Three friends, a fishing boat and the secret to levitation- continued

II

Abe stared at the sea. He held in his hands, a net, coarse to his delicate fingers. “Abe, the net,” his father screamed at him to keep the net taut. It was three years ago, since he was offered a way out. They had promised to meet at the bus stop the next day at noon. He had written a goodbye letter, he had packed his bags and was ready to leave when he fell down the stairs. Curiously, his parents never found the goodbye letter. Abe had debated leaving to find that mysterious messiah but his childish innocence tied him tied him to his little world, even though he knew it was small, too small. He had once packed and reached the bus stop but didn’t know which bus to get into. So, here he was. Living the life his father planned for him and it did not involve flying. His life, he thought, was wasting one day at a time. He convinced himself he was not selling his soul for the simpler pleasures of life. Abe’s dreams were less vivid, he dreamed about cabbage and beetroot. Once he dreamed a tiger was let loose in their village. None of them let him fly.

The sea spat back at him, it was time to take it in, dawn was just about to break. The sky was turning the colour of a newlywed bride—a pink hue on an almost white sky. The sea gulls flew over his boat, their wings ruffling in the wind, just like the sheets of a marriage bed. Wisps of dark clouds like her eyelashes completed his fantasy. It was the beginning of a new day, a new passage in his life. He was now wedded to his dream. Not many understood this. They preferred to avoid Abe; his parents ignored his rambling as long as he was the best fisherman in the village, which he was.

He did however; find comfort in two other friends. They gave him one thing a 15 year old never asks for—quiet. The three were entirely comfortable in the absence of conversation. They had once spent an entire evening walking on the beach, not a word said, not a meaningful glance or a nudge. They just walked.

Amongst all the other around him these two were the only ones he had spoken to, briefly, about the mysterious man. Abe felt closer to Mahesh—known for his strength—rather than Abu—known for nothing in particular. Abu obediently sided with the majority. Luckily for him, he never had to make a choice. Mahesh and Abe never argued.

III

“I think, this time I might leave,” Abe whispered. Mahesh grunted. He looked at the bidi he had stolen from his father’s drawer. It smelt foul but he saw the adults suck at it and often, on a cold wet evening, hold it with some reverence. He was always amused.

“What do you think, Abu?” Abe asked, raising his eyebrows. Abu shrugged. He never knew what could be said in such a situation. The more he thought about it, the more he realised, he didn’t know what to say in any situation, except when his grandmother asked him if he wanted fish. Abu’s grandmother was an excellent cook, but she could never get the fish right. She always left it raw. Abu liked it. He insisted that it was the food of the future.

It would mark three years the next day since he met that man. All he had to do was get on the bus that left the village at noon and get off the last stop. This was the only logical way he could trace the steps of the man who would teach him to fly.

“I think, this time I might leave,” Abe repeated. Mahesh nodded, he patted his pocket. Mahesh had a letter Abe wrote ever week to give to his parents when he left. At the end of every week he gave Mahesh another letter and tore the previous one. Mahesh always silently pocketed it. Never a question asked, never an explanation offered. Abu nodded, he held out a small sock that had odd coins and notes and handed it over. This was another tradition, every week; Abe added a few coins and Abu hid it. Neither of the two friends ever responded. Usually, the three walked back home in absolute silence, but this time Abe took a detour; he went back to his boat while the other two walked home.

Mahesh knew this morning felt different. When he woke up, there was a knot in his stomach. The sky was different. Dawn was early. The sky was white, like the shroud on a corpse. The white was punctuated by a few deep dark clouds, the shade of a hand, which had slipped the tightly tied shroud, where the blood had coagulated. The sea gulls were making an infernal racket. They sounded like the wailing of the widow. This day, he felt, was the death of something important. He didn’t remember this till he got back home after awkwardly waving at Abe as he walked towards that wretched boat.

Creation, Destruction and Everything in the Middle

This tale was born on Colva’s premier beach. I cut the umbilical cord with the buzz that accompanies copious amount of beer on a cold February night. The story has been since stewing in the recesses of my mind, unable to see the light of day until another story pushed it out.

It has been, personally, one of the toughest weeks of my life; I think I did it well this time. No breakdowns, I didn’t give in to temptation and I kept my head firmly in place. But this isn’t the story of my bravado it is the one I narrated on a beach while chewing on a wonderful chocolate chip muffin.

