"57 twists"

2004-11-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

57 TWISTS
MAKE A
SHORT MAN
COME ALIVE

Contents:
0 Teething 0 Let's begin there: Chapter 1
0 The next afternoon, Chapter 2
0 Long time no filter coffee: Or Chapter 3
0 When he returned it was time for Chapter 4

Long time no filter coffee: Or Chapter 3.

2004-11-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

No early morning sounds seem to permeate into Sam and Midge’s life. Not that it matters. But it makes one wonder. See the connection between Sam’s height, his self-imposed shelter from the sun; and the pygmies blanketed by the foliage in the Rain forest?

Rhetoric.

The rhyme begins to play again. Midge every time she has nothing to do replays Sam’s proposal to her. Let’s introduce a twist to the scene where Sam is on his knees with a small little box in his hand. Midge opens the box only to discover no ring in the little blue satin box. Surprise. Surprise. Sam then opens the palm of his other hand and reveals a ring with a diamond so large it couldn’t possibly fit into that little blue box.

Midge peeks out of her daydream. It glitters. It was just the sunray bouncing off Sam’s steel watchstrap. Sam looks upon her indulgently. Smiles at her, ruffles her hair. Midge snuggles closer to Sam and looks upon him all the more fondly because of the thought that had just played out in her mind.

Affection for something he is yet to do was totally acceptable to Sam. Sam is not averse to marrying Midge. But the thought had simply never crossed his mind. Put him through a lie detector’s test and it will not reveal anything different.

Midge at that moment felt extremely bold. Or you could say extremely weak. She asked Sam for a diamond ring. Sam knew he would have to withdraw money from his father’s legacy but agreed without a second thought. Midge misunderstood it. A victim of her own device: the daydream.

Sam would never understand the row that followed. He didn’t hand over the ring as customary on one knee. Midge protested. Midge made her feelings clear. Midge made him regret his affection. Midge was deeply hurt. Sam was deeply hurt by Midge.

Long time no twist in the story you thought. Wrong.

Sam disappeared without leaving as much as a bookmark. You assumed it was his home they were living in. Wrong again. It was Midge’s home.

But he didn’t do it as suddenly. He took his time. No, he didn’t take his time packing up all his things. He left them all behind. He took a couple of days just trying to patch up with Midge. They did.

Yet.

It came rudely when it did. More appropriately, Midge hated the diamond ring. It was a blue sapphire to tell you the truth. The same variety that ruined all the male members of a certain royal clan. So much so princesses and queens only wore it happily ever after. As a precaution.

Treat that with derision. Boo it till you discover that Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Myanmar are the only god-forsaken places where these stones are found. All countries that have been at strife for years. Coincidence? Perhaps? The flip side is this stone can catapult the wearer into instant fortune and fame if it agrees with the persona. Midge grew instantly famous. Midge grew instantly rich. She became the game show host of a multi-million dollar game show.

Long time no Sam.

Midge hadn’t forgotten him. He was far from a closed chapter. Though no matter how hard she tried she could not find him. He had disappeared without a trace. She had asked around but nobody knew. Blind man Joe knew but he had foresworn his loyalty to Sam.

Perhaps it has occurred to you that at no time until now do you really have any clue of the geography in which Sam and Midge reside. You may now suspect that it is deliberate. Yes it is. No city, no street, no recognizable landmark.

Plod in a strange country. Without a passport, without a consulate you can run to, like all good Americans do when in trouble. You are trapped. You knew four people and one has disappeared. Fortunately the cause is not a riot, a war or a coup. It’s just a misunderstanding. But then a misunderstanding can have serious ramifications as people on either side of the Indian-Pakistan border have often discovered. Dismay.

Sam in the meanwhile has turned back into a frog. Remember the side effects of being kissed by a princess have to be renewed ever so often to let the transformation be an agreeable prince. Not something you read in the fairy tales with happy endings. But then the happy prince and princess lead a happy life, which ensures they smooch ever so often…so there’s no danger of a physical regression.

Indulge the fantasy a little while longer. It’s the portrait of a teller as an angry young frog. Sam had not truly disappeared. He was simply the frog that had fallen into a deep ditch and could find no way to get out. Too steep to climb, too high up to clear with a jump.

Press conference: But then why didn’t Midge kiss the croaker who she passed by every morning? Vague answer. Why didn’t she even pay attention to it? Unintelligible mumbling.

True, Midge had kissed a frog on a dare. But then nothing had happened to the frog. It was only the next day that she met with Sam. So it was really difficult for her to tell that it was really a frog that had turned into Sam.

The truth was also that the frog needed to sleep over the kiss to decide whether Midge was really the princess. The morning after test answered itself. The frog awoke transformed as Sam.

It met Midge on her way to office. Or rather Sam did. And Midge was head over heels over Sam. Kind of explains why it never occurred to Sam to even consider marrying Midge. It was kind of alien to Sam. Neither could Midge understand why a flood of nostalgia swept over her every time she passed a certain ditch.

Sam the frog in the meanwhile was resisting the overtures made by all other frogs in the ditch. The last thing he wanted to do was collect eggs, and pile eggs on the she toad’s back. Forgot to mention that Sam had been a Surinam toad before he was kissed and this is a peculiarity among Surinam toads; they hatch eggs in a pouch on their back.

Imagine this love triangle: Midge, Sam and a she Surinam toad. Actually don’t even begin to. In fact, forget this entire line of fanciful thinking.

Sam had never been a frog in the first place. In fact, all that had happened was Sam had gone away to think things over. Midge would have wished that Sam had done all his thinking back at home. But then men seem to find it difficult to do so. Gautam Buddha had set precedent. He left his queen, his kingdom and all his royal belongings. Look what that got him: nirvana. Look at it from the queen’s point of view: she lost him forever. Ouch. Gautam did visit her once later on but it was too little too late.

