Everyday I walk the same road. That road across my house down the elevator, out of the elevator on to the blue carpet across the glass door, across another glass door and on to the pavement. Sometimes I meet people on this way. Sometimes I smile at them sometimes I don't. Sometimes they smile back, sometimes they don't. I walk down to the pavement, sometimes I breath in the outside air, like some prisoner tasting the fresh smell of freedom. But I am no prisoner. Sometimes I stare out at the sky, a sunny sky, a gray sky, a blue sky, sometime its even a cheery sky. Then I look across the road. I see people in closed metal boxes being transported from one prison to another. But they are no prisoners. Then I look to my left and wait for the traffic to lessen or the lights to turn red. Then I cross the road. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I jog and maybe sometimes I run across the road. The road is my first crossing to the outside world.
Then I walk on the pavement of the triangle of grass that faces my apartment. Its almost a right triangle and I walk along one of the shorter sides. I often pass by people here. But I never greet any one of them, they never greet me either. Both of us are imprisoned in our thoughts and minds but we are no prisoners.
As I reach the end of the right triangle, I keep walking, sometimes there is traffic coming ahead of me, sometimes there is not. But I never stop walking, I cross the road as soon as there are no cars that are coming towards me. But I never stop walking. Theoretically, I could keep walking down the right triangle across the road to the next pavement (actually a grass divider) and keep walking till I reach the corner of the Museum and the College. Perhaps on that day there would be an unending stream of traffic coming down that road I cross everyday, perhaps it would be a funeral procession of some very rich, very beautiful lady and the procession would have those long black cars, a steady stream of long black cars, each belonging a admirer of that rich, beautiful but dead lady. There would be steady unending stream of those cars and I would not be able to cross the road, and I would have to keep walking on the grass divider. I would pass the hearse that holds the body of the rich, beautiful, dead lady and my distorted, shortened, fattened reflection would momentarily shine on the window of the long, black and sad hearse. And I would keep on walking on that grass divider, till I reached the corner between the museum and university.
But there's no such steady stream of cars, I always cross the road before I can step up to the grass divider, the traffic always stops, I always cross the road. Perhaps the cars are also prisoners. No, the cars cannot be prisoners
I cross the road and step up to another pavement. That pavement of concrete, blackened by years of smoke by cars and buses that imperiously speeded by this blackened concrete pavement. I walk down this blackened concrete pavement. Sometimes there are people here, people who are walking, sometimes faster than me, sometimes slower than me. There are people who jog by me there ears stuffed with thin carbon sheets that vibrate sharply to create pressure waves in the air. Perhaps they can't listen to the cacophony of this world and that is why they have those tiny sheets of carbon that vibrate to the electric signals creating pressure waves in the air. Sometimes, as they jog by, I hear a snatch of what they hear. Sometimes I don't. Perhaps the sound is their prison. No, sound cannot be a prison.
I walk on that blackened concrete pavement and I finally reach those glowing red/green lights on the corner of the Museum and the university. I stop here, most of the time. I watch the metal prisons whizz by, people lost on their dreams, people lost in their realities. People who will drive away never to be seen by me again, people who will never ever in my lifetime, see me again. I wonder when the light will turn red. Eventually it does and those metal boxes stop, purring and humming like some monsters, caged only by the foot of a prisoner. I cross the first road and then I wait.
The next road is tricky. Its tricky because it does not have glowing lights to tell the monsters when to stop. I have to wait for variable periods of times here. Sometimes, just when I have crossed the first road, the monsters are far off and I can safely cross this next, tricky road. But sometimes they are too near and I have to wait till that steady stream, that constant line of monsters has crossed that bend in the road and I can safely cross the road. But the crossing is not tricky because of this, its tricky because of the fact that it is a 'walking person' crossing i.e the metal monsters are supposed to give way to the walking people. So theoretically I should not stop walking and metal monsters should slow down to let me, the walking person, pass by. But I don't trust the metal monsters. I don't trust the people in the metal monsters, the people who are lost in their dreams, people who are lost in their realities. So I wait. I wait for that steady stream of metal monsters to cross over and then I cross the road. Sometimes, very once in a while, a metal monster slows down the person inside the monster waves at me. I cross the road, sometimes I wave back at them, sometimes I don't. I often wonder who slowed, who stopped the monster or the person.
I walk across the road on to the pavement to corner at Museum and the university. I start walking up facing a small hut. Its a small hut, a hut made of colors gray, white and blackened like the old broken blackened concrete path I have walked on. Sometimes I wonder who lives in that hut. I actually know what is supposed to happen in the hut. It says the name on the hut. But what if that is a lie, a clandestine cover up for something different. What if it is actually fast food place run by Martians and actually caters to the planetary migrants who have settled on Earth unknown to us. Perhaps they use holographic projector to cover the actual superstructure that serves as a makeshift motel and fast food place for those inter-planetary migrants. Perhaps all the people who go in there are actually aliens in disguise. Perhaps, its possible. Maybe I am prisoner of my own imagination. But isn't imagination supposed to set you free?
