~ the last question.

will i find myself 
at your doorstep again?
will i drag myself
always almost falling asleep
smell the daffodils growing
in spurts and silly shrubs
next to your sunny sidewalk
no honeybees here - 
just the way i've liked it
and just the way you have, too?
will i slow time
to spend a few more moments with you?
i should, and i must;
will we hum our favourite songs
turn the dial up on the radio
listen to the crackling sounds?
now, will we
laugh perhaps rather derisively
because both of us know
all this will never happen - 
let us retreat to our caves
spill ink and stain our fingers
writing late into the dark 
and dreary night,
separated by distance;
united by our words.

~ vruta gupte, october 2017.

Enigma.

A dance between minds
A meeting of the senses
In the foreign dark streets of the previously inhabited
That have since been deserted for want of
Better lives
A dash of black illuminating the recesses of the cold, damp city
Or perhaps by the side of a stream
Somewhere deep in the forest
Far away from either of our homes
Or a quiet library where no one dares to disturb
And piles of books lie undisturbed for weeks
Perhaps it is there that we find salvation
For the world will soon tire of us,
We are but one of its many puzzles
And so we must flee
To someplace no one will find us
Hidden forever
Until the dawn comes and we wake in our own beds.

~ Vruta Gupte, 2017.

at a loss for words, part one.

Why don't you write when you're happy?

I can't, really.

Have you tried?

'Course I have, but pretty soon it gets frustrating, then I'm not happy anymore.

Why?

When I am happy I find I have nothing to write about, or speak of.  The moment I feel as if everything is alright, I cease being a storyteller.

My sadness is my elixir, in that sense.  It is necessary for me to be sad so that I can write about it and twist and stitch it into poetry or slightly luxurious narratives.  The last time my heart was broken, I wrote a hundred poems: that was three years ago.  Maybe even more.  Enough to publish a book, one day.  They lie inside my wooden chest of drawers with golden - not gold - handles.  The handles themselves have an exceedingly exquisite appearance; they look a bit like peacocks, though not exactly.  It is quite puzzling.  Why would you make something look a little like a peacock when you can make it look exactly like a peacock?  Peacocks are quite pretty. Then again, perhaps the maker of that chest of drawers didn't think that.  Or maybe he wanted to save money.  Or maybe he forgot he was supposed to make peacocks and not abominations in the name of aesthetics.  I don't know.  I don't know anything.  

You never published the book, did you?

No.  I didn't want to see her on my bookshelf every morning.  My bed faces the bookshelf.  Some might argue that arrangement releases some sort of negative energy into my home, but really, I can't see how it could get any worse.  A writer would probably do well not to pay attention to any superstitions.  Of course, perhaps the greatest superstition any writer of (dis)repute has fallen prey to would be that if they write every day, sooner or later they will be paid for it.

You don't sell any of your writings?

I show some of them to a friend.  Our meetings are every Saturday at six o' clock in the evening, under a tree where there are no crows, so we are not disturbed.  We sit in silence and read each other's writings.  Sometimes the silence becomes deafening, though.  It rings in my ears, at which point I am forced to bid my dear friend adieu, and retreat to my not-so-safe haven, a cocoon of bricks and wood and cement and artificial light and sunlight and rain and quite a bit of sadness.  I write to give my melancholiness a form, a figure.  Traumatizing words inside your head are a little better than traumatizing half-formed pictures inside your head.  

What is your name?

I'd rather not say.  Let us, for the time being, call me The Lamenter, as lamentation is what I have the most time for, being alone and quite set in my ways - unless, of course, someone else came along - which I would not advise in my present state, frankly.  Speaking of lamentation, I regret greatly that one time my phone was ringing and I didn't take the call.  But to be fair, my phone rings very loudly - if not in real life, then at least inside my head - and it scares me.  That was the last time she would have spoken to me.  Instead, the last time I spoke to her, I cursed her for not being able to understand me, I cursed myself for not understanding who I was.  I slammed all my doors and shut myself in my room and I wrote, and wrote, and didn't properly stop writing until three months later.  Time snatched her away from me.

Where is she now?

Up there, where all the angels go.  She was an angel.  Not a very brilliant one, mind you, but if there were a test, she would ace it.  She used to be mine.  Of course, she did very much belong to herself, too.  She used to paint the skies.  She invited me to watch, once.  I never went.  

