An Exercise in Passion

Attraction

And as we walked barefoot along the stretch of dew-laden greens it became increasingly clear to me that it was meant to be. Not because she could finish my sentences; not because I, for once, didn’t feel rushed—but because the tip of her nose jiggled from the tiny reverberations that emanated from her precious mouth when she laughed.

Yes, she was beautiful.

So when the dew, buffeted upwards in a fine sprinkle as she dragged her tiny feet through the soaking grass, started landing on my ankles, there was only one thing which had to be said.

“Let’s sit”, I suggested.

As the two of us planted ourselves upon a conveniently dry mound, I was aware that conversation, too, was about to run dry. The wet muddiness trickling down between the toes began to solidify into an immobile crust.

Not a word did she say.

While she stared emptily into the vast, still starry emptiness above us and I became conscious of an intrusion into our envelope of serenity – a rather large black ant struggling to overcome the formidable difficulties presented by the mud-stained smoothness of her legs - my mind flirted temporarily with the idea of making small talk. But there was a wonder in her eyes just then – a wonder which I decided not to dilute with banalities.

The world around us had dissolved in a darkness redeemed only by the pale efforts of the night sky and our conversation had, for hours, tossed and turned with glee in the delights of open-endedness. Nothing was to be judged as the world was blanketed by the night; nothing was to be evaluated by entrenched moral standards. We skirmished with morality; teetered on the brink of irreverence. The night was replete with thrilling possibilities and unforeseen directions.

Down with irrational reverence, I had suddenly decided during our walk as I dropped the bulky text book I was lugging around down to the grass and, symbolically, stepped on it with gay abandon in a moment of pulsating liberation. She watched in disapproval and disbelief as the blades of mud-coated moist grass sticking to my feet were dislodged by the pristine whiteness of the book’s cover and adorned, if unwillingly, the resounding imprint I had left behind. Then, as if suddenly succumbing to the theme of undaunted excess which underscored the night, she submitted to a volley of soft laughter.
And the tip of her nose jiggled.

If only the Sun kept away.

She emerged once more from the reverie she was immersed in and looked straight at me. Her eyes were a shade of brown resembling the crust which was now ensconced in the recesses between her toes- the residue left behind by a torrent of uninhibited conversation. Unable to meet my gaze, her eyelids drooped concealing the caramel brown within. The struggling ant now drew her attention.

I watched as her face condensed into a beatific smile.

I watched as she gently allowed the tiny creature into the cusp of her right palm and placed it back on the ground, as if in acknowledgement of its travails.

I watched as she simultaneously pushed back a strand of her dark, wavy hair behind her ears.

I watched….

Yes, she was beautiful.




Expression

And then it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, all the charm emanated from the rusty round table and the rickety plastic chairs.

Her legs betrayed a restlessness as they rose and fell rhythmically; the tip of her fingers gently making indentations in the melted mass of sinful chocolate lying seductively at the centre of the crimson table. Slowly, she pushed the disfigured mound of brown sweetness towards me inviting me to succumb to its addictive pleasures. I knew then that the time had come. All hesitation evanesced in that one loaded gesture.

But she just couldn’t look me in the eye that night.

The nerve-endings in her neck pounded delicately in anticipation. The paper cup carrying her ice-tea quivered as the rusty round table rocked up and down from the frantic motion of her legs, sending ripples across the reflection of the moon which floated on the surface. The moon was a perfect crescent, waiting to be consummated into rotundity.

Any moment now.

When my hand inched forward to meet her fingertips, I could feel her pulse, muffled by the syrupy, brown coating of chocolate. Whether it was a hint of sparkle in her eyes that I noticed just then or the light from the night sky bouncing off the silver foil of wrapper – I cannot for certain say.

And then in happened.

Involuntarily, feelings transfigured into words and words, in search of direction, coalesced into a sentence. And drenched in the charm of the humid summer air, it rushed to the dry haven of her ears, watched over by her long, untamed, dark locks.

“So I guess then it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if we were to….”

