There is a playground where the swings creak a little and the metal see-saw heats up too much for children to use it. The benches miss a leg here, a back there. Children run around shrieking, pulling, hurting. By sundown however, the park is almost empty.
On dark monsoon evenings, I see a man there. He carries a navy-blue bottle. The opacity of the bottle hides the contents. Alcohol is an obvious guess. Other guesses, which aren’t as dramatic, include protein shake, coffee or even plain water. I have nothing against plain water but you see, I can’t weave an interesting plan around a water bottle. Then again, even alcohol might lead to a poor plot. Long story short, it doesn’t matter.
He wears a dark coat and sits on a bench, with his head hanging low. He talks to no one. Also, there is no one to talk to. He carries a fruit in his pocket. He eat it whole, uncut. I would have liked him to do it in a savage fashion, but he eats in meekly, like a squirrel. I pass him by, walking slowly, to observe his face. It’s clean shaven with taut cheekbones. His eyes don’t look like they could have ever been bloodshot.
I walk towards a swing disappointed. The man sits there, oblivious to my presence, staring at the empty playground. The whole lacklustre event leaves me a tad bitter. He must be a regular playground-goer, with a mundane job and a nagging wife. The bottle probably has sour buttermilk.
The man gets up and walks towards the gate. From the gate, he turns around and looks at me, unblinking, a surprising amount of hatred seeping out of his gaze. Truth is, maybe he is angry at me for observing him without subtlety.
I, however, hold my breath, hoping that there is some deep dark pool of lunacy swimming in him. He could of course a normal person, but normalcy got no one anywhere. Atleast no where interesting.
On dark monsoon evenings, I see a man there. He carries a navy-blue bottle. The opacity of the bottle hides the contents. Alcohol is an obvious guess. Other guesses, which aren’t as dramatic, include protein shake, coffee or even plain water. I have nothing against plain water but you see, I can’t weave an interesting plan around a water bottle. Then again, even alcohol might lead to a poor plot. Long story short, it doesn’t matter.
He wears a dark coat and sits on a bench, with his head hanging low. He talks to no one. Also, there is no one to talk to. He carries a fruit in his pocket. He eat it whole, uncut. I would have liked him to do it in a savage fashion, but he eats in meekly, like a squirrel. I pass him by, walking slowly, to observe his face. It’s clean shaven with taut cheekbones. His eyes don’t look like they could have ever been bloodshot.
I walk towards a swing disappointed. The man sits there, oblivious to my presence, staring at the empty playground. The whole lacklustre event leaves me a tad bitter. He must be a regular playground-goer, with a mundane job and a nagging wife. The bottle probably has sour buttermilk.
The man gets up and walks towards the gate. From the gate, he turns around and looks at me, unblinking, a surprising amount of hatred seeping out of his gaze. Truth is, maybe he is angry at me for observing him without subtlety.
I, however, hold my breath, hoping that there is some deep dark pool of lunacy swimming in him. He could of course a normal person, but normalcy got no one anywhere. Atleast no where interesting.
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