Look up, do you see the sunset?  

It's orange, pink, and purple.  And a bit of green, there, in the corner.  The sky looks like a mattress of cotton.

Hell, you could be a writer, too, someday.  

I am one.  

~

~ the distance between stars.

Let me walk to someplace quiet
Where there are no streetlights,
No lamps to obstruct my shifting gaze
My meandering meditations
I do not know much of constellations
It is only the inky blackness
Between the flaming orbs of the night
That matters;
Because yesterday I thought
That darkness is much like
The distance between us -
One star is brighter than the other,
Yesterday I thought
About how if both of us
Were standing still in a crowd
Of unsmiling, unfamiliar faces,
Maybe we would notice each other.
Maybe the starts would come closer
And closer
And burn brighter
And brighter
Then maybe there would be a blinding flash
Of brilliant white light -
A collision, of sorts.
If stars can collide, why can't we?
For the darkness is impermanent, my darling.
Our lives are not filled by it
It does not encase us, envelope, or suffocate.
Let us walk to someplace quiet
So that I can look at you.

Rubber Bands.

I keep
All my rubber bands
Wrapped around
My shampoo bottle
I tie my ponytail with one of them
Every day
Sometimes I use the blue one
Other times the green one
That reminds me of pistachios
There's another that looks 
Like blue and pink cotton candy
Except with whipped cream
A few months later
The rubber bands will be looser
Someday
I won't use them to tie my hair
Anymore.

~Vruta Gupte, 2017.

Memory Lane.

Made on Fresh Paint

I won’t say the cold is piercing because

I have known what needles feel like

Although

I haven’t been stabbed before,

I won’t say candies are sweet

For sometimes beginnings can be sweeter

Apples aren’t delicious because

Once I almost choked on a slice

Lights aren’t pretty

They might burn my eyes

Sometimes some music is noisy

All dark alleys aren’t poetic and beautiful

Neither are hearts, because they break

Nor are people, for they leave.

Separation.

A differential distance slyly separates 

The dark day from the nimble night

The ocean from the sky

The shivering sun from the monstrous moon

The nest from the branch

The writer from the pen

The nocturne from the canvas

The black bracelet from the wrist

The henna from the palm

The dancer from the stage

The musician from the flute

And me from you.

~ Vruta Gupte, 2017.

For Darkness.

I don't know if I love you or if I just love you being around. I wish sometimes we would see each other more often, because my heart does need a certain amount of sweetness; not the one that comes with chocolate, that is tinged by the bitterness of hate and anger--I need the one with honey, it brings dreaminess to my eyes whenever I think of you.

And so we must meet at night, for the glowing lightness in our steps when we are together will offset the damp darkness of the pitch black road we walk on; we are like stars in the heavens, and our carefully constructed conversations are stardust, golden-bronze and silver and crimson red, as streamers hang from the ceilings at parties.

Since parties are loud, let us walk in silence, to nowhere at all. Let us walk in circles and figures of eight like infinities back to where we started from. Maybe we could hold hands (well, or not). Sometimes the beauty of togetherness is that it still allows you to be separate.

If I tell you I love you, would you still walk with me? Would I have to resign myself to glancing at my empty screen every five minutes for a message that might never come? Will you leave me, or will you stay, when I break, of illness and too much carbonate? Will I have to reduce our time to just memories that might be forgotten over the years?

I would rather our memories be of weaving our way through the darkness, holding hands, than remembering someplace just because I sent a text to you there, when I was alone. When you are here in person, you won't have to zip your mask up like you always do; and neither will I. Even if you aren't in love with me, at least I will know who you really are.

The Last Dance.

This is not a love story. This is not the soul of a heartbroken man laid bare on paper, tied together with ink stains and needles, falling apart because he keeps rewinding the tape inside his mind to those very same moments that he once cherished, trying to glue himself back together without reminiscing about the perfume he was drenched in on this night exactly two years ago. This is not a cry for help; those days have long since passed. Those days will never come back, even though he tried his best to use them. He used to them to buy her little presents, wrapped with brown paper, with a red ribbon-bow on top, and her name on them; except he was used and thrown away before he could give her the tiniest of boxes with the tiniest of things: he hoped she would wear the thing on her finger, but that day never came; it never came at all, and his ambitions scoffed at him and bit the dust.