Three friends, a fishing boat and the secret to levitation
The three lights were constant on Colva's horizon. People had stopped questioning who those bobbing lights belonged to. Many years ago a geology grad had explained, to the locals, it was the reflection of a methane eruption usually seen when garbage is dumped offshore. "In a few million years it will be oil," he said brightly. A few god-fearing fishermen had ascertained it was where damnation and earth met. "It is all described in those missing pages that the Vatican doesn't want us to read," they concluded. The lifeguards dismissed it as a whale with a tag that reflects when the moon shines on it. No one knows of a whale in South Goa; if there was one, it would have been on our tables.

Old man Crab said he knew. No one paid heed to the old man. He was old, wrinkled, had long arguments with dogs, was a vegetarian and looked like a hermit crab. No one listens to someone who ties their house—a cardboard box—on their back. But Crab knew and when Crab died, the secret died with him. Crab died in peculiar circumstances, he was as strong as a horse, the three bouncers from the posh beach shack up the beach can testify to that. He had once wrestled the three men, a fourth his age, beat them into submission and then bought them beer. Crab, witnesses said, was seen screaming—he is back—while pointing at an even older man, he then kneeled over and died. I met that mysterious old man, and here is that story…

I

A young boy, not more than thirteen, his shirt unbuttoned, his school shorts dirty with wet sand and sea shells ran the beach with abandon, he ran everywhere, he often hoped, if he ran fast enough he would take off. It was his dream to fly.

We all have dreams in which we fly. These flying dreams, according to popular psychology, tell us about the state of mind. We fly over cliffs and over monuments, we fly out of tough situations and some of us fly into tough situations—if you have a messiah complex. But not this boy, when dreamed off flying he could smell the salt and he could hear the cries of the sea gulls, he felt the wind ruffling his hair. He saw his hair, it was long and curled, and it also had a few beads in it. He always woke up when he saw his hair. He had these dreams in the afternoon in an abandoned boat, where he would rest to escape the white heat of the sun.

This day, his boat was the home to an old man.

He was certainly not a local, his accent was different. He had wrinkled skin, his shirt so baggy it covered his fingers, his pants were held up, gracefully, by a piece of cloth tied around his waist. His shaggy beard covered his face, his hair—dark—dropped to his eyes.

“You love to run, don’t you?” the old man asked. The old man looked familiar, the boy didn’t reply. “Have you tried to fly?” the old man asked. The boy nodded.

“Come with me, Abe and I’ll teach you.”

It is never too cold for a warm mug of tea

What is the right temperature to talk politics? It certainly wasn’t in a draughty room, with a half packet of un-smoked cigarettes, cheap rum, bad wine and a packet of potato chips—lays.

I remember one sanctimonious bitch telling me, “stop calling it Ruffles Lays, it isn’t. It is just lays,” after which the pig-headed-mental-age-of-16 woman-child rolled her eyes. “It isn’t just lays, it is Frito Lays, you dumbfuck! Next time you get in trouble, call fucking Pepsi,” I didn’t say. But that is what exactly came to me when I sat there in that room which had five window panes missing. I have these moments. I am a petty and vindictive man when it comes to ungrateful pricks who don’t know how to spell gratitude.

The weather, Google later told me, was 1 degree Centigrade and windy. I could have sworn it was 1 degree Fahrenheit and a blizzard. For those who didn’t know or were too lazy to get the gag—1 degree Fahrenheit is -32 degrees Celsius. Do the math. Now, you get it? Attaboy!

But don’t they discuss politics, if ever, when it is the last digit before zero, near a fire place in the living room? Do they make fireplaces in living rooms anymore? And before we move on, who are these they? I have to find them. They make odd rules—don’t drink water after eating a watermelon. Don’t run before the sun is out. Why the fuck not?

I digress.

Let me start from the beginning.

I was sitting with the Colonel and four strangers at 10,000 feet above sea level in Lachung, Sikkim. The four friends worked together in the same store selling clothes. They had taken a few vacations together. One of them was married; none of them had a proper education and all of them were younger than, both, the Colonel and I. In any normal circumstance, you wouldn’t find us two city boys sharing a drink, a few laughs and drinking stories with four salesmen from Murshidabad. I am not looking down at them; I am looking down at us. But this was not any ordinary circumstance, this was special. This was the Colonel’s time and it was one fucking degree centigrade. Did I say that already? I will say that again.

