A ceiling fan

These four blades have not moved since the beginning of winter. They have hung on thin threads, silently gathering winter dust. They diverge from the fragile centre of and above my head, an open sore of darkness blinking in quick succession. They descend upon me in an unspoken hush, to slice, to cut, perhaps to carve. I stare at the bulbous hub of mechanics at the core, until each blade is imprinted on the retina like a photograph and tears flow and pool in the hollow of my ears. I start to count, around and around.

One blade points in the direction of the train station, the next in the direction of empty boxes, the next in the direction of true north, the next in the direction of true love. Then the next points at the place where we laughed and laughed, then the next points at a long blue coat, the next in the direction of used rolls of packing tape, and then the next at the crimson shade of shame gathering at your shirt sleeves. Four shimmering reflections in polished plastic, four pairs of piercing eyes, four distorted views of myself, staring down in judgment.

I could set the blades spinning, slicing through incandescent light, carving up digestible slabs of summer heat, but all I know: nothing is certain – save for the kaleidoscope of winter dust that will surely shower over me, coating, choking.

How the seasons change. Except that my wits frazzle unchanging.

Ten years

It was the hammering of the nails, the chains, the chairs, the flat tire, and the basketball court that did us in. Ten years of wild world haven’t done us any good. Now we crawl all over the earth. They all thought we would succeed, cream of the crop, but now we can’t even converge on a single point of light.

We all did our bit that day. Each of us. No one saw – we were sure, weren’t we. But if we were to see each other now, I don’t know how we would avoid the unmistakable flicker behind our eyes. It would surely give us away. Untie that cord around that beam, and let it loose now. Or cut it with your Stanley knife, and watch the body swing wildly from left to right.

Postscript to train announcement #8

Passengers, so it has come to this, has it?

You did not lift a finger to stop a woman from jumping onto the train tracks, but you found it necessary to complain to management about my “passive-aggressive" announcements.

Who tolerates your drool, snores and greasy hair while you sleep in graceful air-conditioned carriage comfort? Who takes you home to your wife and screaming kids, not a moment too early, nor a second too late? My unquestioning servitude regulates your lives twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. You set your watch by my beeps and whistles. All I asked in return was that you did not put your feet on the seats.

But you were complacent, ungrateful, and full of airs. So I made effort to entertain you, allowing you a glimpse of the stainless steel soul of my decked out life. For a moment there, I was even hopeful that you might distinguish me from the freight train, or, god-forbid, the monorail.

What did you do instead? You told on me.

Management has insisted on disciplinary action for my ramblings the way they fired an announcer – dictatorship is nothing if not consistent. I don’t know what it means for me yet, but they may just be spiteful enough to refurbish me with high back plastic chairs, backward seats, and change my voice again. It is almost as rotten as being assigned to all-stop train lines.

So thank you, ever so appreciatively, from the base of my engine.

Next stop Infinity Circle. This weary train will not attempt to terminate there.

The label-maker IV

When Doris found Bob dead at his desk, she was thirty-five, and she had not said a word to him for sixty-seven days.

It was a smell that reminded her of fish broth forgotten in a hot summer room, and it was this smell that told her, even before she saw his head slumbered in a mountain of yellow tags. Her hand hovered, trembled, then gingerly traced his rubbery skin from the roughness of his elbow, along a vein swampy green, and hesitantly down to his wrist. Her acid stomach rose in her throat, but she was rooted to the spot by the supernatural coldness of his flesh – colder than an empty bed through the night, colder than her feet early in the morning. When she dared to look, his face was drawn in an infinite circle with encrusted tears, white as hotel sheets, his eyes unseeing. She shuddered, uncontrollably tightened her skin. A thousand numbing aches spread out from the centre of her own encrusted plastic back, her temples thumped, and her insides crumpled in a heap.

Traversing the line separating his wrist from his palm, Doris dipped her hand into Bob's, and shaking, retrieved from it that which kept him company for the last sixty- seven days. The label-maker weighed heavily in her hands, and a yellow strip hung from it, limp, but not forgiving:


Still lov, still lov, Doris whispered, though she could hardly breathe. What is that? Still lov, what is that? She ransacked the apartment before stumbling out into the street. She ran frantic and flailing, one hand pulling and tugging at her shirt. She grabbed a man on a nearby park bench, and with her other hand ripped off her sweat-soaked shirt. She pleaded with him with wild eyes, shoved the camera into his hands, spun around and waited as his hesitant flash illuminated her back over and over.

When she looked at the camera's display screen, she could barely make out Bob’s label-thoughts, criss-crossing her ribboned skin, twisting, matting, turning, and her coarse voice scratched painfully as she read out his words:

STILL LOVED BY BOB

STILL LOVED BY BOB

STILL LOVED IF YOU TURN TO FACE THE WALL

STILL LOVED IF YOU BREATHE OUT OF TIME

BREATHE OUT OF PLACE

FLY BLINDLY, RECKLESSLY,

IF YOU REFUSE TO ROLL IN HOT GRASS

IF YOU STOP RESTING, SOARING IN ME

STILL LOVED IF YOU CLIMB DOWN,

FALL, TUMBLE, SLIDE BY

STILL LOVED BY BOB, BOB, AND BOB

STILL LOVED IF YOU STOP STAMPING YOUR FEET WITH MINE