Fortunately for Midge Sam didn’t go that way. Unfortunately for Midge there are no guarantees in life. Midge was bereft. Midge was at loss for words. Midge walked out into the little garden outside her home. She often went there when she wanted to collect her thoughts. The denizens of the garden were too perceptive not to notice. The grass trembled. The ants scrambled out of her way. The moles that had their home below the garden dived for safety but were not sure whether the ceiling of their home would survive the footsteps. Midge was too upset to notice.

She headed straight for the park bench she had in her garden. But it was rusted in places. Just to illustrate that a few monsoons had passed since she felt the need to retreat into introspection. The creatures of her garden looked on unable to make head or tail. None of them had ever ventured into the home and Sam had never ventured into theirs. Midge found her place on a swing that was just a wee bit dusty. It squeaked but Midge was too far-gone to hear it. The swing wished she would get the hint but no, Midge will not remember to oil its squeaking joints anytime in the near future.

Actually Midge hardly swung. She hardly moved her feet. The swing could have had legs for all she cared. On second thoughts anything with legs was a bad idea for her. It meant that anytime the option to walk could be exercised. Meaning Sam. Midge was however, angry at Midge. Midge talked to Midge.

Midge: How can you let marriage destroy you even before you marry?
Midge: All I can do is plead insanity.

How Midge berated Midge. Midge apologised to Midge. Midge went down on her knees to no avail. Midge refused to listen to Midge. Midge tried to appease Midge. Midge was inconsolable. Midge tried nevertheless. Midge promised to Midge she would get Sam back. Midge: How?

Midge began to talk to Midge. Midge outlined a plan she had. Midge made up as she went along. Perhaps Midge listened to. Perhaps she didn’t. Midge was expressionless. The creatures in the park were waiting for the sign that all would reign well in their guardian angel’s life. It came after the conversation between Midge and Midge went on for a little while longer. The tears flowed. The creatures rejoiced. They were selfish.

There is a chameleon inside everybody. Hoping that it never gets noticed.

Midge was hardly looking. Tears impede vision. The creatures could see them coming down in buckets. Yes, it is an exaggeration. But in this theatre of reality too hamming is not without its virtues. In fact, it is highly recommended especially in the telling. Gossip keeps getting spicier each time its told. By the time the last spider in the little garden got to hear about Midge’s tete a tete with herself you might as believe her lachrymose glands had sprung a giant leak.

Let alone the surgeon, even the ear nose and throat specialist was not the need of the hour. A shrink perhaps could have earned an hour’s worth of listening, which could have easily extended to two and a half, depending on how comfortable the couch was. Too comfortable and Midge would have slept. The extremely busy and very popular quiz host was not getting her eight hours of beauty sleep. Sam wouldn’t let her. Through the sheer lack of his presence. A visit to the bank revealed a closed account and no forwarding address.

Midge went home with a cushion she never knew existed. The sweet little lady had kept it safe for Sam initially. But as it turns out it was more like she was safekeeping for Midge. Midge was extremely thankful. She slept every night, woke up every morning with it.

It was a lovable lump of cotton. It took whatever shape Midge gave it. Midge hugged it. Midge pummeled it. On rare moments when Midge felt emotionally independent Midge threw it off the bed. It lay there for days until Midge in a moment of weakness retrieved it. A psychologist would call it transference. The cushion came to stand for Sam and Sam would come to mean cushion.

Let’s replay a previous conversation that Midge had with herself.

Midge: How could you let marriage wreck me even before I married?
Cushion: Would you have felt any better hugging me if you were married?

Midge pummeled the cushion harder. It hurt but just sponged it. Midge hugged it hard an instant later. Midge missed Sam. Midge’s wet cheek touched the cushion. The happy yellow sunflower on the cushion cover was experiencing its first incidence of dew. So it thought. Morning was still a few hours away.

Midge awoke from a dream where Sam was beside her on bed. She only saw a cushion. She threw the cushion on the floor. Stamped on it and walked off. The cushion was happier off with the nice lady at the bank. But had little choice. The sunflower wept though it continued to smile outwardly. Perhaps the cushion should consider a career as a comedian. Hemorrhaging inside, humorous outside would be a sweet-sad way to explain the real and reel lives of many of our comic stars.

So is Mickey Mouse silently mourning a first love he had to leave behind in a burrow? It would be a great deal of fun trying to imagine up all the heartbreaks of all popular animated characters actually. However looking at the state at which Midge is in maybe it would be thought of as highly indulgent, inappropriate or indelicate. Upsetting for sure. Even give cause for violence on the part of Midge though she has indicated no such propensity until now. But these are still early days.

But the Real tragedy of being Roger Rabbit, the ultimate price for fame is a story that needs to be told. Alexander Dumas is rumoured to have had ghostwriters doing duty on his sequels to the Three Musketeers. Perhaps it gives the author an inspiration on how to write more than one book at a time. Not by himself. Perish the thought.

Incidentally: Nostalgia is the only sequel that consistently betters the original.

Midge needs attention. Immediate attention. She can’t live in this comatose manner. She can’t live by asking questions of people who crave for an identity they believe will be theirs if they appear on television. And spending the rest of her time questioning herself.

In the meanwhile Sam admires Antonio Miraldi’s Gondola shoe, which is displayed at the atrium in a rather popular beach side hotel in Florida. You’ve got to be the giant in Gulliver’s Travels to put your right foot in…to that shoe. He sees it as an alert on his yahoo page.