The Colonel, for the record, loves to let people stumble their way in and out of conversations. He leads them like a predator, sniffing around them, pushing them into a corner and when the time is right—the smart comment and the wry smile. Score! Smart man the Colonel.

Why am I whining without anything happening? Just you wait.

“Do you vote,” the colonel asked them. Surprisingly, the boys, whose crowning glory was holding down a job for two years and managing to score homemade alcohol, loved politics.

“We do, whenever we can.”

“Communist in your state, who in your district.”

“Congress and it shall be forever.”

The colonel and I, grudgingly, loved where this would take us. “Why Congress?” I spat. Hoping the disdain for the very average but uninspiring thieving fools would stay out.

“He [Congress elected leader from rural West Bengal] has done a lot of good. He has paved the streets, cleaned up the city and he doesn’t let us blare the horns after 5 pm, he [the humble and honest leader] says it is illegal,” said one rather proudly. The four boys were proud of their city and its hand in banning frustrating horns snared, especially, by the idiot outside my window. Could we send his sorry ass to Murshiadbad? He would like it there. Why? You don’t ask. The boys enticed us to visit by telling stories about the sights and sounds and how easy it was to score a hot steamy night of anonymous sex. Apparently Mr Murshidabad lets brothels and a good, healthy trade of marijuana flourish under his rule but not legitimate voting procedures? Now, wait. I just violated two rules of writing—1) Answer one question before getting on another and 2) Get to the bloody point. I will.

“There have been reports that he [the humble and honest leader] has faked votes,” one of them said and he smiled. I was shocked. I knew these things happen. I watch The Simpsons too. But these guys said it with pride. It was whatever-holiday-the-colonel-believed-in came early for the Colonel. The Colonel smiled with genuine delight. The child was handed his candy.

“You still trust the system,” Colonel asked, what he hoped was, a rhetorical question. The wry smile, the smart comment, this was it. Or was it?

“Yes. Obviously,” one said.

What?!

“There was another man who tried to stand up to [the humble and honest leader] but [the humble and honest leader] was a gangster, before he turned politician, and the man was never seen again,” another said with even more pride, implicating [the humble and honest leader] had him killed.

“Do you know anyone who had his vote faked?” asked both the Colonel and I. Both smelling a story. No said one. No said the second. No said the third and the fourth guy said nothing at all. The conversation then veered to the reason why younger women married older men.

“Who had his vote faked,” I asked the fourth. The boy smiled. I offered him my cigarette and lit it for him.

“My mum,” he said.

“How did she come to know?”

“She went to the polling booth and [the humble and honest leader] told her the vote was made and she could go home.”

“Did you complain?”

“She would have voted for him anyway. Why would I? We don’t have time for this. And I don’t want to disappear.”

Fuck.

Before I wrote this blog, I was screaming and yelling at the TV screen almost having forgotten about this conversation. Renuka Chowdhury was squirming her way out of TV interviews and had given feeble excuses about the food price rise. I screamed: this why I don’t vote. All of you are fools. This system is broken. No one can be happy in this system.

Except those four from Murshidabad, I suppose. It was 13 degrees centigrade in Mumbai and it seemed cold, even then, to talk politics.

The Incessant Reruns

I am back. Back? Back, yes. Can you believe it? After one year of eerie silence in the cyberspace, I return. I wouldn’t say I haven’t been spewing words into this ingenious world of 1s and 0s but to put pen to the metamorphic paper—that hasn’t been done in a while. The colonel’s furious and unnerving note making, pushed me over the edge. Apart from running down snowy slopes howling like a bitch in heat the colonel inspired me to write—again. The colonel is a very inspiring human being. I’ll, as the subsequent blogs pan out, describe the colonel in detail and with a lot of colour. He is the one responsible of pushing me down into the chasm of writing—for you. Yes, dear reader, for you.

I live this pointless life for you. I make mental notes to tell you, funny anecdotes to narrate, plagiarise one liners to make you sniffle and plentiful more. I am, as I claim to be, a budding social commentator and a failed comic. I like to call my brand of humour as vague.

Vague humour translates to—not really funny, but usually interesting observations that you usually miss or choose to ignore. Erm… I’ll stop defending myself.
In the 5Ws (or was it 4Ws?) and 1H there is a Why? Why am I back? Like I said before, blame the colonel. His revolution has enamoured me and he has his first and, I can safely say, final recruit.