The nights after were horrible and pierced his heart, like thimbles pierce his skin when he presses them onto his fingertips. His fingertips are bare, as was his being when he gave himself to her, piece by piece, little by little—inch by inch.

It is midnight, but he can’t sleep.

“Do you want to look at the moon?” he remembered her asking him, one night. Her fingers ran through his hair, and he was in heaven.

“I am, already,” he had said. The smile he had received would have been photographed and framed had its desirer not known it would be one of her last.

He would have looked at that framed photograph every morning, just to see her face once again; but now he can’t, because she’s not here, and he misses her—she’s somewhere he can’t go. He doesn’t want to go there; He’ll have to kill himself before he can do that. His insides are torn, he is just a shell, barely breathing, not dancing to her favourite songs, hurting from all the pain.

This is not how he thinks it should have ended. He still want things to change, and he still wants her back, because every time he thinks about her, it hurts where it shouldn’t. He used to hum the loveliest of songs when she was around, but now he is alone, he has no one to dance with, and he can’t dance anymore, and he loves her.

~

I can't write a poem.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I went outside and took some pictures,

And my right shoulder is aching.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

My brain is too full: I’d rather

Write something really really (really) long,

So that people know what I’m thinking about—

Not that that’s interesting; who I’m thinking about

Would be more enticing to read

And to know, quite frankly.

I can’t write a poem tonight

Because pouring myself out would be so much easier

Than freezing myself into short lines

(They read like stubble, not a long, flowing beard.)

You should know that you’re the one

Who made me want to capture in prose again

You’re almost like a plucked marigold flower—

It hurts a lot, but you still love helping people;

And sometimes it hurts me that you’re hurting.

I can’t write a poem tonight,

I’m thinking about you:

Not that I mind.

~Vruta Gupte.

Blue.

To write stories these days, I use an app on my phone, because I don't want to get out of bed and turn my laptop on and type that address in, because I know I will type in the wrong address. I will go somewhere I had never meant to be. I am, now, the laziest person I have ever seen. Lazier than I have ever been.

In four days I have exams. I have not studied for the past two days. I should, but I don't, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I find that I discover how I should have done something long after I have had to do it already.

The app on my phone lets me change colours. Lately all my notes have been blue. Blue because that is the colour that most intrigues me, for reasons I cannot say. Blue because blue is the colour of a picture that I see on my screen every day. Blue because my profile picture on Facebook is blue (maybe that blue has reasons too). Blue because blue is the opposite of red, and there has been too much red in my life for the last few days. Red in my journal. Red in my notebook. Red on my screen, because of Quora. Red in my room, because of my blanket and my towel. Red in my blood.

Blue because I have a blue bed-sheet that has the Wimbledon logo all over it (no, I don't watch tennis). Blue because...deep down inside, I am green and blue. Blue-green is the colour of the sea. The sea is where I would rather be. Instead of this concrete excuse for greenery, and scenery, I would much rather be real. Blue because blue is the colour of pretence. I pretend. I pretend I know where I am going. I pretend I believe in the things I used to believe. I pretend I know how to help you.

Blue because these past few days, you and I have been blue, sad. You are bluer than I am. I painted myself blue to match the opposite colour of one of your shirts. Inside I am green. Green will give you hope. Paint yourself green, and be green with me. It'll be fun. It'll be new, for you. And as much as I hate to use the word--it'll be--fresh. Fresh as the grass that you have not set foot on for more than a week. Fresh as the grass I was rolling around in just yesterday. Fresh as the grass I had to wash off my feet. It is already half past nine in the morning and I am--I am--dead beat.

You have too much red in your life, too. The scars on your heart are red. The scars on your heart have the opposite colour to my handkerchief. Maybe that's why I can't wipe them off, because I read somewhere that you have to fight fire with fire. The scars on your heart are there because your heart was broken a while ago. A while feels like a long, long time ago. A while feels like yesterday. Fire is red.