So technically, Sam could still be anywhere in the world. In Limerick for all we know. It’s easily the largest Limerick in the world. It’s a town in Ireland, the fifth largest there. Or then he could be in Cucumber, which is a place somewhere in America. Or he could be in Jodhpur, which is not just another shoe that Polo players wear but a dusty city in India. You know if you were still into that name, place, animal, thing, game, many of these cities would quite easily take up two categories. (Now can we think of an answer that would qualify for three categories, and then four and then all? Uh-oh.)

Midge is in a quandary on whether to file a missing person complaint or not. She decides against it. She didn’t want the answer to where. She wanted to find out why. They had patched up after all. She sought other reasons for his absence. She didn’t rule out a kidnapping. She didn’t rule out a hit and run. She didn’t rule out amnesia. She didn’t rule out another woman. Then again, she did. She didn’t rule out a sabbatical in the Himalayas. She didn’t rule out a vacation in the Rain forest. She didn’t rule out a holiday in a friend’s house though she had no clue who that friend could be. She didn’t rule out a ski trip for one. She didn’t rule out a visit to a sanatorium. She didn’t rule out a signing up to assist at a Brazilian home for abused women. She didn’t rule out Sam going undercover to Iraq. She didn’t simply think that Sam would consider a job as an understudy to a mechanic.

He became a mechanic’s apprentice out of spite. He knew she wouldn’t even think of it. How well he knew her. No, it wasn’t one of those garages where Harley Davidsons got a makeover. It was just one of those regular places where regular people with regular cars went for tune-ups, oil top-ups, brake lining fixes and you get the drift.

Sam loved the grease. Midge did not have a car. So, there wasn’t a danger of she accidentally discovering him either. He hid out. Hoping never to be tapped on the back and hearing her cry out loud for Pete sake. Pete? Midge had nobody in the world who was named Pete. Was he the replacement to Sam? Sam postponed thinking about it. Sam stepped out to do whatever he does when he steps out.

The next afternoon, Chapter 2

2004-11-18T08:27:00.000-08:00

Both Midge and Sam awake way past breakfast time, with a start. Sam is late for office. Midge is late for whatever that she was up to the previous night. Hurried byes later you find Sam at the bank. Sam was too late. His cushion had been taken. The daily charade had beaten him to it. His hunt was however very brief. The girl who helped him out the previous day was being a complete darling. She had helped herself to the cushion before anybody else in the office could. She handed it over even before his eyebrow could as much as quiver into a question.

No, she was not in love with him. Neither will she be smitten in the course of events. Even the thought of a predictable ménage a trois so early was not admissible. Which is why her name is being withheld. In fact, she continues to work at the very same cooperative bank till this day.

A grateful Sam perched himself at his daily place and handed out the notes and collected them until it was closing hours that afternoon. His last customer was a blind man. So Sam not only handed him the money but also asked him to wait as he closed up. He accompanied the old man back to his home.

No, it wasn’t that Sam wanted to play Samaritan. The blind man was his friend. He lived on a rather busy street adjacent to the street where Sam lived. They met at the paper stand on the kerb. The blind man sold newspapers. Magazines too. His 13-year-old nephew played the saxophone well. Sam and the old man would often sit at the porch outside the old man’s home while listening to the nephew practicing his scales. He was learning from a Brazilian who lived down the lane.

Sam didn’t understand jazz. Sam did not understand rock n roll either. Sam was not averse to music however. He listened patiently. He smiled when he liked something. Sometimes he would smile when he was listening to the blind man’s nephew too.

Blame it on endorphins. Happiness is nothing but a chemical reaction. Chocolate has the same effect as marijuana say some researchers. One man's chocolate, one dog's respiratory problem. Says research deadpan without a hint of a wink. The Animal Planet however runs chocolate commercials while warning their faithful to refrain from feeding it to their pets. It could be fatal. Is there anybody there who wants chocolates to feature a statutory warning stating that eating chocolate could cause serious harm to the heart, kidneys and central nervous system of dogs?

Well, blame it on chocolates. She’s not feeling happy because of your thoughtful gesture wrapped in silver foil. Sam knew that. So no matter how much Midge pleaded/whined/complained he would never gift her chocolates though he would sit with the blind man Joe and eat a bar of dark chocolate. And of course, smile. But that’s not taking away from the kid’s saxophone playing prowess. He was genuinely good; he could even play parts from a Wynton Marsalis album. And yes, Sam was smiling after having had his second bar of luscious dark chocolate. All by himself.

Old man Joe too smiled to himself. But that was more because of cognizance. He knew Sam had quickly supped on two bars of chocolate without even offering him one out of courtesy. Sam was possessive like a child. He smiled again at that. Blind men often have a great sense of humour. They were simply putting on an act for the world to have a moral when six of them spent an afternoon with an elephant. They knew even before they had groped twice that it was an African pachyderm that they were dealing with. Blind men are extremely observant with their fingers. But no one has ever seemed to question how those with such insightful digits would ever arrive at such an incongruous conclusion. But then that’s how it is with these sticky parables; in no time they become clichés and people mistake them to be the truth. People just don’t seem to question the veracity of clichés. They meekly submit. Clichés are the truth is itself a cliché.

Happy Sam spent a little more time with happy blind ol’ Joe and then left for home. Home was empty once again. Not even a note. Quietly the furniture in the room raged.

Rage, rage against the dying of self-esteem.

The furniture too counts for something. Even the verb was insulting. It was an affront to their individuality. Out of deference we will employ the collective pronoun them in all further reference. And referring to the home as empty with them being there was further more insulting. A massive mahogany wardrobe with gleaming brass handles and ornate corners and measuring more than six feet was tired of being perceived insignificant. It wanted to rumble its interiors but stopped out of empathy for the shirts and trousers and other accessories that are also victims of this unfair practice. Litigation was not an available option. Silence was not an acceptable one but the only available recourse.

