Winning

Finally.
Joy, trickling to every corner of me.
Happiness breaking out in little thrills that run around inside me, in tiny firework-showers of delight.
Feel like jumping.
And singing.
And yelling.
And dancing.
Simply must dance.
Now.
Here.
Try a funny little jig in heavy-heely shoes.
Not nice.
Must get rid of shoes.
Ok.
Fling them.
Now.
Now dance.
No partner.
When has that ever been a problem ?
Right. Dance.
Hop, hop, wiggle.
Squiggly-wiggle, leap, laugh.
Twist and jump, and turn and grin.
At the world in general, because we've won.
We've WON !!
(ok, so we didn't win. But we kind of did. ok, we didn't. but never mind.)
Jump on Marchhare.
Mock Turtle is standing, lost, grinning in a weak, mock-turtley sort of way.
(Judges were good. Yeah, especially since they made us win...)
And the Chessy cat ? Off again. But grinning still.
And Alice is about, who brought her umbrella to the stage.
And we ?
We're off to Dinner, to feel important.
Skipping all the way.
Can't dance there.
Nope.
So I'm here.
Squiggle, twist, hop.
And of course, smile.

Hold it.

Oh no.
Wait. Wait.
You're off.
And I'm not.
I'm here.
Wait.
Hold it.
Can't go that fast.
You know I never could.
You've always made fun of just that.
But short legs- they do that to you.
Unfair.
Don't .
Please.
How am I supposed to catch you ?
You're already a matchstick with legs
And shrinking fast.
Oh God.
Can't breathe.
Yes, yes, I know that.
I'm unfit.
Laugh it up.
Very funny.
Laugh all you want.
As long as you stop to do it.
You won't, will you ?
I think I knew you wouldn't.
I knew it.
That you'd just go off.
Veering in another direction.
I'm just headed straight on.
So where are you going ?
Yor probably can't even hear me.
I don't know why I'm still yelling.
Hoping you can hear.
More wishing you could, really.
I know you can't.
Not the long-gone speck, of course not.
I'll keep looking at where you disappeared.
And I'll wonder where you went.
And why you didn't wait.
And why you didn't hear.
I'll wonder,
As I jog off my own way.
Not trying to catch up
Because I don't want to.
I never did, I think.
And I never would, even if I could.
And that's alright.

Awful.
The stunned silence
And forced clapping
Awkwardly followed each other.
Everyone else thought so too.

Cold stillness
Punctuated by that condescending grin
That I wanted to punch.
Punch really hard.
And knock out those uneven bad teeth.
And that irritating grin along with it.
Damn Doctor Daeng.
And his rural crew.
And the audience laughing on cue
At nothing.

We looked on, numb,
As They lost
And they won.
And it went all wrong.

Better for us-
We felt better-
But the World went all wrong.
And my faith in It's been gone
Ever since.

A Picture in watercolour by Tennyson.

The fire had come and gone.
The gold sparkled, among the serene greens and pinks and forgotten yellows of the countryside.
Waterlilies glistened pale, white and yellow and forgetful, on the banks.
The willows bent right over and wept their long, slow tears into their rippling selves below.
Their long, gentle drooping branches formed an arch beneath whish she walked to the shore.
There, gently bobbing on stray ripples in the fold of a willow-root, was a little gray boat.
It gleamed faintly, she stepped in, and then it made a foray into mid-current.
She looked up, for a second, looking quietly around, like a blind man who does realise he is blind.
She lay down, her motion barely disturbing the boat, which drifted, as in a dream, slowly downstream.
And then she sang.
A haunting tune, a simple tune, continuous somehow with the autumn and the dusk.
The pale, fading evening was her song, that fades into night without a break.
It sounded in the ears of the methodical reapers, and it seemed to them to go on, even after night had fallen upon them, and the sound had gone from the fields and the sky.
The boat floated on, the deep grey currents and eddies carried it on.
The gray houses rose out of the imminent darkness.
The song was in the air, and in the water, and in her white face and streaming hair.
The paleness of her cheek was silence.
Dark grey shapes of men gathered by the riverside to watch her pass.
The murmured darkly and their hands formed crosses in the half-light.
She did not hear.
It seemed, as she passed, the dancing candles were snuffed out.
The city, poised in celebration, took up her silence.
Grey mist entered the air, and the faces, and the thoughts, of all but one.
He looked with thoughtful face upon the lost beauty drifting past.
He whispered a blessing;
A cloud was over the sun.