On some nights, the moon is red. On other nights, it is white. That means you can draw anything on it. What do you draw? I draw green. I draw a cabin in the woods, a cabin made of wood, with a bed and a fireplace and a chimney and cheese and potatoes. Burnt potatoes. Slightly burnt potatoes, to remind you of a distant past. When is the past distant and when is it close? I am cheesy. Am I too cheesy? Do I make you sick to your stomach or do I make you feel delicious? Am I cheesy, or am I just cheese? Do I ask too many questions?

But you said the questions are more important than the answers. Does that mean you would rather not find the answers to some questions? Do I ask too many questions?

Blue because I believe that if you paint yourself enough--or maybe--if I paint you more than enough, you will be green again. Maybe you don't want to be green. Maybe you want to be white--blank, so you can draw yourself again. White, so that you can fill in the colours again. Or colour outside the boundaries of what you have drawn. There are no rules, here, with me. But there are no rules only for you. Are you white because you want to wipe yourself off? Please don't. There will be scars on my heart if you do that. And they will be red. And I don't like red. Because I am blue now. I will stay blue until you remove your blue, even though I know that wiping colours off of yourself is not something you or I, or anybody for that matter, can do. If that is the case, then wipe the colours off me. Turn me black, because black is everywhere. That means I will never leave you. That means I will stay with you forever. How long is forever? Blue because blue is a part of black, and I would much rather be black than green, if that is what suits you. Suits are black, too.

Blue because blue is royal and fancy. And we are fancy; even though we may not be royal. We are simple beings, of things that look worse than stardust. We are, probably, just dust. But your dust is beautiful and poetic, and broken, and sad, and...and please tell me how to break my dust too. Then we can glue your dust back together. Your dust doesn't need surgery. It needs paint. Your dust is blue. Paint over it. Paint inside it. Paint everything with yourself so that wherever I go, you are still there. This does not mean you should wipe yourself off. Don't wipe yourself off. Okay?

Okay. Now it is time for me to go. Now it is time for me to paint. Paint with words. Paint the gloomy dark suburbs of my soul. You, you paint your sole. That needs painting too. Paint it the colour of you. Now that I think about it more--you are probably not very blue. Maybe you are black. Maybe you are who I have been looking for. Now I am awake. I was sleeping before. For twelve hours. Now I am awake enough to paint you. Don't leave before I finish. I know she has painted you blue. I will paint you green...I will paint you white. I will paint you starry. I will paint you everything. Maybe you are my paint.

I am your paint. I will always be your paint. I will never be your pain. Don't leave before I leave. I will never leave. Now I must go. You are still blue. I have to buy paint.

As You Like It.

How paradoxical it is that we are ambitious but also find anonymity appealing, my friend said to me as she gazed nonchalantly at the black ceiling, again, and again.  She had stared at the ceiling yesterday, too.  And the day before that.  And the day before the day before...

He tapped his forehead with his pen; seldom had he found it so difficult to put his thoughts into words.  Although he had observed that putting thoughts into words had become a little more cumbersome for him, of late, mostly because he was doing other things.

Thinking about other things.  And people.
Person, actually.

Was he fooling himself?  He would probably never know.

It was two in the morning, yet here he was (idly twiddling his thumbs to match the beat of the song that played in his head, as ever), imagining another life, in which anything was or could have been possible.

Possibilities--the word was as scary as it was exciting.  But isn't that what life was all about?  Scariness and excitement?  Of course, he could be wrong, but that wasn't the point.  The point was that he could be.

The past year had gone by pretty uneventfully (pretty--what an oxymoronic word to use), oh, except for one thing.  He would rather not be reminded of it.  The past month, however, had been, quite contrarily to the general trend (graph) of his life (versus time), extremely eventful.  The past month had been an enigma he was still trying to make sense of.  

She was someone he was still trying to make sense of.  How could someone who looked so small and wonder-less (but somebody would surely find her wonderful, no doubt) write something that stirred within him such unimaginable feelings of kinship, and regret, and admiration, and emptiness?  So much to feel, and so little time!  She was a rollercoaster, and he was a slow-moving horse-coach that, instead of horses, was being pulled by donkeys, of all beings.  Not a perfect match (not even to be friends, much--or so he thought.  Of course, there were other, more important things, that he held dearer to his heart, that beckoned him to talk to her every day).  

