So I told him he is a bear. A grizzly bear. A chimpanzee. A moment metamorphosing into a memory. The mark on the wall. The you have made me happy but you still cannot save me. And he cried. Like confused urban rain in summer. Then he laughed. Like the waves hitting the rocks on the shore. A hearty laugh. A full laugh. A quietude which screamed. A very big toe and beautiful hands. Two tufts of hair sticking out awkwardly from the top of the temples.
He crouched in a corner under the bookshelf. You will get a bump on your head, I said. He did not move. Put his arms around his knees. And then he said he was old, old and dying. Old but full of wonder. Wonder which was always stumbling into befuddlement. The wonder of a chimpanzee still adapting to human ways - unable to distinguish between glass and air. Hurting a nose he loves. Learning, still, to open a door.
He sleeps under the stars and speaks poetry like a rhapsode. In the nightmares, they will break him. Turn him into a minotaur. But he will still crouch under the bookshelf. That is what minotaurs do when they fall in love.
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She barks. When she barks the dogs listen and so do humans. She twitches her tail. She chews it. Sometimes, she grows it long and then chases it. At other times, she grows it short and stuffs it. There're also times, when she grows it thin and rolls it around her neck. As it is, she wears five organically built necklaces on her neck. She sits in the corner and crawls under the table. On the roads, she sleepwalks. She goes to the ATM machine, takes the money out and leaves the card behind. It takes her full 36 hours to realise it. Elated at the prospect of getting a new shiny card, she is least bothered about the money lost. She sits on the roadside, busy talking on her mobile. Talk finished, or may be not, she stands up and starts walking, forgetting the wallet behind. Three or four hours later, she again realises her stupendous stupidity. When she tells this to somebody very close to her, she comments, ‘your stupidity one day will cost you with your life.’
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