Hush now mahogany wardrobe. Hush you navy blue blazer. Hush you chromosome underwear. Hush you little folded handkerchief. Irony. What do you offer the kerchief that wants to weep? An ode by an Urdu poet, who is just one of many to have mastered the fine (indeed) art of irony.

We lived in a neighbourhood of fire worshippers/my house was ablaze and the sea was close by.
Salaam to the poet. A salute in a language he truly understands: Urdu.

Salaam Sam as well, because that is often the greeting that poets and people use alike when they meet each other. Sam was not in the mood for a conversation however. He was, you guessed right, in the mood for another mental dual. Out came the chessboard. Out came the chessmen.

Aah!

Mortal blow to our chess indifferent audience. Head for the exit. Ruin your lungs with a smoke. Munch on something. Kill yourself with an overdose of caffeine. The frayed burgundy curtains have most certainly come down on act no. 82987746646648888884994041. A figure you’ll arrive at after you tot up all the acts including those by politicians, football players, schoolboys and girls, executives, clients, venders, call center professionals, opera singers, newspaper delivery boys, janitors, cashiers, tellers and all. Feel free to run a check and while you are at it also count the number of crows in your city. Actually just counting the number of crows would be more than enough. You could begin by looking for the black-feathered variety settled on the trees lining the lonely street to Sam’s home. Or then you could begin elsewhere.

Begin closer to where Midge is hard at work. Earning the dollar equivalent of the now redundant deutchmarks. What with Euros having finally obliterated every last pfennig of German mint from even the lexicon of the day-to-day.

Who is really concerned about those crows? Was Midge at work? She was. So much so she was already having withdrawal symptoms. Turkeying as they refer to it in slang. (Yet another bird with bird problems.) She just did not have a second to even step out for a few puffs. She was faced with an increasingly, seemingly impossible deadline. Though we all know in story land that the protagonist and even the supporting cast often achieve the incredible. She wasn’t going to refreshingly enough.

She would ask for an extension and yes, it’s still in some ways story land because at the end of that evening she would get intimation that the extension would be granted. But she doesn’t as yet know that and suffers her sincerity.

She returns home positively pooped. Aching all over her pretty body. Though Sam is too deep in slumber to even appreciate. Midge slides into bed but though she is tired can’t seem to sleep. Her mind wanders. Wander, wandering into the realm of possibilities. Marriage. A diamond ring. The precedent: predictable stuttering. Followed by the all-important haltingly delivered question. And her torturously delayed response. Oh! Even the conjecture was all so wickedly delectable. She licked her lips almost and slipped into a stupor with just the initial stirrings of a smile flitting on her lips. Into the very same beatific land that butterflies never seem to return from.

Where do all the butterflies disappear?

Actually let it lie. Another unsolvable mystery is totally OK. Nothing could be more tragic than a butterfly on its deathbed. Not even curious now. Sleep. Snore, oblivious. Sleep some more. Wake up with happier thoughts. When the dream sets the morning begins. This morning began like someone had just pushed the day out of a running train. It thudded into being. Tuesday was having a bad morning. It glared unnecessarily. Sam squirmed. Sam turned brushed against Midge’s empty blanket and then turned around again. Tuesday glared even more. The sun was merely playing messenger. Sam began to snore.

Corrigendum: Sometimes the afternoon begins when the dream sets.

Sam woke when the clock struck three. Midge had long flown the nest. Bavarian Motor Werken couldn’t be kept waiting. Work beckoned the young lady and she obediently traipsed in the direction she was bid to. Poor sincere Midge. Poor Midge. Sincere Midge. Midge. Miiiiidge. Miiiiiiiidge. Recognise Sammy’s voice? It was high pitched and whining. Tuesday smiled sadistically. Mission accomplished.

Sam did not work on Tuesdays however. Neither did Tuesday appreciate the proverbial out stuck thumb. Sam had breakfast. Alone. Sam returned to bed. The radio was tuned into a country music station. Sam flitted between attentive and non-attentive spans. Sam did not call Midge up.

Midge was waiting for Sam to call. Midge was done with her work. She had delivered. Tuesday had met with stern opposition in her and was down on the mat. But Tuesday was not ready to admit it. It got up on the count of 7. It swayed from left to right but would not throw in the towel. Midge was in for a long and bitter struggle. To make matters worse Midge bought some chocolate cake. She smiled naughtily even before she had a bite. She would take it home she decided. Things were not looking good for Tuesday.

Midge returned home to a huge hug. Tuesday shrank some more. In fact, Tuesday’s cameo role in chapter ended quite there.

Good riddance.

The rest of the evening and night was joyous for Midge and Sam. The gloom had lifted. Lethargy had fled the room. Sam was up and about. I don’t like green eggs and ham that Sam I am. He announced his awakening. Not with somber words of wisdom as awakening often seems to signal. But with good fun and abandon. Abandon me again he threatened Midge and see what I’ll do to you. He chased her all around their little home with a cushion in his hand. She ran more to participate in the play game of pursuit than because she wanted to evade the cushion. Pursue me once again dear Sam her fast beating heart seemed to say. But her exhausted lungs would not hear of any to be told. They gasped for all the intake of air. Sam caught up with her and hugged her back. Not one-all but love-all. The game had just begun.

Midge and Sam left home. Smelling good and looking as good as they possibly could. They were ugly people. She had a hunchback and he limped. She spoke with a lisp and he stuttered. And even the keyboard detests playing fellow conspirator in a fabrication of zero consequence. Confessions of an abused keyboard are the subject matter of a biography by an artist obsessed with his tools. Meet one suggest it. Edison says he became famous because other suggested their inventions to him because they were too lazy to see it to its completion. Maybe these confessions are what will make a Nobel laureate. Then this is a gift that extends all the way to Stockholm to meet the king and kiss the queen’s hand.