But friendship and love is seldom about matching.  Friendship is about staying even when you don't match.  Friendship is about tearing your paper heart in half, and giving one half to your friend if his heart is broken.  Friendship is about crusading silently, caped; masquerading as the Dark Knight for this one person in your life, because...because they are special.  Special, and no more, no less.  Friendship is about being the unlikely superhero for an irreplaceable person.  True friendship, and true love: both of these do not pull you down.  You grow with them.  

You might stay away from the other person for a couple of days, weeks, months, or maybe even many years, but when you see them again--it feels like you've come home.  Because you are home.  Those moments, those times you shared together--they are unforgettable, as if you only lived them yesterday.  And this is what friends are for, isn't it?

She smiled, and ran her hand through his hair.  He had fallen asleep on his diary, and his pen lay besides the window, almost invisibly, as if it held the night to be of no consequence whatsoever...again.

~

Little by little, inch by inch
We built a yard with a garden in the middle of it
It ain't much but it's a start
You got me swaying right along to the song in your heart
And a face to call home
A face to call home
You got a face to call home.

Of the Lost and Forgotten.

I give you parts

Of a broken self

Whose these fragments are

I do not know

They may be mine

They might be yours

I give you lost pieces

Of a jigsaw puzzle

Someone once

Threw away

Whose pieces they are

I do not know

They might be mine

They may be yours

I give you a paper

With a story of heartbreak

Whose story it is

I would not know

It may be mine

I know it's yours

I give you sunshine

I saved for the darker times

Whose sparkle this is

I cannot know

I think it is mine

Because of yours

I give you a poem

I found crumpled near

A lonely curb of thought

Whose words these are

I think I know

They were once mine

Now they are yours.

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Her.

Her rattling rambles made their way roaringly into my resplendent reverie.

He chuckled.  Yes, that would be a nice sentence to start with.  He groaned.  He was using the word nice too often.  But what could he do?  With her, everything was nice.  Everything was sunshine and rainbows; and if it were to rain now, she would drag him outside his cozy, comfortable cocoon that he had relegated his entire existence to--but how he wished she would take his hand and, with an expression of mock scorn, bring out his special sandals and plop them onto the floor--or, to be less gentle, throw them down onto the floor, in clear disdain for his habits (or lack thereof, he smiled again) and the way he forgot everything around him once he started thinking about one of his musings from the night before.

"One of?" she looked at me quizzically, "Am I not your only?"

Yes, dear, you are, but I can't tell you that, can I?  I would like to keep that to myself.
You have made me an orange--stop laughing, idiot--you have made me an orange, or I should probably say onion, because you have peeled off layers and layers of me, and with each passing day, as I tell you about something quite spinelessly stupid that I have done, or said, you say you love me more and more, and I can only wonder.

For in the past, the other one--"There was another?"--yes, darling, there was, and I am sorry I did not tell you--the other one said she hated me, after a while.  I asked her why, she told me she needed someone more.

'More what?', I asked.  Nothing, she said, her eyes blank, just more.  I was never the same again.  I tried more-ing myself, my darling, I did, but I couldn't, because I had nothing left.  All of it went away with her, and I became empty, and emptier, until.  Until what?

Oh, until you.

And you found me at my emptiest, and I had nothing to give to you, and I was so ashamed, so withdrawn, and so surprised; a dangerous trio, that is.  A troublesome trio, do you see what I did there--"I do, yes, go on, I love listening to you,"--no, she never saw anything I did.  Or maybe she did, but she stopped noticing--and I--I still cared, and I wish I could have been more, but now I have you; so I will be more for you, dear.

You don't have to be more for me.  I don't need you to be more for me.  I only need you to be enough, the way you need me to be enough for you.  There is no 'more', is there?  Even if there is, more changes, enough is constant.  And even if we are not always, let us be now.  For a certain sometime when a certain someone is there with us to gaze brightly at the twinkling stars, and watch them greet each other, in childish oblivion, the night becomes all the more young, and free.  And should we be bound?  Of course not.  Though we are made of all things that are within limits, and we are told not to dream big, we are told to reach for the moon with one hand in our pockets, to curb ambition, because they say it is a sad, sad and lonely, desperate world, and we will help this world and each other, and tell them that all is not yet lost, my love.  Things change.  We must also change.  But we will have each other.  

