The Idea-smithy

Jack’s eyes lazily scanned the room, taking in all, accommodating none.

Gillian paused mid-speech, in spite of herself and her breath stuck in her throat. Then she caught herself and smoothly moved on, ramming her words into each other to create an artful slip of tongue. The ripple of amusement that passed through her listeners washed away the traces of anyone noticing her real mistake.

From her peripheral vision, Gillian knew that he had moved into focus and was weaving his way slowly but definitely towards her group. She never did the ‘corner of the eye’ thing…it was too obvious and blatant, a real pathetic ‘I can’t help looking but I don’t want to be seen looking’ gesture. No sirree, she was never pathetic. No sidelong glances, no downcast gazes, no secret looks, she didn’t do those.

What Gillian did do was yoga. It kept her eyesight as flexible as her fingers, her mind as nimble as her feet while dancing. Yoga allowed conversations to become like dances. Where you could move, navigate and control without actually thinking or making an effort to. Doing without trying. And what Gillian was doing without trying was turning herself and her little knot of people into a Jack-magnet…by sheer non-magnetism.

The man on her right turned slightly to accommodate the newcomer. Jack was smiling as he looked at the guilelessness in the eyes that seemed to be focusing and finally noticing him. Interesting, he thought.

And then, inspite of herself, Gillian smiled. Graceleness was her art and artlessness was where she was most graceful.

* Yes, the title is an unabashed rip-off of “I am Jack’s cold sweat” from the movie Fight Club.

Meet me on the other side of the moon
And walk in shadows with me
It won’t be all dark
You put a gleam in my eyes
That will lead the way for a stroll into madness

I’ll take you right up to the edge, walking blind
But just on the brink,
I promise to tell you
And let you decide
Whether to take a step farther or not

And if the decision to walk be yours,
I’ll fall through the night with you
Into an everlasting sea of silver light
Till one day, the man in the moon watching another couple take a stroll together
Smiles…and one of them hears it…and smiles back
At him. At you.

But know also that,
If then, you deter
You will find yourself alone in the lightless shadows
To make your way back alone
I won’t return to show you the way
And - what’s more - you’ll never see the gleam in my eyes again ever

I’ll have forever one way or the other.

Sometimes,
you close your eyes
to shut out the whole world
Pretending,
you’re the only one in it
For a piece
of that illusory peace

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Sometimes,
you close your eyes
And leave them shut
Just to see if,
when you open them
the other person is still there

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Speakers interchanged
But the words stayed true.

He looks at her from the corner of his eye
Thinking she won’t notice
Secretly hoping she will
So secret, he won’t even admit to himself

She feels his look
Like sunlight, warm on her cheeks
Her eyes stay downcast
Shielded from his blinding gaze
Warmed nevertheless by its intensity

Then it starts to rain.

When we kiss, do you close your eyes?
Or are you looking over my shoulder to see if someone better comes along?

I keep my eyes open,
checking if you close your eyes!

How come you don’t trust me?

Because you don’t trust me.

How do you figure that?

Because you ask too many questions!

She picks a gob of mud and aims carefully
Splatch! It spatters down his clean (too clean she thinks) face

Then she sits back to sip her drink
But it makes her choke

Arsenic!

…she thinks in panic

And so the loquacious one is silenced

But it wasn’t fair play!!

Are her final unspoken words

She spoke to me

Not a word said
Yet her silence whispered secrets
only a true mate to my soul could know

As I contemplated her silence
She seemed to blur

I saw her speaking to another
Or was it a reflection in her mirror?
Was it me?

I stayed wondering,
Eternity only, for company

He exclaimed,

You’re a worthy opponent. A good sparring partner!

She sighed wearily,

There is more to life than verbal battles. Don’t you get tired?

He asked,

Why? Our conversations are so much fun!

She retorted,

We don’t have conversations; we have custody battles for the last word!

She won that round. But of course.

She broke the rules first. It was like taking money from the wallet of someone who’d steal from her eventually.

And he did. Wondering why she didn’t agonize over closure, the way other women did.

She’d never tell him that the story ended long ago. With the realization that they were both capable of theft.

The thrill of her chase used to be about impossible dreams in the future
And wrestling them into submission

Now that nothing’s impossible anymore,
She finds herself thinking often of the past
Conjuring visions of how life would’ve been, if it hadn’t gone the other way

Nothing spells unachievable
Like what may have been…and wasn’t.