'it is only when all your buttresses fall away do you learn to stand tall Aapa' she said, straightening out the wrinkles in the bedsheet.
she turned and looked at her critically.
'what more could you possibly be waiting for?'

appa, staring blankly ahead, whispered.
'to see if I stand or I fall'

...............

this time last year there was a birdsong in my heart, she thought.
easy to fool yourself that spring optimism was budding love. still pink in the tip.
maybe that is why they say nip it in the bud, she thought to herself. it wasn't really to warn you to pluck it dead when it starts, but rather to not confuse the warming weather and hope in the air for infatuations of the heart.

.................

She traced the map as if she was tracing his skin. familiar places. remembering.how

story

the moonlight weaved through the gaps in her curtain, into her wide awake eyes.
another night.
she thought of the moonlight and how it lit up his soft brown eyes. meaningless details.
was it really meaningless? all of it?
it had felt so significant at the time. it still felt like a significant part of her life. but to know that it had
just been a chapter and just that, bothered her. she wasn't sure why.
she was sure there was more to this story and that the end hadn't happened yet.
she was also sure about linearity. in that it simply, didn't exist at all.
................................................
we like to think of things as parts to a whole. beginning. middle. end.
three neat sections. the natural order of things.
and while a chain of events naturally do follow order, their meaning follows no order at all.
there is beauty in chaos. and in beauty, chaos.
..................................................

story

she gripped the sink with both hands, blood curling underneath fingernails. Her cheeks flamed red, crimson like the sun over the fields of Rampur, crimson like the setting rays of the sun now over the Mediterranean.
She couldn't believe her foolishness. What was she seeking to find anyway? Here? In the chatter and the crowd and the narrow alleyways of the always awake chaos.