~

"Two-fold intoxication, obliging nearness as necessity, excuse to be each other's pillar, pillow, or prize, the whole walk home.  This beautiful love simulacrum, stumble we shall not, for even now, dear, we might already have let ourselves fall once this night."

The Aloner.

His words, I feel, are magic. You don't know where they come from, but they are always there, in the back of your mind, and they remind you of things like stardust and the aroma of coffee and cream in the morning, of fresh, warm croissants—these I have been missing of late—of dewdrops and wet earth after the rain, the almost scalding sunshine when you have no cap to shield your eyes, and that perfumed scent of the yellowed pages of a book that people have forgotten about, but you remember, and, oh, I could go on forever. For men may come and men may go; but he will always remain immortalized, past his time and life, and death, as someone who wielded words, but not as weapons.

He used words to make you exalt and suffer at the same time, as though he wanted to remind you of the maladies that most of us are, but he did not wish you drowned in your (inevitable) despair and sadness, either. Quite a paradox, he was. He buried himself, and still wanted people (me, I like to think) to understand. Amused, yet amusing. Half empty, and half full. Broken, but he would never break you. My truest friend and his own worst enemy.

Tell Me.

Tell me how

Your day was today.

Tell me how

You felt when you walked

Barefoot in the grass

After the thunderous rainfall.

Tell me how

The blades pierced your feet, but

You were still happy about

Merely being.

Tell me how you

And your friends

Played ten guitars and

Sang a song together,

Tell me whenever

You want to talk to me,

I will always be there;

Tell me how

You spent the last

Five minutes, tell me

Something about yourself

That nobody else knows,

Tell me what

Time you wake up

Every morning, tell me

Why you have been so

Quiet lately but words

Rush through you

Like drops of water

On a leaf

Tell me

Everything

And I will

Tell you.

~Vruta Gupte (2016).

Carnival: Part Three

This is Part Three of Carnival.
For Part One of Carnival, click here.
For Part Two of Carnival, click here.



He parked his bike a few shops down the street, not wanting Laura to notice him coming—he'd heard Mr. Marlon saying she'd come back yesterday, so she would still be in the store.  In the back of the store, he hoped, so he wouldn't have to face her.

He opened the door slowly, staring at the floor.

“Hello, good morn—oh, it's you,” Laura said, blushing, “Haven't seen you in a while.”  
He looked up.

“Yeah, me neither.  You, I mean.” 

He groaned inwardly at his foolishness; Laura chuckled.

“What brings you here this late in the afternoon?  Weren't you painting, or anything?”

“No, I—I was, but then I wanted to—I discovered one of my paintings was missing,” Robin mumbled, wondering if he should have said that.

“I—er—I should probably tell you something.”

“Yes?”

“The....painting?  The one with all the snow in it? I....I'd stolen it.”

“What? Why?” He asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“I'm sorry, Robin, but it was just there, and—I, er, really liked it,” her voice became smaller and smaller as she said the last few words.

He inhaled deeply, thinking about how he should respond.  He knew he should tell her he had her diary, but she probably knew that anyway.  Even so—

“Oh, well, it's not a problem, really.  You can keep it if you want,” her face lit up in a smile.
“But on one condition.” Her smile faltered.

“What's that?”

“You write a story for me like the ones in your diary.”

“You read it!  Did you....did you like the stories?”

“I did, I loved all of them.  Especially the last one.” Robin answered, clearing his throat a little, hoping she would get the hint.  His palms were sweating.  He wiped them on the front of his jeans, took the note out of his pocket and gave it to her.  

“I need you to read this—not now—after I leave; and if you...” he phrased his sentence carefully in his head, “if you....like it, you...can come meet me near the park fountain at eight?” He raised his eyebrows tentatively.

“Okay.” she said, smoothing out the crumpled paper, careful not to tear it into tiny shreds.

“Alright, see you later then.  Nice seeing you after so many days.”

Laura laughed; the sound was beautiful, and it reminded him of the creek where Rita and Jason met in Carnival.  “You make it sound like we've met each other after a year!”

“Hey Laura, you wanna commack and help me sort the Fizzlies in this box instead of talking to that boyfriend of yours, eh?” Robin jumped at least a foot into the air, out of pure shock alone—he hadn't known Mr. Marlon was there in the back.  His face felt hot; he looked up and saw that Laura's face was pink, too.