Solemn oath:
This blog, henceforth, won’t philosophize especially by using immature metaphors. It will stick to a topic and rant. There will be no talk of wolves or any other animals of the night, unless I spot one and I talk about it. Otherwise, rest assured, Mr Sociologist has left the building.


Feels good to get that off my chest. You must wonder have I wasted your time? I won’t debate it, I have. You are here, because I have either arm twisted you into reading this or you are me. Not many bother. If you are a potential employer, I am flattered. But please, don’t judge me through this. I am better than this.
This blog won’t be an Ayn Rand-like monotony of self-righteous vomit, nor will it be Paulo Coelho’s pop spirituality. I won’t attempt a Tom Robbin’s brand of humour. I won’t be as clinical as George Orwell. I won’t be as dramatic as Franz Kafka. I am better than the second and I am not good as the third. The first is a bitch who never got laid and hence her bitter life entombs her writing. The others are out of my league and comparing myself, even in physical presence, is like erm me and George Orwell. There is none.
If you, dear reader, are an Ayn Rand loving zombie who can’t stand the thought of me whipping out my dong and bathing her grave in my spite, I would implore you to read other authors and leave this blog. Goodbye.

You still here? Excellent. Either you don’t like Rand just like me, or you want to see where it goes. Or you have a lot of time to kill. Either ways, this preamble is a peek into the life I have lived in the last one year. The places I have travelled to and the people I spoke to. There is a story everywhere and I promise to narrate them, the only way I know how to—brain farts. (Brain farts—this word isn’t mine. It was used to describe my attempts to turn my usually witty self into a social networking celebrity. I doubt it was her invention but we won’t dive into it. God bless her.)

I will start with my trip to the Sikkim then drive into Raigad, shove my ramblings into Pushkar and then love-fucking-dale—Ooty. Hopefully, I can wrap all of these up before my next one.

To think about it, this entire blog was thought, planned and written on a grubby platform in a rundown old town in West Bengal, while I waited four hours for a train to steam into the station. Yes, it was a long time for someone who did not have a lot to think about.

“I am God, You can’t shake me!”

The proclamations were grand, a rough hue of saffron ruffled into the compartment, vivid comparisons to a world in the past came rushing back, an aftertaste which was not as romantic as the ride from Kangra Mandir to Pathankot.
My companion and I, muted by the distance and our own museums of thought, where we saw and declined, carefully considered, spending just enough time and then moving on from that exhibit were disturbed by a loud scream. A man, drunk, on what seemed like cheap, locally-brewed alcohol, screamed at seemingly no one, “I will not spare you.” Meeting deranged holy men was not something I wanted to believe I adored but the last one was I met by the tracks at Kangra was docile and narcissistic rather than volunteering to save the world.

The man with his head gear similar to those priests of the temple who sit in the periphery, always discluded in the major ceremonies, they accept the money given while they gaze at nothing (They’d like to believe that the world believe's in nihilism of life and those needless celebrations of pedestal worship) before pocketing the “dakshina” (an offering to holy men), smiling at the amount of alcohol all this money could buy, while absent mindedly muttering an odd prayer just to keep up that impression of commune which he swore to maintain.

He sat down on the wooden seats, he looked around and screamed. Pulling out my headphones, Tool, was suddenly not as interesting. I sat down, facing my companion.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Crazy man,” he replied, while making the universal sign of the demented, one finger pointing to his temple and the other pointing to the man.

The “crazy” man’s rant continued and reached a fever pitch when he stood up and slapped himself thrice, before admitting his attraction to money and how he would fight all of those who betray his god, his enemies— Jains, Parsis, Christians, Hindus or “a Musalman,” he finished, looking around, smiling menacingly.

He ranted and the two of us nervously peered out, waiting for our destination, the train would not move fast enough.

“Man, am I happy you came along. I was thinking of doing this journey alone,” I said. My companion smiled back, obviously uncomfotable.

As Pathankot neared, our crazy friend decided that money was not what mattered to him, those who are deeply spiritual need not the attraction to those red 1000 Rupee notes. But he almost stopped short of tearing his notes when he was told that Pathankot had arrived. He stopped. He justified the lack of floating pieces of the 1000 by assuring any one who would listen that he had torn millions of rupees.

He took a swig from his bottle, lugging his bag, ran into the dark platform screaming “ Pathankot Zindabad” ( Long Live Pathankot, would be a safe translation.)