In the meanwhile Sam and Midge have overtaken the story. They have already reached the restaurant and were three wines down cumulatively. Midge, 3 vodkas down and Sam yet to make his mark on the scoreboard. In fact, Sam never drinks and will not unless the keyboard decides to play tricks later on. The keyboard even if it wants to, cannot play a cameo role in this exercise though now and then a fountain pen and ruled paper may, decide to join the party.

Welcome to the table of three, dear Sheaffer pen.

Enjoy the view from the window while you over drop on Sam and Midge’s conversation. The view from the window shows the sea and a nymph on the shore. She’s waving her hand to the world but no one except the Sheaffer pen can see her. And that was a side of the truth that you rarely see in the courtroom. Though I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Santa Claus stood for trial somewhere in America and the US post came to his rescue at the crucial juncture. Santa Claus acquitted.

A journalist has no justification of not paying attention to every event on a football ground when he is there to cover the event. Authors however are not compelled quite the same way. In fact a screenplay writer once wrote that she waits for the 13th Nebraska car plate number before she begins to write. Apply for a date. She has all the time.

Midge asked for the cheque. Midge paid for it with her American Express card. After all she was anticipating a payment. The counterfoil arrived and she signed on it. The bill returned with a message at the bottom, which wished her a nice day? She missed it. Midge and Sam were the last to leave the restaurant that night. Actually there was a drunkard on table no.4 who had just gone to the restroom.

The drunkard was Sam’s friend from the alcoholics anonymous. Sam ignored him ever since but Midge was far kinder. She wanted to have a word with him that evening too. Sam sulked on that account and also on the count that when he was depressed (euphemism), she only threatened to walk out on him.

Did she now? Midge was too hazy to corroborate. She leant her head on Sam’s shoulder. She would wake up with a memory of the previous evening. A crick in her neck and a lethargic feeling in the head, more commonly described as a hangover. Sam went to office the next day and there were no untoward incidents from start to end. His cushion and his height somehow were no longer the butt of attention in the bank.

Perhaps people in the bank couldn’t keep up their zest to jest when the object of their humour was only available alternate days. Perhaps.

Sam missed the attention in a strange sort of way. He missed not starting the day with a pretty girl who was not Midge handing him his cushion. Now let’s save the pretty young girl the trouble of explaining away would could possibly sound like a previous night’s amour. Especially to those who have joined in late. Sports commentators often employ that phrase, though it does sound incongruous in a novel. How many of us ever begin a book on page 53? Sounds like the headline of an advert that advocates press more than television. Flip the para.

Sam returned home to Midge. She was the form that lay motionless under the blanket. She stirred, but didn’t peek out at the world. Not even Sam.

Flip the chapter really.

Let’s begin there: Chapter 1.

2004-11-18T07:39:00.001-08:00

Let’s begin with someone we call Sam. And lest Sam become lonely let’s be generous. Let’s quickly allow Sam a girlfriend. Only his girlfriend is taller than him. (In case you don’t notice that was twist #1.) She was Midge and he was midget. Well that’s another thing we forget with childhood. We forget to laugh without malice. Or at least the world seems to think so, beginning with Sam. Given a chance Sam would have hurled the book at the author. Only fortunately for the author the book is far from done. In fact, neither do you have a clear picture of Sam. All you know is he’s short and his girl friend is taller. He hates it. But then the author is foresworn to tell the truth and faithfully repeat it on every damn given pretext. Sam, disgusted with the charade, ups and leaves the room. Lights up a cigarette and coughs. It was his first cigarette ever. It was a cigarette he got out of Midge’s bag.

Midge followed him to the room. And gaped.

Now let’s leave them to each other and wander about. After all everybody needs some space. So the floral curtains are drawn and the door is slammed shut. As you walk out you notice the cobweb on the doorbell. It requires no slender mush twirling Hercule Poirot to deduce they rarely receive visitors. The truth is even the public phone on the lonely street to their home rings occasionally but their doorbell doesn’t.

Question: How come they don’t receive even the odd junk mail?

Sam and Midge even as we stepped out of their homes had made up, snuggled close to each other and weren’t watching television though it was most certainly on. It is believed that Eskimos when they want to make up rub their noses. I wonder whether it is so because they wouldn’t want to expose any other part of their body to the wintry climes. The noses are uncovered any which way so how about rub and make up. If Aladdin had been an Eskimo he would have known the perfume the genie wore or rather the brand of attar the genie preferred.

Attar for the uninitiated is incidentally a perfume made with sandalwood oil as a base and various floral groups contributing to the top note. Rumour has it that Noorjehan, whose lovelorn son later built the Taj Mahal, discovered attar serendipitously while wading through her morning bath in a nearby lake. She was delighted by the fragrance of the oily layer on the water, which had been left overnight to keep it cool. Testimonials of many a modern day mademoiselle reveal that attar has often taken the place of cologne. Not that that is saying too much. Though it does make your heart bleed when you discover that often musk deer are the prey to poachers because attar made of musk perfume is rather prized.

Imagine dying because someone wants your gland.

Which is truly more grotesque than ‘Coma’ because that was still a movie and here we are talking about a beloved deer. Truly beloved because musk deer move in pairs and poachers make a widow every time they kill a male deer. Imagine Midge without Sam. Imagine Midge wearing heels. Did you know she actually sawed off the heels of all her slippers after she met Sam? That is sacrifice. And a lot of hard work too. She had 256 pairs and each one had heels.

