☫ A tea for Monday and viceversa

Flashbacks  Diversions along Oxford Road
A tea for Monday and viceversa

Some things out there .·.

While the universe allowed him to use only half the space I use in it today, his mother would allow him to benefit from the window seat whenever possible in every metro ride they took. Patterns formed in front of his eyes as the subway moved underground and the fluorescent lamps from the tunnels' walls followed each other in a simple path, lighting the apparent nothingness through the fortuitously elegant effect.

At that age, details like that meant everything to him. The "stepping-into-conclusions stage" of his life was very probably triggered by the peace he always got when contemplating at the slightest breath exhaled through the common episodes from each day of existence. From the weekly fluorescent wakes highlighting the certain presence of something beyond the tunnels' darkness, a copious flow of observations and their respective ideas arised.

From then on, while he grew up and started using more of the universe's space, the curiosity and the imagination propelled by the basic gestures coming from the ones surrounding him, played a major role in building up his person and in sharpening up abilities. It all made him a respectful being, as well as bringing in a more excited pumping of blood into his developing veins. He learned to love life from that perspective; a perspective which also helped him to become who I am this very day, showed me the best knowledge field for me to study, and taught me how to wait for the best possible woman to love that I could have never imagined, while the fluorescent lamps in the dark were always guiding me in that direction, which now explains why their path always seemed to look like a suspicious smile. Now I use twice the space I did back then, but I am quite sure the universe doesn't mind all that much, since at least half of that volume has been made to enjoy existence in the highest affordable way.

The reason why this all came into my head, is because some other day when coming back from classes in the metro, I saw a mother sat his son -who occupied some half of the space I do in the universe- right next to the train's window, but as we left the station behind and he leaned towards the dark staring at the fluorescent lighting inside the tunnel, his mother pulled him back from the window telling him, "Stop looking, there is nothing out there". I suspiciously smiled to myself.

خِرمان

The best sunsets in London .·.

He headed towards the riverside, along with his already dismounted bicycle. The way the Sun's agony had tainted the skies was certainly worth the bit of attention, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold. Offering full countenance to the exaggerated afternoon tides of colours, he let his veins absorb every single ray the picture had generously spreaded throughout the atmosphere, and stood there for a considerable amount of seconds according to London's time-cost scale. As expected, he couldn't help to give away a smile that betrayed his intention of hiding the fact that he was actually enjoying the most memorable moment of the day, while he still held his bicycle against the promenade's railing. To him, and no doubts about it, that was the-most-beautiful-display-of-daily-coincidences.

Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, except for this one time.

The first time London was offered to my feet, I got the impression that it was an endless city. Not because of its geographical boundaries, but rather because of the infinity of corners where to stop to take a good photo that it sheltered. It seemed like no conceivable number of visits would have ever been enough to capture all the forms of lights and shadows coexisting in different shades in each wonderfully set victorian street, in each majestic building and square, and in each paraphernalic monument erected either for courage's or for cowardice's sake.

However it only took a couple more of such visits for me to have gone through all of the above mentioned, as responsibly as the kind of traveler I am. As simple as that, to my curiosity, the very well fed stronghold nurtured with the most different kinds of gold slices, from pretty much every latitude of the planet, was over. Not as fatalistically as it sounds of course, but quite as drastically.

Of course I was to be wrong. Not because of great engineering feats undiscovered in between the mazelike urban network, or because of crazier and more intoxicating night events previously ignored. No. I realised I had been wrong right after starting the last walk around the city before leaving it for good. That last time, in which no camera was compromised, and familiarity was the accomplice of every step undertaken. What was then different? The day was clear, and what I could perceive was not anymore the buzzing and random slashes of light that the city decided to reflect towards my eyes, but the complete set of intimately related dances engaged by the beams when rather softly grazing the metropolitan skin, right before becoming corrupted by the human arrogance inevitably impregnated in every square inch where Man had intended to overcome the higher wisdom.

The smile drawn up in my face made it all the way with me to the bench I decided to conquer by the riverside. Although no sunset had started yet, nothing seemed to be out of place anymore, even in a city where everything -and mostly time- costs as if it would have been covered by gold.

A dull pink tone commenced invading the skies, to which more enthusiastic and genial brushes followed continuously in what I figured out to be an uprising celestial painters' challenge, competing for londoners' glances and several-karats-gold-bathed time. It would have been impossible to declare a fair winner among such a fair display of compositions, however it was definetely long after the best ones had been completed when he arrived by the riverside with his dismounted bicycle. I had been there all along, and having admired the complete display-of-daily-coincidences I could'ave firmly stated that that definetely hadn't been the-most-beautiful from them all. However how sure was I? Generally I would have fully disagreed with him, but now who was I to declare a fair winner among the daily moments when, after all, me, the full set of tainted skies, my bench in the promenade by the riverside, him, and his dismounted bicycle all belonged to the same uncorrupted dance of light?

خِرمان

Kings of the world .·.

Who would have guessed that the hard striking coldness, threatening every step directed towards the same horizon the Sun romanced with all day long, was soon to become a mildly perfumated atmosphere, coloured not by colours, but by the certain feeling of them surrounding you in the chiaroscuro... that tirany of the nose over the senses.

It didn't took me too long to catch up the chaotic -but never random- steps of my sri lankan mate, Myuron. He was just living the sidewalk with some friends of his, leaving an afternoon of lectures behind, just as I was doing.

I joined them for sheesha, in a friendly sheesha place which dragged us all the way through Rusholme's special universe, where I had the chance to exchange some words with the other guys. We sat at the back corner while "Sanman" asked for the sheeshas in his moroccan arab, and Myuron turned the small table into an improvised card table. I taught them how to shuffle the deck of cards they had brought, and a moment after I was winning my first international card game against Richard, Myuron's Cypriot friend, and the others were filling the room with the orange and cherry aromatized smoke from the pipes. The rings and smells really seemed to light up the numbness of the tired afternoon light with fluorescent gusts, which followed each other with the patience and the perseverance of the tides.

We didn't leave until I got to win my first card world cup against a Sri-lankan, a Moroccan, a Cypriot and an Iraqi (Tam, the second I know now), and Richard had a problem solved: he had told some friends of his some days ago, that he was going to a party with them that night, but had regreated the decission and then felt bad for stepping off -a dilema I got to see resolved via cell phone in greek.

Me and Myuron headed then for Owens Park where he taught me you can safely stop a two-floors bus in the street for you to cross the road, just by raising your arm in this certain way. A trick I wont be performing as often as the people who want me dead would like me to, but ad hoc for giving an end to an afternoon of invisible colours and coldness once again beaten.

خِرمان

Life's pulses

Refreshed anew life's pulses beat and waken / To greet the mild ethereal dawn of morning; / Earth, through this night thou too hast stood unshaken / And breath'st before me in thy new adorning, / Beginst to wrap me round with gladness thrilling, / A vigorous resolve in me forewarning, / Unceasing strife for life supreme instilling.

As a kid I remember letting my cat sleep on my chest, as I laid down on a random -or perhaps not that random- couch staring at infinity. What I did then was to try synchronizing my breathing rythm with hers, so that I would bother her as least as possible. It really seemed to work as she not only stayed there for a while but, from then on, it made her keep looking for me every time she got sleepy.