The rhythmic motion of her legs dissipated into a placid calm. I waited for a response which I knew was not forthcoming- at least not right away.

Because she just couldn’t look me in the eye that night.



Consummation

And I wondered how the light from the street lamp, tempered into a soft glow by the thick dirty-green canopy in its way, failed to wake her up.

The smooth roundness of her head rested gently on the concrete pavement. Strands of her hair rebelled from the bun they were tied to and hung loosely from the edge of the pavement, their tips gently kissing the film of dust on the road below.

There was a certain serenity about her features - an air of submission in the faint tremor in her lower jaw, which only I knew was a smile. As I knelt closer to run my fingers through her hair, I inhaled the bittersweet smell of vodka still lingering in her breath.

We could still hear the stifled sound of music coming from within.

Placing my hand on her lower back, I lifted her torso. I pressed the bottle of mango nectar against her lips in an effort to revive her. Spurned by her lips, streams of the syrup began trickling down her neckline leaving stains of pale yellow in their trail. A drop remained, hanging menacingly from her lower lip, and I smothered it with my index finger.

Eyes still closed, she put her arm around my neck and rested her head on my chest. Then, lifting one leg, she planted it on my thighs. Soon she was in my arms – all of her.

I gazed down at the little bundle of beauty that I now held and wondered if I ever wanted her intoxication to subside. With her limp fingers she feebly tugged at the ends of my sleeve. Raising a hand slowly, she gingerly probed the thin wall of emptiness between us till the tip of her fingers found my forehead. After fiddling momentarily with a blade of my hair soaked in sweat, she began to slide her fingers down my face. I closed my eyes as Softness itself caressed my eyes; the tip of my nose; the dryness of my lips; the unshaven roughness of my chin.

Laboriously, her eyelids started picking themselves up as if to confirm the map that her fingertips had traced out. Semi-open brown eyes stared at me with the combination of curiosity, amazement and vulnerability of a baby, fresh from the womb.

As I leaned over to explore the depths of her beauty, her lips parted and eyelids closed again; decisively, this time.

Her breathing grew heavier; faster; noisier.

Until, we could no longer hear the stifled sound of music from within.






Hurt

And I trudged along, alone, in the biting cold.

I bent down to disentangle the formidable knot in the laces of my shoes with my numb fingers and failed miserably. Like coarse ropes of jute, they grazed my fingers, leaving jagged strands of fibre sticking out from my nails. Placing the pointed tip of one shoe on the heal of the other, I proceeded to unceremoniously strip my feet. After violently rolling over a few times, they finally settled in a clumsy heap next to the barbed wire entrance to the fields.

My first steps on the frosty greens were the most difficult. Seasons had passed me by; seasons had passed us by. The moist muddiness of summer had abandoned us, replaced by a frigid, dry hostility. As I stepped on the mound where we had had our first rendezvous, the warmth of memories was brutally disrupted by the wave of cold that assaulted my bare feet. The mound stood before me today a hardened cube of ice.

In a foolhardy display, a black ant came in my way, perhaps expecting graciousness again. Inadvertently, I stepped on it. I wanted to look back and see if it had survived; I wanted to allow it gently into the cusps of my palm and deliver it to warmth and safety. But there was no warmth to be found; no graciousness to scatter to the poor creature.

So, I trudged along, alone, in the biting cold.

The rusty round table and the rickety plastic chair were barely discernible, being consumed ruthlessly by the dense cover of fog. I paused to light my first cigarette in ten years. The smoke billowing from the burning tobacco mingled with the fog and eventually became one with it, leaving no trace behind – apart from the stench of tobacco.

The table had been withered into submission by the elements. Its hot crimson red colour had paled, eaten into, for years, by the marauding army of rust. Instinctively, my index finger reached out to touch the crusty surface of the table which left behind a stain of powdery brown on my skin; an all too familiar shade of brown, only bereft of the inviting smell of dark chocolate.

