sleepy-eyed day

I have a couch that was handed down to me by a
colleague leaving the country. It's turned out
to be a powerful one, that couch. Well worth the
strain of pulling it up a flight of stairs.
And that's not too unusual a word for a couch
either - powerful.
I can, at the end of a busy day, sit on it, sink
in and nod off before you can say 'I`ll be there
for you'. On a quiet morning, I can sleep for half
an hour from 9.00 am to 9.10 am. And go off
a-visiting to the weirdest places at all sorts of
times. I think there's no fun in going off to the
world's hotspots,tourist spots, where you
just walk around like a baby with wide eyes, looking
at this and that and thinking 'wow!!' . Of course,
it's a 'wow', coz you don't have it at home. You come
back with memories of the the odds-&-ends-and-bits-of
-colored-glass-sorts. You can get the same from watching
T.V, or reading books.
Now, dreams and day-dreams, that's a different cup of tea
altogether.To go some place and leave your body behind,
inert, relaxed and immobilized.
To see and hear things that your sight and hearing and mind
would have never agreed upon, well, now that is interesting.
Like plugging into a program in the Matrix movie, the couch
plugs me into alternate realities. My alternate realities.
They are fragile like figures scratched in the beach sand,
and no less fun.

It's snowing outside. White fluffy flakes are slowly
but surely taking over the patio, swirling in around
and about the smokers' feet. Icy wind ruffles their
hair and plays the cigarette smoke away. The coffee pot
sighs on its warmers, but the caffeine is ineffective
against the cold, as seen in the creaking joints, aching
heads and frozen ear lobes.

I had a dream in which I was back in the Mumbai office,
only it looked more like a classroom, and we were going
to take a class in history. Of course, this sounded absolutely
normal to me then. The last thing I remember thinking, in
the back of my mind of course, when the teacher walked in,
was that my whole America trip must’ve been a dream I had the
previous night. I also vaguely remember wondering why we were
having history classes in the office. I rummage in my bag for
my books. Then, the alarm went off.

4 pm is the first ending of my day. The day ends struggling
against the post-lunch slump. And wakes up again at after 4.
Early evening and night are the early parts of a different day.
Crunching feet on the ice and leaves on the way to and from
the bus stop marks the axes around which the separate days hinge.

There was a second dream, in which a morose looking guy was
playing a guitar in what was the music room. Playing it well,
I might add. It didn't look like the music room I knew, but my
mind tells me that it couldn’t have been otherwise. When the
guy does finish playing the piece, I go to talk to him, but he
is talking to someone else, giving directions to what I assume
must've been the new location of the music room. I try to find
out the same, for I want to get to the music room and hear the
troupe practising , but he says something about there being slots
available and that I should definitely come take a look. And then
he was gone, elaving me wondering about the new location of the
music room

Back home, in reality, Bill was raving about kringles right
about after lunch. Isn't it wonderful that a small storefront
does so much better business across the whole north-east coz
of the internet ? I'm going to buy myself some dill pickles.
Which is a slightly crunchy version of cucumber steeped in
brine/vinegar solutions. I'm drooling already.

I got my last haircut from a chap called Vito, down at the
Farmer's Market. He's a slightly old Italian dude, very dignified,
rather friendly. He did a neat job, not forgetting to trim the
foliage between my eyebrows. I'm touched. No one has done that
before. I can't, since then, look into the mirror without feeling
quietly proud of the way I look. They don’t sell pigs at the
Farmer’s market here. Not the live ones, atleast.

Talk to you later baby