He got into the platform before realizing it was not where he wanted to go. He resumed screaming. I pushed my bag further up my shoulders and running up the steep railway bridge connecting the small gauge platform to the Junction, to create as much distance between me and the man. But my companion smiled unapologetically and continued to stroll, casually looking in the direction of the priest running in circles. The priest screamed about how god had chosen him. The proximity to the unbalanced has always been a source of discomfort.
My grandfather once said, “The more you desire it, the farther it runs from you and the less you want it, it comes right back to you.”
How right you were old man. You looked down from your high heavenly perch to chuckle did you not? You always had a sense of humour.

And there it was, the man returned, just when I thought I would not encounter his kind anymore. But he was back. But this time I felt safer, the bars on the window locked him out. His delusion now made him god. He assured himself that he would not be hurt because he was god, he was death.
He lay on the dusty platform, clutching his right forearm, pitifully twisting in the filth, screaming, calling out for "Amba" (Mother). His desperate cries for his mother were laced in lunacy and pain. I felt a measure of sanity in his voice.
I saw in him a man crazed by the loss of his mother. But, I love romanticizing. Before any one could take control of the situation, he leapt onto the tracks. A gathering crowd peered to see where he was. The police managed to drag him out, into the dark platform, where a few knocks to his neck and back silenced him enough to be dragged away.
The police now started to clear all those who squatted. They however, missed one.

Guess where she made her way to?

Her veil clutched between her teeth while her other hand gripping a red vase. Her sari in a bunch, to hide the vase.
The fingers counted rosary beads. Her dull eyes stared into space. Muttering to herself. She blew air, like exhaling smoke from an expensive cigarette, relishing the twang of tobacco on her tongue. She sat facing me, staring, intently waiting for a reaction. She blew and whispered.

She believed she could call on the spirits to sit next to her and directed them to stand with her to guard her against the evil. She spat to mark the spot. All this while not five meters from my face. The others on the seats had adjusted to avoid her. But she stared at us.
"This is not your seat," I said. She nodded.

I motioned her to leave, but she refused. She rocked back and forth, eyes glazing over. Drooling from the corners of her mouth. A mad smile flashed. It was 12:30 am, my companion had abandoned me. Choosing sleep ahead of the crazy woman.

Like a rabid animal ready to strike she looked at me. I maintained eye contact, neither looking away. Each challenging the other to break, thankfully the patrons of the seat interrupted our staring match. They physically dragged her to another seat. Those seats were taken by the military.

Before she left, her eyes teared up and she looked at me, pleading for help. Self Preservation was an animal I nurtured. Sympathetic smiles and nods followed and I decided to catch some shut eye.

I dreamt about vases.

There is a sadistic pleasure which drives us to watching men hurt others. With sticks or roughed by the military. The silhouette of the police overwhelming a drunk man on a dark platform. The train officials pushing the destitute out of a moving train.
A crowd gathers and watches, some smile, others just wait for the next blow. What is this fascination with violence? To hurt and to watch some one bleed. While our crazy man lay on the tracks waiting for death, there were a few who thought it would be "entertainment" if the drama continued for a little longer.

"Enough," I said out aloud to no one. Try to sleep, I did not know there was a call I would get a 4 am. A drunk past, claiming sleeping in the train was just not right.

That is later.

A fortnight’s conversation. I can use puns like the tale of two weekends. Lets just call it. Two. A little before & a little after

I have been away- from this blog. Scribbling in my notepad the things I had to talk about, to describe, to discredit. Two weekends which deserved mention have passed, but all I have done is sit around, distracted and sometimes too lazy to put across what creeps and talks from within me.

But now that the fueled weekends have resulted in conversations which have to be discussed, I will insist on exploring all the topics which have been either conversed or contemplated. This fortnight has been one in very mysterious proportions divided between the boring and the lascivious.

The first weekend promised to be fueled with desire, inane conversation and beer. Trooping into a fluttery restaurant, the beers were ordered. Tongues loosened. The cigarette lighters were furiously clicked; a few aves gave up their lives for a noble cause.

When the hiccups struck this time, we had paraded our selves to the center of misery, the roundabout of poverty. Society was the cause which my unstable feet chose to run for. We have always tried to find ways of fitting in our own non committal way to the norms which have been laid down by a few confused individuals when they tried to understand human nature, perhaps even to bring sense to chaos (difficult task, indeed.)