In the distance, stood a lonely street lamp – the street lamp. Cold from desuetude, it peered over the yellow, flaccid leaves and the barren stretch of concrete pavement below. As I walked the pavement once more, the heels of my feet crushed the soft chunks of gravel which lay littered into a fine powder. Trickling over the edge of the pavement, it joined the film of dust on the road, burying beneath it an orphaned strand of dark hair brought in, perhaps, by the stinging breeze. It struggled for a while to extricate itself from the pile, twisting and turning wildly in the wind. And then, emphatically, it managed to break free.
Away it flew to the south, and I could only watch.

I was aware of a sharp pain – a little drop of blood in the recesses of my toes, from a tiny splinter I had probably picked up along the way. It was cold. Far away, I could see the outline of the clumsy heap of my shoes I had left behind.

I lit my second cigarette in ten years.

And I trudged along, alone, in the biting cold.






Permanence

And I saw her again.
Amidst the deafening explosions of hand grenades, the clatter of empty cartridges on the glittering white marble tiling, the panic ridden din of the helpless Saturday night shoppers and the pungent odour from the rising fumes of smoke, I caught a glimpse of the woman I loved.

There she was: brown eyes; dark wavy hair; precious little mouth – all of her. Despite the thick veil of haze, I could see that she was still as beautiful as the girl I once held in my arms during a vodka-heavy night, ten years ago. She was on her knees. Her toes supported her tiny feet on the pristine white floor, stained in shades of hot crimson red; her shoes, dislodged from her feet, lay sprawled in a clumsy heap.
I stepped closer.

The air was heavy with the stench of gunpowder and it made her cough violently. The tears rolling down her face from her reddened eyes rushed to her parted lips. Spurned by her lips, they trickled down her tender neckline leaving behind a moist trail.

With her bloody hands she tried to stop the flow of blood oozing out from the wounds of the man lying at her feet- his chest perforated by three, maybe four, rounds of fire. A strand of her long, dark hair hung loosely down her shoulders and made a gentle indentation on a puddle of blood on the floor. She was sobbing uncontrollably, begging for help.
And the tip of her nose jiggled.

Somewhere, from within one of the stores played a Beethoven Symphony. The music tried to lend some serenity but was overpowered by the discordant notes of cartridges showering down on the marble floor.

And then she saw me.

Just then, I could see in those caramel brown eyes, a grotesque communion of fear, shock, disbelief and what I hoped was a smattering of guilt.
She looked alternately at me and the rifle that I was pointing at her.

There was the faint tremor in her lower jaw which only I knew to be a smile. I moved closer. The icy barrel of my rifle now pressed against her collar bone. A wave of cold ran through her body and her slender torso convulsed involuntarily. She looked up at me. I tried to keep my gaze fixed on her eyes for the answers to all my questions. But a violent gust from an explosion nearby scattered her hair over her face, concealing the caramel brown within.

We were instructed to kill all in sight. I didn’t have much time- neither did the wounded man whose blood smeared hand she still held. There was plenty I had to say to her but only one thing I could say right then; the only thing which mattered.

‘Do you love me?’ I hissed slowly, making certain that each word impaled her being.

She looked alternately at me and the rifle that I was pointing at her.
Finally, she looked straight at me and blinked suggestively. I lowered my rifle bent down, grabbed her by the hair and kissed her mouth; my first kiss in ten years. A teardrop hung menacingly from her lower lip. As I reached out to smother it, it fell onto a ring she now wore – her wedding ring. We had kissed while her husband lay dying.

‘Down with irrational reverence’, I said.
She let out a feeble, mirthless chuckle.

As I proceeded to kiss her again, her hair scattered over her face again, by what I thought was …. It didn’t matter anymore. She was shot in the head.

She stared dreamily into the distance as I held her in my arms once more. The Symphony still meandered about, trying to pacify. Somehow, she managed to give me a parting gift. Her final words to me.

“Help him”.

She was still holding his hands. For a few seconds, she continued staring into emptiness.

Until, she could no longer hear the sound of music from within.