“Er—I guess I should go, then--” he began.

“Oh, well.  Here,” Laura tossed him a green apple flavoured lollipop from a carton.

“He won't mind?”

She laughed.  “Of course not, Robin!”  She lowered her voice to a whisper.  “I've nicked a whole lot of them myself, and he hasn't noticed—yet.”  And with that, she turned on her heel and marched to the storage room.

Robin smirked, then ducked out of the door into the sunned, crisp air outside.  He'd never known this side of Laura, sure, she was funny, but she had always been about thoughts and ideas, not people and, well—mischief.  Mischief.  It was a rather absurd way to think of her.

*

In the storage room, Laura waited anxiously for Mr. Marlon to go get his tea, or at least go to the bathroom, so she could read the note Robin had given her.  The opportunity presented itself five minutes after the old man had called her back inside—an important client had called, and Mr. Marlon was not one to leave important clients waiting, even if they were particularly nasty and called him a “blasted ol' slagger” (whatever that meant) in full view of his subordinates in the store.

Laura pulled the note out of her pocket, unfolded it and began reading.


Dear Laura,

I've wanted to say this to you for a very long time, but I couldn't find the words to tell you.  I wish I'd told you sooner.  

First off, I left the painting in plain view because I wanted you to take it—I'll tell you why.

You told me once that you like snow, and that you think winter to be very beautiful.  It is.  The trees are draped in soft white and you said you would rather not lean against them, because your clothes would wipe some of the snow off, and you don't like wiping snow off anything except maybe your driveway, but that's only because you have to.

You said you like a warm mug of cocoa when you get home from the store in December.  And then you watch a detective show on television.  Then after, you write two sentences in your notebook for the stories, and then you purposely drop it onto the counter of the candy store and hope that I will pick it up, and that I will take it home and read it.

You take the painting of snow and children ice skating (you like that, too) from near my window, and you realize, hopefully, that I have hidden your name in the trees.  If you haven't seen that yet, you have plenty of time after this to admire it anyway.

Laura, you and I both know why we did the things we did.  
I told you about my paintings, about my thoughts of you and the things you love, because I love you.

Things will not be the same after you've read this, but then again, I probably wouldn't want them to.

Do you want to go out to dinner tonight at Piazzo's?

Yours,
Robin.



Laura smiled.  “I love you too,” she whispered, “and yes, I would love to go to Piazzo's tonight.”

*

It was seven in the evening.  Laura stood in front of her open wardrobe.  She never seemed to have just the right dress to wear to a fancy place like Piazzo's.  She cocked her head to one side.  Maybe Robin doesn't need me to wear anything fancy, she thought, maybe he's alright with me wearing that velvet navy blue dress with the silver and gold butterfly sequins and lace.  That is fancy.  She giggled.

She put on the navy blue dress made of velvet with the lace and the sequins and looked at herself in the mirror.  She did look very beautiful.  The dress brought out the brown in her eyes.
She fixed her hair into place with a navy-blue-gold barrette and decided that was probably enough for Robin to like her even more.

Laura took her car keys from the table and waltzed out the door.



Robin was already waiting for her near the park fountain.  He wore a black suit with a tie, and a coat on top.  

“I brought your diary,” he said, and gave it to her. “Do you mind if we walk to Piazzo's?”

“Of course not, I'd love to.”

And then it started snowing.  Robin's golden-brown hair looked good with snow in it, too.  She put her hand in his.  He looked at her.  

They smiled at each other.

It couldn't be more perfect a day, Laura thought, and they walked slowly, together, leaving all their worries behind.

THE END

I really enjoyed writing this story!  Please share/ favourite/ comment if you liked it; thank you!

Carnival: Part Two

Hello everyone, this is the second part of the short story I'd started writing.  For Part One of Carnival, please click here.

Part Two



Robin chuckled to himself as he remembered his plan; he'd almost forgotten it for a few minutes there.  He'd left the painting in his studio in plain sight: heck, you could even see it from the roof of the Carnival Tower if you wanted to. Of course, she hadn't known that. She probably thought she'd stolen it.

