Miscellaneous Musings at a Traffic Signal

So, I sit to write again. I don't quite know what to write and there is a lot of work that is pending, not to mention a lot of emotional turmoil. But, I sit to write, nonetheless.

I force myself to remember thoughts so fleeting that I could mistake them for ambient noises entering my mind. Noises that could be gotten rid of by a few shakes of the head.

Anyway, the thoughts were as follows:


The city is such a marvellous bundle of contradictions. There are so many disparities, such unevenness that I am forced to marvel at the manner in which the city-dwellers have managed to hold it all together. A vibrant painting hangs in a dull gallery, echoing with solitude. An empty chair faces the painting at an angle, spending endless minutes, hours contemplating the vulgar reds and oranges—the painting's sole appreciator and critic.

Light glints and gleams off muscle cars. Blindingly fast, I've been transferred the desire to own those monsters that cost a small fortune, to whizz down cavernous tunnels and hairpin bends and to leave the rest of the world eating my dust. I do not like muscle cars.

A bored executive regards the traffic warily and puts on an affected air in his personal eight-figure monster. His equally bored driver fingers the steering wheel restlessly, raring to go. The engine revs menacingly.

Through dark tinted glass, the face of a twenty-something girl is illuminated by her cellphone. A few gifts lie helter-skelter next to her. She seems engrossed, happy and is in a shiny new cab. The driver hawks and spits.

Another girl looks up from windowframe of a cab that smells like old shoes, burning paper and nostalgia. Her head is twisted back at a strange angle and her eyes are fixed on the sky—a sky that is drowned out by gleaming vehicles, glittering dreams and glaring street lights. Two stars twinkle in short rasps, doggedly trying to match up to an old nursery rhyme. There is an intense longing on her face, almost as if she wanted to put out all the lights and spend an eternity looking at the violet sky. The cab sputters and groans.

In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.