Blue Seas

Katie sat down on the sofa and frowned unhappily at the side stitch marks on her thighs made by her skin-tight jeans. She poured a little bit of Japanese Cherry Blossom body lotion in her cupped palm and began rubbing them onto her legs.  Paula turned her head to look behind her and then continued to stare down the balcony. Yesterday, in a fit to get into the holiday spirit, the girls had strung little fairy lights along the balcony railings. They were gleaming red and yellow and blue and orange and green in an alternating fashion now. Paula sighed. Alexa looked up from the floor where she was sitting and cleaning out her DSLR lenses.  "What's wrong Paulie?" she asked good-naturedly. "Nothing." said Paula absentmindedly, still staring out from the balcony which overlooked a street below. It was empty. "OOH YE-AH..." Music blasted in from the kitchen where Sandrine was cooking. She stuck her head out from the kitchen door, 'I'm making a...

The stove goes click-click-burn under Juanita's fingers as she turns on the electric fire. A frying pan is placed on the stove.  Out comes the cutting board.  Outside, the clouds began to gather and rumble. Juanita pays no attention to it. She slams the vegetables on the cutting board and looks for the knife.  The knife is nowhere to be found.  She tucks a loose curl behind her ear and instead pours a cap full of oil into the pan, followed by a pinch of cumin. The oil starts to hiss and the cumin starts to pop. Juanita steps back a little. The spicy, acrid smell of cumin and heat from the angry, hissing oil combined with the humidity from the cloud-covered sky infused another throb to her already paining forehead. Juanita turns to hunt for the knife again.  This time she finds it, in the same place she had looked minutes ago. She begins to dice the beans and carrots in quick, alternating hand movements, her knife smacking the wooden cutting board, mak...

"Hush! Don't cry..." The mother clasped the child to her body. Whatever little space remained between them was closed. The child buried his face in the mother's neck and howled. His tears smothered, drowned over the mother's reassuring words of kindness. The pangs of hunger. The sense of disappointment. The feeling of unhappiness and failure and grief that was seeping into it, through its skin. The child couldn't take it any more. A fresh wave of tears washed over him. He was lying on the floor. Curled up in a foetal position. Crying. The mother came, tried to embrace the defeated being. Crooned soft, calming words. The child's body shook. The mother stroked his head and murmured, "Don't cry." The child sobbed loudly in reply. The mother sighed and said with finality, "Don't cry. For there is no end to this grief."

She hides. Who do you hide from? The morning rays catches the tinted windows. The curtains rustle softly in the wind. Wait, did I just hear a windchime?  So many things she's seen. She knows what the real world is like. She's not a child anymore. She was never a child. The flurry of activity down the hall. The buzz of conversation and amused laughter. The pitter-patter of flip-flopped feet against the kitchen tiles. The sizzle and smell of pancakes. I try to draw her out of the shell. She's so shy! I would have never thought when I first met her. The others smile. The kettle whistles. Coffee is ready, almost. She's still hiding. This is getting annoying. What is she so desperate to hide from anyway? My eyes sweep over the hall. Magazines strewn over the coffee table. A spaghetti stain on the ottoman. The bottle and glasses from last night, propped on the sideboard. Signs of the people who live here. She's hiding from herself. Breakfast is ready. I yawn,...

Our dog Ben, is now a year old. He hardly qualifies as a pup. He's nearly five feet tall, standing on his hind legs. And his formidable size and structure does his dalmatian-Alsatian ancestry justice. However, for the most part, Ben acts like a coy, spoilt, and occasionally retarded child. He barks mindlessly at  suspicious looking shadows, proceeds to ignore my brother and me if we've been spending 'quality-time' together without him, sleeps on as cats strut about his territory.  So far Ben is concerned, and both my parents, I might add, see it fit to encourage this attitude, he is not a dog. Chasing cats is a menial activity, far below his dignity. So far the aircon is on, and he has a fat pillow and a reasonably thick blanket, Ben doesn't have a care in the world. Sometimes however, Ben's canine nature overpowers him and gets the better of him. One such incident happened the other night with a piece of naan. Dad had brought some naan and kebab for din...

"I would do anything for you. Anything. Really." She could see him. She could see his lips moving, forming every word. His slightly parted, parched lips. She could see the hint of a five o' clock shadow on his jawline and upper lip. She could see the beads of sweat collecting at the side of his dark eyebrows. Yet she couldn't hear him properly. As if his voice was muted in her mind. His hand touched her cheek to turn her face towards his, in an attempt to get her to focus. "Look at me. I would go to the ends of the world for you. I'm willing to do everything. Whatever it takes to make you happy. If there's anything you want, anything at all, I'll do it for you." Outside, lightning streaked across the dark sky illuminating the horizon in one, white flash. Rumbling thunder followed. "It's going to rain," she said softly. Her voice sounded hoarse. "Look at me! Listen to me! I love you and I mean it." ' ...

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 t...