He wondered if she herself would recognize the signs she kept talking about: signs someone is lying to you, signs someone is feeling uncomfortable, signs someone is in love with you--he smiled and grabbed her diary off of his desk, and turned to the last story.

It was called “Carnival".

Nice story--I've read it once, he thought, but I'd still like to read it again.  It was about two people, Jason and Rita, and each was madly in love with the other, but neither could work up the courage to share the way they felt.

Kind of like us, he thought--and corrected himself-- like me.  He still didn't know if she loved him.  He read on.

Rita was a writer, and Jason was a painter. Rita liked rainbows and starry nights and dreamed of falling in love one day (with one particular person), while Jason loved watching the sunsets, and generally busied himself with thoughts about weaving the things she liked into one of his own paintings: nothing too conspicuous, just a faint rainbow with daisies in the foreground, the sun still hiding behind the puffy white clouds.

They had met on a park bench on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and just when neither of them had felt the day could get any better, it did.  

And after that, of course, there was the usual exchange of phone numbers and the phone calls that went long into the starry nights, and secret meeting places, too.  The rocky patch near the creek in the forest was their favourite.  After Jason finished art school and Rita, her degree in English Literature, they would spend a large part of their days together, him painting, and her conjuring a story out of what she saw and believed.  



Robin sighed.  Jason and Rita--although they were characters in a story--had found happiness in each other, a kind of happiness he would, possibly, never find, and he didn't know if it--

That's it, he thought, and stopped himself.

To hell with this 'what if she doesn't love me' nonsense!  If she does, excellent, and if she doesn't, I can always move on.  No big deal.

He carefully placed the diary back on the table, wrote out a note for Laura, and grabbed his bike and sped off to the candy store.

*

(To be continued...)

Carnival: Part One

Part One

 

“If you have even one solitary light guiding you, remember, you are not alone in the tunnel of darkness. But even if you have no candles to light your path, look skyward, and rebehold the stars.  They will be your companions."

He remembered the words Laura had written in her little black book. 

Laura.

The girl with hair as dark as black coffee, who wore the same shirt every morning she opened the candy store at eight in the morning. 

Laura, with her beautiful stories and her pretty, sad smile.

“Believe in yourself!" the sea-blue coloured shirt read. A powerful message worn by a not-so-powerful woman.

But now, he had not seen her in a week. He wondered where she was--he missed her, and although they hadn't talked much, he had guessed everything about her, because of the little black book she'd left on the counter by mistake--or had it been intentional? As far as he knew from the book, Laura was not the kind of person who'd leave her things lying around, unless, of course, she had wanted someone to see them. Maybe she had left it for someone else? Mr. Marlon, perhaps?  The idea puzzled him. Mr. Marlon was reserved, unwilling to share his thoughts with even the closest of his acquaintances. Were Laura and Marlon friends of some sort? No, they couldn't be.

Could she have left it for a customer? He discarded the idea, it had too many variables.

She must have left it for him.

He shook his head, not wanting to distract himself from his painting of the end of a dark tunnel. He would have time to think about it later.

He looked around the room, feeling something was amiss, but maybe it was just because he'd been thinking of Laura.

                                                                       

   *

She sat on the hard, wooden chair she had got from the old lady across the street.  Stealing the painting had been easy--(what kind of artist keeps his studio unlocked when he's going to be outside for the whole day?)--the hard part was looking at it. She examined the masterpiece in her hands. Every stroke, every colour was perfect, just as she had imagined it. The snow, a grayish pearly white, the trees, bare, the sun, nonexistent within the painting, and her heart, broken.

No, he doesn't know about that.... Or does he? He could have found out from Mr. Marlon, for all she knew. 

But then he never talked to the old man except if he wanted him to pose for a portrait. Even then, the exchanges had been minimal.

The only question now was if he'd been clever enough to take her diary off the counter that day.

She noticed he had signed his name--Robin--in the corner of the painting, in black.

Every story she had ever written was about him, every last one. He was not mentioned in the most obvious of ways--by his name--but she had made sure all of them included things he liked-- the sunset, snow, children ice skating, shafts of sunlight cutting through the gaps in the leaves in autumn. She had been daring enough to make two of her characters, Jason and Rita--very similar to herself and Robin--fall in love.  That was the last story she'd written in the book.

She'd called it "Carnival".

To be continued....