I pass by that hut, I never go in, I never feel like it. (Who knows, maybe the aliens have mental projection devices that make sure that no non-humans ever cross the door to inside the hut) I walk along that hut leaving all its mysteries behind me. I walk up on the path made of hardened tar and pitch riddled with broken glass. I often wonder whose broken glass it is? Which glass, broken by the child who was crying after being beaten by his mother because he wouldn't eat what he could get and he couldn't get anything more because he couldn't earn anything more. They are standing in some dark house facing each other, that scene frozen in time, the child's eye are red, large huge drops of tears are flowing down his cheek and yet he continues to stare defiantly at his father, those huge drops of tears flowing down ever so slowly at those eyes blinking slowly, that mouth pursed into a expression of determination, his face red, his cheeks burning by the slap his father gave him and he keeps on staring at his father who is is staring back at him, he doesn't know what to do, he stares back at his son and he remembers the instant, the instant before when he lost control and his hand, his foolish hand swept across the air and hit his son on the cheek, his hand is burning not because of the pain but because he hit his son and he doesn't know what to say and he stares back at his son, his son whose eyes are red and pouring down those huge drops of tears and the thousand broken glasses of the bowl that had the cereal from the supermarket. Each of those glasses reflect and distort that frozen scene into them and now when I cross that speckled path of pitch and tar, the scene flows out of them and into me and I am in that frozen scene. Perhaps each of those glass pieces are prisoners of their own stories. But stories are no prisons.
I keep moving walking on that speckled path of concrete, pitch and tar with glass pieces, each of which contain in it a frozen scene of humanity. I walk by that hut of alien dreams and I crossover to place surrounded by tall spiked iron bars. This is the place metal dreams, a place where imagination has shaped metal and thought has coursed into the grain of hard metal to shape it into figures of worship. Sharp shapes, glowing in the sunlight glint all around me as I look forward, they are different monsters. They do not run over people and then pass the blame to their prisoners. They are thought frozen in time, they are figures of dreams birthed into reality. They are unnatural progeny of the human mind, they are brooding sentinels of thought that course through our minds. To me there violence is massive, a huge lumbering behemoth of though stopped in time and painfully coursed into the sharp shapes of human dream.
I walk across that forest of frozen human thought and into the university. I always walk by two big green trash cans, the refuse of human refuse dumped into those tow big green trash cans. I wonder when they are emptied and where they go. But I do not stop, I go on.
Then I walk on the pavement of the triangle of grass that faces my apartment. Its almost a right triangle and I walk along one of the shorter sides. I often pass by people here. But I never greet any one of them, they never greet me either. Both of us are imprisoned in our thoughts and minds but we are no prisoners.
As I reach the end of the right triangle, I keep walking, sometimes there is traffic coming ahead of me, sometimes there is not. But I never stop walking, I cross the road as soon as there are no cars that are coming towards me. But I never stop walking. Theoretically, I could keep walking down the right triangle across the road to the next pavement (actually a grass divider) and keep walking till I reach the corner of the Museum and the College. Perhaps on that day there would be an unending stream of traffic coming down that road I cross everyday, perhaps it would be a funeral procession of some very rich, very beautiful lady and the procession would have those long black cars, a steady stream of long black cars, each belonging a admirer of that rich, beautiful but dead lady. There would be steady unending stream of those cars and I would not be able to cross the road, and I would have to keep walking on the grass divider. I would pass the hearse that holds the body of the rich, beautiful, dead lady and my distorted, shortened, fattened reflection would momentarily shine on the window of the long, black and sad hearse. And I would keep on walking on that grass divider, till I reached the corner between the museum and university.
But there's no such steady stream of cars, I always cross the road before I can step up to the grass divider, the traffic always stops, I always cross the road. Perhaps the cars are also prisoners. No, the cars cannot be prisoners
I cross the road and step up to another pavement. That pavement of concrete, blackened by years of smoke by cars and buses that imperiously speeded by this blackened concrete pavement. I walk down this blackened concrete pavement. Sometimes there are people here, people who are walking, sometimes faster than me, sometimes slower than me. There are people who jog by me there ears stuffed with thin carbon sheets that vibrate sharply to create pressure waves in the air. Perhaps they can't listen to the cacophony of this world and that is why they have those tiny sheets of carbon that vibrate to the electric signals creating pressure waves in the air. Sometimes, as they jog by, I hear a snatch of what they hear. Sometimes I don't. Perhaps the sound is their prison. No, sound cannot be a prison.