Now that is a lie. Whoever said a book has to keep its integrity right through? And who doesn’t want to overhear a confession? It’s always so interesting. Well, Midge had just about 50 pairs of slippers or so. And you don’t need to wear a habit for you to be told that. But God forgive this book in the power vested in you, amen. Midge emerged after three days. Sam had gone to work. He worked part time as a teller in a bank. Midge was wearing heals…hahaha…. she had one hidden away. And you are reading a completely untrustworthy author…. hahaha.

Meanwhile Sam wasn’t having too good a time out there in the bank. The extra cushion he placed on his chair so he could get a clear view of his customers was missing. Miss…miss…miss…ing. He stuttered or was it the keyboard on his behalf? Can’t tell. People knowing what he was looking for asked him. He knew they knew and were asking just to embarrass him. He walked past them wondering why he needed to keep up with this. He was the son of a taxi driver who once had been the winner of one of the world’s biggest sweepstakes. Sam is quiet about that too…and secondly he’s busy looking for his cushion. And his father being who he was, never spent much of that money, and he left it all to Sam. Finally one of the girls in the bank decided, enough was enough, and retrieved the cushion for him.

Sam got back to work perched on his cushion. Counted the notes as he handed them out. Counted the notes as he collected them. It was one of those small banks where the teller for disbursement and collection was one. It was also one of those busy days. Sam left in the afternoon with more than a bruised ego. Aching fingers.

He cycled home…only to find an empty home and a small note, which simply said: I’m out. He ran his fingers over the piece of paper. Habit.

He spent an aimless evening and a night. You could never tell with Midge. Sometimes she came back in a few hours. Sometimes, a few days later. She was a translator – German to English and sometimes the other way around. They were all technical documents. Mostly engineering papers. No, she was not an engineer but had done a polytechnic course in instrumentation. She did it when she realized there was little money to be made as a translator otherwise. No, she wasn’t comfortable living off Sam’s legacy though they both knew it was more than they could ever hope to spend. No, they wouldn’t reveal the figure out of fear that the tax authorities may be reading. Yes, they had fears real people had though their resemblance to anybody living is completely coincidental.

So, Sam played chess with himself. He worshipped at the shrine of Bobby Fischer and even knew his address in Japan. His favourite opening was Giuoco Piano named after Giacchino Greco a 17th century chess master also known as Il Calabrese. But to be fair to those who have a healthy but indifferent disposition to chess let’s stroll over to Sam’s window. It had a view to the lonely street ahead. There was a sweeper at work brooming away the litterings of the trees. Leaves are what people call them. Janitors rarely are, out of work botany majors.

An ambulance drove by but you could make out by its leisurely pace and its still, by which is meant not revolving, overhead light that it wasn’t on duty. Sam’s mind in the meanwhile was furiously whirring. Considering and reconsidering the employment of pawns, bishops and knights. The language of chess is extremely fascinating. In the first 15 minutes of a game often pieces are killed, pieces are sacrificed all for control over a square. At this point in time let us wonder if Midge was two-timing Sam.

Suspense.

Sam continues to play chess as you wonder whether he is a victim of duplicity. Perhaps he is. But ignorance is bliss. A cliché that only applies to unhappy situations if you notice. Ignorance is hardly bliss if you are the sole heir of a multi-billion dollar legacy but are unaware that you need to collect. Sam interrupts his thinking to put together a salad for himself and returns to his game. The janitor outside, in the meanwhile had called it a day. The streetlamps are all you see from Sam’s window. It’s not even raining so you can’t pass your time watching the raindrops clinging on to the power lines for a while and then dropping only to have their place taken by another raindrop. And another. And another. Haven’t we all spent an entire afternoon or evening doing it some monsoon or the other? It must be an exciting activity compared to something but one can’t right now put a finger on what that could be.

Sam in the meanwhile has changed into his night suit and has turned off the lights. Perhaps he is thinking of Midge even as he drops off to sleep or then he is thinking of moving the knight into the fourth square on the e file.

In the middle of the night Midge lets herself into the house. Relief. But we all know it doesn’t take too much time to be unfaithful. So you are back to square one and you are playing black. If you discover her clothes are disheveled it may not look good for Sam. But it’s not. But then again, she could have simply straightened out her dress real well. Chances are that’s exactly what she would have done if she was guilty and didn’t want Sam to know.

Sam was snoring however. She gets into the covers beside him. And the lights go off on chapter one.

teething

2004-11-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

Imitate and thy shall learn.

Imitate daddy, imitate mummy. Nobody tells baby that but that’s what baby does. Look, look, look. Imitate, imitate, imitate. So cute, so sweet. Such double standards. Do it any other time of your life and the jury will hastily dismiss your plea of innocence. Bystanders will bark in applause. Accusations will recline vindicated and unsavoury appellations will firmly stand to reason: a choice of ape, cheat, freeloader, plagiarist or one eyed pirate. At other times you could be hauled to court, for violation of copyright.

Just a question: Whom do babies imitate when they crawl? Ants?

Proceed and you will be past the Age of Imitation. Is there a collection of poems in that? Can’t tell. Proceed and you will discover new ways to learn. A time will come when you are even told that the best way to learn is to teach. (Now, now, haven’t we all met a misled professor in our time?)

Instruct and thy shall learn.

Teach others to write a book and you will have written your first book. Not to forget that it will heavily camouflage the nerves first time novelists suffer from. And if you are lucky you could end up an author.

When he returned it was time for Chapter 4.

2004-11-16T03:45:00.000-08:00

Midge was conducting the finals. Somebody won. Three others lost. Midge celebrated. Midge got out of her costume. Midge came back home. It was two long days since Sam had disappeared. Bet you got the impression it had been much longer than that. But then that is the general idea: to misguide whenever possible and as much as possible. Imagine a world full of road signs that you could never be sure of. Sometimes they would be bang on. Sometimes they would end up bang in the middle of a huge wall, past which there was no way. It would make for an interesting journey even to a post office. Imagine you end up in a giant game park instead, or a home for the aged.