Moon tonight.

The clouds were all round the moon tonight.
They spiralled around her, pale in reflected glow, and formed a tunnel to the moon.
And I felt that if I just kept walking, the pull of that soft white glow would lift me up, past the garden wall and the maroo house opposite, past the far-away palm tree and etceteras, right into that tunnel. And I'd get to discover it all.
But I was too scared. I didn't walk, for fear I'd hit the wall. For fear, the tunnel would give way beneath my feet, and I'd fall, with the etceteras and maroo house watching, down to the hard reality of the pavement and tarred roads. They've even lopped off the branches of the neighbours' spreading tree, so there'll be nothing to catch me.
Who ? Those corporation fellows, of course. The ones officious enough to chop off the branches, but awful enough to leave them in the street. And I showed what I thought of them, righrt out there on my face. Everyone else nearly died of mortification.
So, I just looked, then lowered my eyes and locked the garden gate. The grilles barred it all right out of reach. I felt awful. And the lady serene in the sky looked at me with her wise eyes, and she smiled, and then it hurt all the more that I couldn't face the garden wall. I couldn't. I can't yet. And she's already forgiven me all of it, that's the worst. It's like she knows all the crime I'm going to commit. And I've hung my head.

Tired.

I'm tired now.
Not anything else, not angry or depressed or impatient.
Just tired.
My body doesn't cry out for rest,
But it's a deep heaviness in every bone and muscle.
My mind is not throwing in the towel temporarily,
And deserting me for sleep,
But it processes things slowly,
Taking the longest time over the thought of its own tiredness.
A long, light, greyish feeling is spread all over my brain.
Like old cotton padding, slowing everything down.
All the feelings of the day have gone.
That part of me is empty, but it doesn't feel like a gaping hole.
I just feel lighter.
I've left even the day behind.
A long slow weariness.
An enfolding by rest and the comfortable position.
Yawn.
There I go.

The Wind

She rose early. Very early, when the first streaks of light were coming into the sky. The sight was magical across the expanse of sky and plain that she called home. She stood in the middle of an open place, and felt faint dawn breezes playing with her hair, and making her want to dance. She did, and so did the pale gold boy far out on the plain, who was laughing at her. And they were both laughing at everyone else. The plain rolled empty away in every direction, and the first streaks of sunlight laughed at the plain and the sky, and the world was full of joy.
She laughed inside all day, the brown boy that stood silently some way away as she worked the fields in the hot sunshine saw it, but noone else did. He smiled, and a cool breeze stole away the cruelty from the air, and some of the colour in her cheek.
The sun did not die magnificently, he slowly faded, a lingering passing, and she watched in mute understanding. The wind pulled her away, the insistent touch on her body called her to follow the path it ran across the sky. She smiled and looked at him- he ran lightly, his body beautiful with joy. She stood still and watched, though the joy she had held within her streamed away to join him on the backdrop of infinite skies, and coloured in all the hues, coincidentally, of the sunset.
That night, the storm tore around the house, she watched the violent movements that assaulted the darkness and made the house the intolerable evil. They did not notice when she left the house, the sounds outside blocked everything out. She saw, walking out onto the plain, the dark man waiting for her silently, like a magnet drawing her into the heart of the storm. His black eyes danced now, the gale blew until her clothes flapped like a pennant on the crest of a hill. The lighting flashed once, threatening to split the sky wide open. It didn't.
The next morning, looking at her, they noticed she had been out into the night. Her appearance was as usual, but she never would come back. The winds had claimed her soul.