We have struggled to fit into the mould which has been drawn. Our hobbies and the paths which I minds wander are the yard sticks which we nervously measure to model clumsily to. All these acts of desperation are to be accepted. The fear of rejection leads to an intense wave of frustration. But if you do what you do, and still survive, this so called faceless monster called society has accepted you. If it did not, you would be nervously tapping your fingers on death row savoring the last gasps of fresh, clean and free air. But how would you still define society. It could stem from the insecurity which man suffers from either death or loneliness. There is never a way to escape from either. Then why fear? Why the anxiety? Ahh, there it comes, the dreaded popularity contest.
When peer pressure the term was first coined, it was intense scrutiny that people subjected themselves to ape others in the flock. Hilariously, all of them wanted to look to be a part of the flock and not apart hence keeping abreast with the pace of the flock.
But this flock has to be following some one, it does tend to move in a vicious circle. This weak hierarchy can never have a constant leader, some one tired of the philosophy gets up and tries to be different, stand apart, a few notice and everyone follows. The willingness to fight peer pressure is peer pressure. The conclusion that can be drawn is when some one willingly decides to be different he is competing with many others trying to do the same and hence falls into the pattern, effectively erasing the originality. Just another stone. There is no way out. Or maybe there is- it was what is called the fox way. Ahh, a new way, I will preach, listen carefully, a fox runs solo and with the pack, but never will the first fox follow the other even though there is an alpha male. If the first is foolish enough to drop into a trap, the second stops and consequently the others. The hunters move on. Fend for yourself.
It was late, and day approached. I lit my last of the day, bade farewell and prepared for the next week.

The next week was uncomfortable. While the watering hole was better, the animals that lapped the gentle teasing flow, were more trying to identify with the flock. Screaming beyond the music, conversations meandered from women in the next booth to moments in the past. I seem to regress to the life; I left behind far too often. I think it is time to get in some new memories.
While hearts were bared. There was an interesting topic which reared its debatable head. I have never had one opinion or the other on Cheating- Adultery. I have been on the receiving end a few times. Not a sweet pill to swallow. But when it dies, it dies a starved and painful death. The breath slowly leaves an empty shell of emotions and promises. It is sometimes beautiful to admire but difficult to keep. No has escaped unscathed. I was even tempted to indulge in my own distractions, but a promise has held me dry, prevented me from drowning. I must say- I respect my values more after 5 beers rather than before the first. Life is strange.

“Open the doors you crazy man, were you not hired to guard me,” I burped at my security guard.

Running on Empty

I have often wondered, what I could possibly write about if I had not spent the weekend hammered and trying to comprehend how I possibly did what I did. The weekend was spent sober. And nothing, absolutely nothing unusual. I could even generally give a discourse on the fall of socialism in Europe or the disturbing trend of a covert nationalistic obsession sweeping the world. It is frankly strange, how “we are world citizens, bound by no boundaries of state or religion” change into raving Nazis. It would not be unlike the signature Opeth albums, with something so melodic as “To bid you farewell” coupled with something straight out of the depths like “Nectar” both coupled one after the other in The Morningrise. Or I could just write about the foolish and mind numbing articles I spend afternoons reading on football, maybe I could make up some rumours. Ronaldo’s hernia has resurfaced because he dove on concrete while playing with 7 year olds, force of habit you see. I could even talk about the deeply depressing graphic novel which started slow and has turned to a heart breaking tale of the Palestinians, worse it is journalism. Not fiction. It hurts slightly more.

But then, would it be worth talking about it? (Co-incidentally the Economist talks about one of them and I spend my spare time thinking about the others.)

I was just imparted a casual statement made through a distracted mind, I was told all about staying happy in the moment (It was a solitary line, no evaluation and philosophies), now I am again tempted to take that statement and micro analyze, tear it to shreds, build it back again. But I am not into a phase of life to talk about something in a dry often deadened tone of self disapproval.
I once wrote, things are lukewarm, not is it frying in hell hot nor is it skiing on the slopes of the Alps cool.
I disapprove of this disappointing metaphor. Callous, unimaginative and so very mediocre.
It is not imaginative to make a statement that I have dug myself into a rut of self assured mishaps; I build myself up to monstrous lonely peaks, you breath in gasps, the view is gratifying but not for too long-
“The projectile will now descend, fasten your seatbelts, enjoy this one.”
I love going down, the excitement is tremendous. Puns. Another mediocre substandard attempt.

I call it a day.

I have so much more to say, describe, contradict and even ridicule. But it needs to be fueled.
Fill ‘er up