Many lives - II

There was fire on the horizon. Not a blaze, embers. It seemed as if the edges of the night had caught fire. Maybe they had, the heat was beginning to singe the old woman as she looked on. She couldn't remember ever having seen anything prettier in her whole life!

It had been months since they had been out in the open. Not out of choice, you understand. But now the wait was finally over. As the rest of the world let the strangeness of the light entrap their attention, the two children crept from shadow to shadow, and finally melted away into the darkness. To freedom.

They'd said this might happen. But he had paid no attention. People were always predicting the end of the world, they hardly ever believed their own predictions, so why should he? There were more important things to worry about. Like the next poker night. Maybe he'd win back some of the money he'd lost last week.

Gant signalled to Kaspar 209. The planet's surface was reaching critical temperature. Soon most of the indigenous life forms would have their organic components disintegrate. It was showtime. He always loved this part.

Many lives - I

Beats drumming through his body like it was stretched taut, vibrating to every pulse.

He felt his eyes see and heard the sounds his ears funnelled to his brain from time to time. But his senses were often more misleading than not. Confusing, blurred and baffled, he mistrusted them, choosing to trust in everything most of us consider unfaithful.

The boy believed in the figments of his imagination. They had no basis in reality, and thus, never tried to mislead him. No false pretences of representing truth.

He had such imagination too! Beings and worlds, vast and varied, with stories unfolding within them, sometimes surrounding them. Ah! Such colours played through that universe, melodies of such heart wrenching tenderness.

Delirious in the throes of a fever, he lay on the corner of First and Amistad. One world, unseen and unseeing, passed by. Another, also unseen, continued its fantastic journey, unknowingly hurtling towards a spectacular end as the life that sustained it slowly ran out of sustenance.

Where is my mind?

I guess the best and the worst thing with life is that you never know what's coming. Around the next corner, through that door up ahead, beyond the next step.

It would be cynical to take the view that it is all doomed to end anyway, so why bother holding onto hope in the mean time. However, is it not supremely naive to hope that the future is filled with only fulfilled wishes? So the question remains, where does one draw the pragmatic line?

Is it possible to live life without expectation? What would that even look like? But if expectations are to be expected (heh, yeah, I know, right?!) then what should be their basis?

Yes, question upon question. And all the answers hide their faces behind more questions. That is assuming every question has an answer in the first place :).

I guess the more the burning colours of autumn desert the branches and carpet the pavements, and the closer the mercury drops to zero, the world begins to present its rather more stark countenance. It gets you thinking.

Yet, there remains the hope for a world soon to be enveloped in magic white. And the spring after :).

Currently: wondering
Listening to: The Shins - When you notice the stripes

Swim, cycle, run

I've never really thought running was fun, so to speak. Not the way a lot some of my friends/ colleagues/ acquaintances seem to anyway. I am more the cycling for fun sort. Although when I first moved here, the fun disappeared for a while.

Given a little time though (and a little perseverance) that fun was back. You can cover a lot more distance on a bike. You can coast down slopes and hurtle along tracks at slightly inadvisable speeds. Enjoy the view as it flies past. You can count distance covered in hundreds of kilometres without too much drama really.

These are all things you can never do while running. What you can do, however, is forget everything else. Just breathe. And put one foot in front of the other. There's no need to switch gears to suit the terrain, your legs manage that on their own just fine. There's no need to worry about getting the cleat off the pedal before you stop.

And there's the rhythm. There's something very soothing about running. Even swimming for me takes a lot more thinking. Thankfully, with running, you don't need to think about it (or end up inhaling water) every time you want to change your breathing. I imagine that last bit is just a question of practice, but come on, get to and from the pool, change, shower... Deal with other people, shouting kids...

The weather these days is perfect for running too. Cold enough to freeze you if you stop, but okay while you keep moving. And as you move, you could choose to send your mind miles or years away. Or think about nothing besides the peculiar way your left foot seems to meet the ground when compared to the right. Over and over again.

In the end there is always the happy strain of trying to vacuum enough air into your lungs till things settle back down. And with any luck, the things that had dampened your spirit to start with, begin to look a little less bleak.

Currently: bored
Listening to: London Grammar - Maybe