I looked down. From where we were sitting, forty storeys above the road, every car and bus that whizzed past looked like the size of a toy. Every tiny walking human being looked like an ant. My vision blurred momentarily and the bright Sunday lights of the city looked like a golden haze.
I yawned and turned my attention to my dangling feet. I was wearing the same dark-blue, skinny jeans, the ones you helped me pick out last summer. It was too hot for jeans. It was always too hot. But I was wearing them anyway. My nails were painted with my favourite nail-polish, the bright, dark pink one which glitters. And the single silver toe-ring twinkled back.
You were sitting next to me. Your sneaker-and-jeans-clad legs drawn towards you, not dangling from the fortieth storey terrace like mine. The two glass bottles lay abandoned next to us, unfinished.
"Why don't you write something? It might cheer you up," you suggested half-heartedly.
I thought about that thing. And the other thing. And the surprising turn of events last year. And everything that happened last summer. And last winter. And the other thing that was happening now. And of myself, and what the doctor had to say the last time I summoned up the courage to drop by the clinic. And of the Political Science paper that was due the next day, yet here I was at the rooftop, choosing to have a writer's block. And of the Econometrics exam, about which I am completely blank. And the Social Science term paper about Social Science experiments (the less said about this, the better). And the Political Philosophy term paper and all the hundreds of readings left on the Islamic Just War and Jihad and extracts from the Koran. And of the unending rubbish and drama that surrounds the four of our lives that would put any soap to shame. And how I feel mad and traumatized and horrified all at the same time and you can't, you can't understand. Nobody can. And I'm too exhausted to try and explain.
"There's nothing worth writing about," I said, shaking my head, looking at my bottle with a sudden, renewed interest.
You pass it to me. It still feels cold, the cold water droplets trickling down the bottle's neck on to my unnaturally warm palms. A cool breeze blows, just right. Cool and not uncomfortably cold. It's very windy here on the fortieth storey.
"There's nothing worth writing about."
I yawned and turned my attention to my dangling feet. I was wearing the same dark-blue, skinny jeans, the ones you helped me pick out last summer. It was too hot for jeans. It was always too hot. But I was wearing them anyway. My nails were painted with my favourite nail-polish, the bright, dark pink one which glitters. And the single silver toe-ring twinkled back.
You were sitting next to me. Your sneaker-and-jeans-clad legs drawn towards you, not dangling from the fortieth storey terrace like mine. The two glass bottles lay abandoned next to us, unfinished.
"Why don't you write something? It might cheer you up," you suggested half-heartedly.
I thought about that thing. And the other thing. And the surprising turn of events last year. And everything that happened last summer. And last winter. And the other thing that was happening now. And of myself, and what the doctor had to say the last time I summoned up the courage to drop by the clinic. And of the Political Science paper that was due the next day, yet here I was at the rooftop, choosing to have a writer's block. And of the Econometrics exam, about which I am completely blank. And the Social Science term paper about Social Science experiments (the less said about this, the better). And the Political Philosophy term paper and all the hundreds of readings left on the Islamic Just War and Jihad and extracts from the Koran. And of the unending rubbish and drama that surrounds the four of our lives that would put any soap to shame. And how I feel mad and traumatized and horrified all at the same time and you can't, you can't understand. Nobody can. And I'm too exhausted to try and explain.
"There's nothing worth writing about," I said, shaking my head, looking at my bottle with a sudden, renewed interest.
You pass it to me. It still feels cold, the cold water droplets trickling down the bottle's neck on to my unnaturally warm palms. A cool breeze blows, just right. Cool and not uncomfortably cold. It's very windy here on the fortieth storey.
"There's nothing worth writing about."
Very vivid...the first para reminded me of a scene in Forrest Gump...only thing you were not high on LSD! But a beautiful piece...specially how it ends.
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