Midge reached home uneventfully. She inserted her key into the keyhole and turned but the door didn’t open. It was the twist that did not twist. It was her office locker key.

Midge entered, changed and crashed. In the movies the camera would have told you a lot about her just by zooming into the clothes on the floor. It would have revealed her expensive taste in clothes. Midge got into her nightclothes and was snoring in no time flat.

Sam on the other hand was finding it difficult to share his bedroom with rats. Eventually he struck upon a good idea. He opened the back door of one of the limousines and slept the remainder of the night there. It was a lucky chance that one of the limousines had been sent over for a routine service to the garage. Mostly all the other cars that were parked overnight were economical, efficient Japanese cars. Even those suited him fine. Sam had found a pillow that nobody belonged to and slummed it out in a different, beat up car every night. The temptation to return home was overwhelming. But the only thing that prevented him was Midge.

Midge too was finding the double bed extremely uncomfortable. At least four times in 3 nights she had nearly rolled off the bed. She was weighing the options between letting someone else into her life and exchanging her double bed for something smaller. The finalist who had one a million was eager to see more of her, preferably all of her. The dilemma lay in the balance, patiently. The only thing dilemmas dread are decisions. Midge loved the idea of shopping just a little more. That decided it. She would exchange her bed for something smaller. The next day she promptly vacillated. Midge considered. Midge reconsidered.

She made up her mind not to make up her mind. Whim had won the first round.

Midge went furniture shopping nevertheless. She looked at the bedside tables. Ok, fine, admit it she took an active interest in each of the beds on display. She bought another double bed to replace her current double bed. Her fears of falling off temporarily vanished. The bed had no edges. It was perfectly round.

How can you fall over the edge of a round bed?

Midge demonstrated it with a soft thud that night. The rhetoric, apparently in words, was not rhetoric, in reality. It had lulled Midge into a false sense of comfort. But the thud was not all that bad. Midge woke up in the morning with a faint recollection of the fall but she attributed it to a dream. The dream protested vehemently to no avail. In fact, the dream had stayed away from Midge all that night just like Sam had. The dream sympathized with Sam. Especially because Sam had to squeeze himself into a Mini that night. Sam had hardly slept a wink all night. It was not that he felt cramped in the backseat but the odour of the alligator skin upholstery just didn’t agree with him. The dream couldn’t send Sam any cryptic reassurances that all would be fine very soon. So it decided that it would let Midge suffer. It didn’t account for Midge drawing solace from it in its absence.

Calling the house dream analyst for help. This time it was the dream's turn to take its place on the proverbial couch.

3 nights without proper sleep however, did not have the effect on Sam that Midge so desired. The thought of returning home never crossed Sam’s groggy mind even once. He thought about everything under the sun including hexachlorophene liquid soap, which surgeons use to scrub their hands. But not even one itsy, bitsy microsecond did he spare Midge. Actually he did but it wasn’t too manful to admit that he actually missed her. And actually the real reason he didn’t want to return to Midge was in the same murky mindfield. Men leave, for good. Never to return. Pretension was the roadblock, the no entry sign that barred Sam’s way home, and delayed the much anticipated reunion with Midge. Cross the boundary and self-esteem would blow the whistle. Heavy price to pay for someone who was eking out an existence in a two-dime garage. Embarrassing for someone who had millions working for him in some offshore bank account. However none of these really irked Sam. It was the fact that Sam was short that made him feel inadequate in the macho department. Stilts were not the answer. Sam had even tried it when in school. The less said about that episode the better. Suffices to say that, instead of covering himself with the glory he returned home with mud in his mouth.

In the meanwhile Sam was covered with some more mud, and some more grease. Midge would never have recognized him if she had seen him. Chances are she wouldn’t have since Sam had been examining the underbelly of a motorcar for a couple of hours. He wasn’t looking to fix an oil leak or anything like that. It was just his way of getting better acquainted with cars. The diagram on the wall of the car’s anatomy gave him a pretty good idea, but it was nothing like how a beat-up car looks, especially down under, when it is admitted into a garage. Strange choice of verb indeed, but completely justified when your mechanic’s hands smell very much like a surgeon’s hands before he cloaks them in surgical gloves. Yes, somewhere between Midge and reminiscing about the past, Sam had found the time to purchase some surgical liquid soap from the pharmacist for all the mechanics in the garage. Generous Sam. He hadn’t really sneaked out or anything like that but somehow he managed to get past unnoticed.

A lone lady at the garage did notice however. She also happened to be Midge’s friend. It isn’t anything earth shattering but it just gives you that sinking feeling you get when you are sneaking out of home and the door clicks shut louder than you would have liked. All the while you’re out you are wondering whether your absence has been found out. Sam however was completely unaware of what had transpired. To begin with he hadn’t looked over his shoulder when he was leaving because it never occurred to him. Then again, if he had seen her, he wouldn’t have known her. They had never met. So the problem of Midge’s friend was never even half the menace it seemed to be.

The lady wasn’t there when Sam returned. Sam decided to brave another night in the Mini. He purchased some incense sticks in the hope that the heady jasmine would adequately blunt the hideous odour of the alligator skin upholstery in the Mini. It was a clash of aromas that night.

Midge twisted and turned all that night. Everything is connected is the cosmic mantra. Om tat sat, or Vedic abracadabra for those who have never ventured past Sunday sermons. Midge breathed heavily. She felt strangeness in the air. She woke up twice to check if she had left a cigarette burning and it had started a fire.