I walk on that blackened concrete pavement and I finally reach those glowing red/green lights on the corner of the Museum and the university. I stop here, most of the time. I watch the metal prisons whizz by, people lost on their dreams, people lost in their realities. People who will drive away never to be seen by me again, people who will never ever in my lifetime, see me again. I wonder when the light will turn red. Eventually it does and those metal boxes stop, purring and humming like some monsters, caged only by the foot of a prisoner. I cross the first road and then I wait.
The next road is tricky. Its tricky because it does not have glowing lights to tell the monsters when to stop. I have to wait for variable periods of times here. Sometimes, just when I have crossed the first road, the monsters are far off and I can safely cross this next, tricky road. But sometimes they are too near and I have to wait till that steady stream, that constant line of monsters has crossed that bend in the road and I can safely cross the road. But the crossing is not tricky because of this, its tricky because of the fact that it is a 'walking person' crossing i.e the metal monsters are supposed to give way to the walking people. So theoretically I should not stop walking and metal monsters should slow down to let me, the walking person, pass by. But I don't trust the metal monsters. I don't trust the people in the metal monsters, the people who are lost in their dreams, people who are lost in their realities. So I wait. I wait for that steady stream of metal monsters to cross over and then I cross the road. Sometimes, very once in a while, a metal monster slows down the person inside the monster waves at me. I cross the road, sometimes I wave back at them, sometimes I don't. I often wonder who slowed, who stopped the monster or the person.
I walk across the road on to the pavement to corner at Museum and the university. I start walking up facing a small hut. Its a small hut, a hut made of colors gray, white and blackened like the old broken blackened concrete path I have walked on. Sometimes I wonder who lives in that hut. I actually know what is supposed to happen in the hut. It says the name on the hut. But what if that is a lie, a clandestine cover up for something different. What if it is actually fast food place run by Martians and actually caters to the planetary migrants who have settled on Earth unknown to us. Perhaps they use holographic projector to cover the actual superstructure that serves as a makeshift motel and fast food place for those inter-planetary migrants. Perhaps all the people who go in there are actually aliens in disguise. Perhaps, its possible. Maybe I am prisoner of my own imagination. But isn't imagination supposed to set you free?
I pass by that hut, I never go in, I never feel like it. (Who knows, maybe the aliens have mental projection devices that make sure that no non-humans ever cross the door to inside the hut) I walk along that hut leaving all its mysteries behind me. I walk up on the path made of hardened tar and pitch riddled with broken glass. I often wonder whose broken glass it is? Which glass, broken by the child who was crying after being beaten by his mother because he wouldn't eat what he could get and he couldn't get anything more because he couldn't earn anything more. They are standing in some dark house facing each other, that scene frozen in time, the child's eye are red, large huge drops of tears are flowing down his cheek and yet he continues to stare defiantly at his father, those huge drops of tears flowing down ever so slowly at those eyes blinking slowly, that mouth pursed into a expression of determination, his face red, his cheeks burning by the slap his father gave him and he keeps on staring at his father who is is staring back at him, he doesn't know what to do, he stares back at his son and he remembers the instant, the instant before when he lost control and his hand, his foolish hand swept across the air and hit his son on the cheek, his hand is burning not because of the pain but because he hit his son and he doesn't know what to say and he stares back at his son, his son whose eyes are red and pouring down those huge drops of tears and the thousand broken glasses of the bowl that had the cereal from the supermarket. Each of those glasses reflect and distort that frozen scene into them and now when I cross that speckled path of pitch and tar, the scene flows out of them and into me and I am in that frozen scene. Perhaps each of those glass pieces are prisoners of their own stories. But stories are no prisons.
I keep moving walking on that speckled path of concrete, pitch and tar with glass pieces, each of which contain in it a frozen scene of humanity. I walk by that hut of alien dreams and I crossover to place surrounded by tall spiked iron bars. This is the place metal dreams, a place where imagination has shaped metal and thought has coursed into the grain of hard metal to shape it into figures of worship. Sharp shapes, glowing in the sunlight glint all around me as I look forward, they are different monsters. They do not run over people and then pass the blame to their prisoners. They are thought frozen in time, they are figures of dreams birthed into reality. They are unnatural progeny of the human mind, they are brooding sentinels of thought that course through our minds. To me there violence is massive, a huge lumbering behemoth of though stopped in time and painfully coursed into the sharp shapes of human dream.
I walk across that forest of frozen human thought and into the university. I always walk by two big green trash cans, the refuse of human refuse dumped into those tow big green trash cans. I wonder when they are emptied and where they go. But I do not stop, I go on.
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