 'I hate them. Their concatenated ceremonial behaviour. Their gross shenanigans. The tantrums and loss of self control. It makes me sick. That too aggravated by their often loosened tongue and constant, irritating talk.

The woman pleaded, ‘Please don’t let him drive.’

Speaking to me, her grip had inadvertently loosened. Off the scooter went, wobbling perilously. Like on the verge of crashing on to the road and crushing them riders both.

Two shopping bags on the pavement by the road. The woman asked me if I would be so kind as to carry them. Then she started running after the scooter. I picked the bags up. They were enormously heavy, almost ripping my fucking arm off. So I found myself following. With two bags of monthly groceries. Might just have been a big lump of iron ore in there, given their heft.

Anyone with a drone would have looked at a messed up cinematic footage. The scooter driving on, the fat lady running after it, and me staggering and tumbling along behind. Two bags dangling from my left and right. Heavy enough to pull me down. Compress me. Embed my legs into the ground. I felt like a walking scare-crow whose muscles had atrophied.

The kid had started crying loudly, distressed by all the fiasco. Half a kilometer of this bizarre race. Then the scooter slowed down, as it ran out of fuel. But the guy didn’t have the sense to properly dismount and park the vehicle. Coming to a gradual halt, the guy could no longer keep the balance of an almost stationary vehicle. It started tilting alarmingly. Fortunately, the kid had managed to jump out. Then both man and scooter thumped down on to the wet asphalt.

Guy picked himself up from the ground. Tottered a little. Then sat down on the edge of the pavement. The little boy was still wailing. To pacify him, the dad pulled out a coin from his pocket. Gave it to the kid, pointing to the weighing scale kiosk that was on the opposite pavement. The kind of old school contraptions that gives the weight on one side of the card. And a arbitrary horoscope of sorts on the other. Like a fortune cookie competitor.

The boy ran to it. Climbed up on the machine. Tried to deposit the coin in the slot. But was too short to reach it. He still kept on jumping. Trying resolutely to reach the height. His behaviour growing more and more frantic every moment.

Seeing this, with great effort, the dad managed to hoist his bulbous body up. He was still egregiously inebriated. Walking like a grizzly with a concussion. Went over to the kid.

What happened next was way beyond bonkers. Turned my brain to a sludge of burnt tar. The dad lifted the kid up by his waist. Kid merrily put the coin in. None realizing that none of them actually was on the weighing platform. The card came out. Kid reached for it and tried to read. But dad interjected. Snatched it away. He then read the card. He grunted, his face peppered with confused scorn. Threw the card away. Rather discarded it unceremoniously. They crossed the road back. The dad proceeded to pick the scooter up. Woman and me caught up to them. I handed over the bags to the lady, nodded and retreated. She slung them on the two handlebars of the scooter. Then all three of them folks walked on to their destination. Dad trudging the scooter along. All three of them in a single file. A meter apart from each other. Dejected, soaking wet, hunched and morose. With their backs on me, I crossed the road once more. Went over to the weighing machine. I caught sight of the discarded card. Picked the wet thing up.

Printed on one side was '0 kg'.

On the other side was written,

'When you're riding mighty and high,

Danger close, disaster is nigh'.

I only thought what kind of a demented machine doles out messages like that. Perhaps it was getting sentient.