The second time she woke because she didn’t realize she had already checked before. She stayed awake the whole night after that. She thought about everything: sheep to the second law of thermodynamics. Everything is interconnected, Hari Om. The Vedic mumblings at this hour added a layer of eeriness to the entire happenings. Midge stumbled into sleep. Yes, she fell headlong into a slumber. Fortunately for her she crash-landed on the bed.

She slept for a hundred and one years. The Guinness Book of World Records went to town with the news. Midge was the flavour of the day. But that wasn’t because she woke up to be a 127. It was just a convoluted way of revealing her age to you. It was her birthday. You are welcome to send Midge a greeting card or a birthday present. Midge could do with all the cheerleaders in the world.

Sam was not going to be there. Sam was not to blame. His forgetfulness however needed to do some quick explaining.

The keyboard is happy to cooperate this time around. Not all the stutters and stammers could save forgetfulness from a mighty big blush. Dark complexioned forgetfulness turned a deep shade of purple.

Meanwhile Sam, the multi-millionaire’s son, is stuck deep inside of Mobil or then replace that with whatever brand of lubricant you prefer. Like it or not Sam, dearest Midge, is deeply in love. The proverbial other woman in this case is a car named Betsy. Midge would have been overjoyed to share Sam’s newfound love. Midge would have hugged Betsy. Midge would even have found something to appreciate about the broken headlamp and the missing viper. But Sam wasn’t about to tell her. Not till he could drive over.

Sam did not know how to drive. (Forget that the car was in no condition to be driven. It needed nine to twelve months of tender loving repair.)

Understandably. When your dad is a taxi-driver neither do you eulogise the ability to drive nor do you feel the necessity. Navigation is an art you master. Sam could give a blind man direction on how to go from one place to another.

Sam missed Blind man Joe. He decided to walk over to Joe’s and purchase a paper. Did you get the impression Sam was hiding from Midge? He wasn’t. He was just staying away from Midge. If he met her on the road he would have stopped and spoken to her. He didn’t meet her. He took a paper from Joe and walked away. Joe didn’t recognise his voice. Sam had a sore throat. Sam was disappointed. Sam didn’t tell Joe who he was. He just walked away. He could hear the nephew playing the saxophone in the background. If the world had been black and white this could have been a sweet sad scene from a yet to be screened Chaplin movie.

Joe did stir a bit. But the temporary uneasiness passed.

Sam returned to Betsy. Betsy was black. But Sam had ambitions. Sam was at work. Miracles do not happen on their own. Even they need ignition. Sam beneath his greasy boiler suit was actively combusting calories. But not all the grease on the uniform was Sam’s clumsiness. The patchy, more black than blue, overall was borrowed and some parts of it still bore evidence of the garage owner, James.

Sam was the quiet guy in the garage. He didn’t have much in common with the other mechanics. Not their passion for pin-up girls, their pointed sense of humour or their abundant understanding of automobiles. Not necessarily in that order. But Sam did have to exercise inordinate restraint when their mild mannered derision was directed at short people.

So what if it wasn’t him they referred to. James, the garage owner was the shortest in the garage, even after Sam had joined the spanner-wielding roster. But even Sam would have to confess that he stole a smile. When he heard of how Adam would not have not have been expelled from paradise if the forbidden apple had been a more proverbially sour grape. Oh lord god! How they rue that Adam had not been short. Had Adam only been made in the image of James in the garage, the world would have been saved. James laughed heartily at the facetious attempt at flattery. No, his sensitivities were not so heightened, unlike Sam our vertically and emotionally challenged protagonist.

Lucky James had even found himself an Eve who was short. Paradise regained.

Pause.

The short lady in the bank often wondered what happened to Sam. She wondered whether the cushion had returned to its rightful owner. But she didn’t lose sleep over it. Had she it would have been another chest thump for cushions all over the world. But the curtains didn't rise to the occasion.

The mechanics couldn’t be bothered. Cushions could give them a crick in the neck but even that could wait. James had cried Sesame and the garage doors were to creak shut with or without their hinges being oiled. The mechanics were to leave their dear darling pin-up girls alone for a whole week. They feigned their farewells. Grease stains smothered the glossy beauties. They bore it with a smile outwardly. The spanners arched their spines in anticipation of their well-deserved rest. The customers would wait. James was king and not her royal highness Mrs. Albuquerque though she certainly had the swagger of Portuguese royalty. The mechanics unmindful of the narrative blew asynchronised kisses in the direction of James. He was minorly amused at the response to his much-delayed honeymoon.

It was a double-faced moment. It made Sam happy and it distracted him. Both feelings breasted the tape in a photo finish. It struck him even as he cheered for James that he had reason to be sad. A week without Betsy would occur to him later. But at first the frown publicized the concern of a week with no garage to spend the night. Homeless part two was hardly a scenario that Sam relished. He wanted no part to play in this bed buster. He wanted no seats in the house. He wanted a bed right now. With a ceiling above it.

The irony of all this was lost on Sam.

Sam to begin with had no city, let alone a home. He was living in a world that was as yet unfinished. It had a few streets, a bank, a blind newspaper vendor, a 14 year- old saxophonist, a few mechanics, a garage owner and his wife, Midge and her furnished home with a garden full of creatures, a park bench and a swing, some cars and a few posters. Almost forgot the janitor and his broomstick and the spider that spun a cobweb decorating Midge’s doorbell. Sam needed a city as much as he needed a home. A large spill of royal blue ink on paper was called for. A city needed to be born urgently. The need of the hour was not a cartographer as much as an author. How do you think Utopia was born? It just came to be. A thought blurb that instantly magnified into a city. Sam needed intervention.

Granted.

Out of need for a city a chapter was appended.