A sweltering hot afternoon, the sun’s rays makes us flinch a step back. A little poem hidden away amidst the criss-crossed bands, safety pins, combs, notes…, peals of unfamiliar laughter replacing the old loved ones ring in my ear, yet another pair of moist eyes spill into mine own, whilst the all too familiar songs play on while older boys look upto me… Experiences, yes…the world spilling into my little cup…period.

Glistening eyes looking through the slightly smudged glasses, tufts of hair on either side of his temples. A dark goblin like man sitting opposite to me, a small stuffy canteen…my cup absorbing his beads of sorrow, at first trickling, and then gushing out… twice my age, looking for momentary peace, atleast. A long tale and a short hour later, rubbing his eyes in disbelief, a little lighter, yes?

Suffering from two days of silence, light headed me and one more quite so like me, stepped out of the factory of words for, a simple, slightly silly, little date with Bacchus. Aye, I was an old though not too familiar guest at his courts, and took it completely upon my two shoulders to introduce her to this world of spirits, at 2 in the afternoon, with fingers crossed that none would miss the two pixies missing from their machines. After a lie and a ride on a noisy three wheeler leaving us 15 bucks lighter, we got onto the asphalt road of the cottage that promised to be the tavern of spirits we’d come seeking.

Accustoming to the dim lights we made our way to a table, past the odd middle aged couple and settled into the sofas. On the far end another couple queerer to my eyes as they assiduously avoided their child left in the care of an ayah. Stretching my hand for the menu and asking the waiter for the drinks menu while I followed the trained polite eyes for the thoughts squirming beneath the uniform. In the ensuing hour, two or maybe three (what was it!?) vodkas and a trembling breathing heart, poured into my cup, whilst an absolutely absurd selection of music from Abba to Avril whispered away at the back. Out of the doors of the tavern we drew back blinking as the sun sore at the shoddy ladies shoved us into the shadows of the plank above. Mustering up courage, hand in hand, laughing, dizzy, happy, crossing the road, talking, we made our way back….topping the silliness (now I can say it all here right?) I reached back absolutely straight faced only to realize that all through the way back my fly had been …. (LOL) (somebody shut (atleast) me up!)

Seems to be my gift (or curse?) at how my cup just keeps taking in all else’s weight. No wonder then how little poems come into being that I refuse to call my own, and lie wrinkled in the crevices of my handbags. Or when the littlest thing makes me fear the worst. Paranoid? Or just a bit too sensitive? Yet to figure this one out.

The golden haired witch with a heart of gold living with me, can apparently heal a person, no matter how far he/she might me. She’s gonna climb onto her little broom and fly into floots’s world (Scotland, yes?) once again, in a very short while…