He doesn't leap out of bed in the mornings, but it's easy for him to get up early, these days, even if the sun is firmly blocked out, if the world beyond his door is drowsy and unstirring, without time tearingoff ahead of him and mocking his intentions. He hears the alarm calling for him, louder and louder as though his brother stood at the head of the stairs and called, condescending a few steps each time he did not reply. And with no defensiveness and no evasion, he sits up and meets time as he meant to, just as it is paused, with its head cocked, listening to the alarm that has brought him here, before it passes through the door and onward—he sits up and nods at it, friends they are because he has stopped himself pleading (or shouting or muttering) at its retreating back. He does not assume familiarity, there are no loyalty privileges, only the choice over forgetting. He does not seek to manipulate it to neatly time his own escape; he will use his certainties—of himself—to build more, and then more, like a tidy accumulator; and when time comes with infinite patience to wait, and not to pause, he will throw aside his modesty with no threat of reward, and meet it lazily, with spare seconds and minutes and hours tucked away in deep pockets to enable his indulgences, and by then be indifferent to indulgence altogether. Perhaps.

for my best friend.

First it was that we had only each other, needed only each other, needed to keep talking to understand the world more and more deeply, thinking together, chords from strings, We had never met anyone like us, we would never settle for anything less.

Then, that growing feeling that it wasn't just us, wait a minute, there are more! Others, a community of us...Find them! root them out! Let us be ourselves and draw them close—they will come.

More and more, groups unravel to reveal people we may love, we splash ourselves with friends, exulting, we wade towards others, gather more and more together, you and i a little apart, exchanging grins... then a little further...

We each reached out, and out of sight, bobbing somewhere around here. The world's an ocean, not a bucket! We can soak ourselves to the chin! Certain that we're both here together, creeping out and plunging in.
What more can I want? A bit more of you, happy head, bobbing about, a bit more seeing what you see, a bit more laughing so hard water goes up my nose.
I could always do
with a bit more you.

an open book.

So convincingly

They push the buttons, hop image to image

Describing, explaining, empathising,

Because graphics are better than the real thing

For explanatory purposes.

But when you see there's nothing there

(A green screen being better than graphics

For illustration purposes),

Wonder at how, imperturbably, 

she points out a storm

or puts it there.

She gave birth to miscarriages. Three, four, five.
Immature, gory mistake. She didn't eat enough.
She turns her head to look at them, licks a ear, nips a nose,
Then eats them whole.

That she is a dog should comfort you.
Yet, strangely, it does not. They are not far enough,
Not brutal or anecdotal or insignificant,
But running your races, licking your wounds.
And you in turn cannot but make a mother of her,
Her whimpering, heartache, her hunger, trauma.

She ate them, then went away and howled, outside.
Returned the next day, sniffing round the now-clean room,
Searching. Silence the indecent proposal.

becoming

Go on, give it to him. You have other games, and he's smaller than you..

-But I want it. It's mine. It's my favourite game, Ma…

Don't be so selfish. Give it. You have so much, you can't give this one thing?

-*sob*

She went out of the room and gave him the box herself, with 

everyone's parents watching approvingly, and 

the sob in her throat laughing at her. Good girl.

You—How do you do that?! Man, you're amazing! People should worship you. The jealousy would kill me.

- I—have to admit… I was plenty jealous at first. I mean, it was horrible, but I just decided, and then… that's it. It's ok, I mean, there's too many good things to let this ruin it…

Still. You're incredible. I couldn't do it, dude. I just couldn't. Like, wow.

- [*sob*]

Every night she screened the thoughts in her head. 

Edited out the thoughts that were nasty—

"I am not that person, I am not that person…."

— with the child sobbing for conventions and possessions just behind. Good girl.

Maybe she will actually become one. 

Apacha and Amachi first noticed him- he used to live across the street from them in Picnic Garden- because he used to take his motorbike to pieces when he came home every day. And then reassemble it the following morning, before riding it to work. So that noone would steal it, he told people, but maybe he just liked doing it. People stole lots of his ideas, though, and went and started companies with his machines, once they understood them, but there are some things you can't help. The part they couldn't help noticing every morning, it was so much fun, was him running down the street at top speed with his bike, kicking it to start, and then jumping onto it before it left without him.
He lived in a one-room flat where you had to go to buy WHYMUTO balm or oil (balm stayed longer, oil was easier to apply). In fact they called him Whymuto Mathaichen for it, and bought his balm in bulk because he might go broke and out of stock at any time. It was good for about a hundred different kinds of problems: aches, burns, scars, injuries, anything you can think of. It said so on the bottle, and lived up to it, which was a point of honour with him. WHYMUTO stood for Why Hungry Young Men Unable To Oversee (their present difficulties, and look to God). The only time he crashed his bike and nearly cut his leg in two, they dressed the wound nicely at the hospital, but he ran open, ripped it open, stuffed it with balm and then put on a bandage and went to sleep.
About a year after that, Jadavpur University received a machine from abroad, but it came in pieces, and noone there could figure it out. At the time, he was building a needle-making machine which he sold to someone because he needed the money to create the special kind of plastic figures he made, which danced when you touched them with wet hands. He went and offered his services, God was helping him, he refused assistants. Fixed the thing, and for reward, asked for a piece of land where he could grow tapioca. 

I should like to say Confusions, step aside, and kindly Do not disturb while you're at it.
But can I leave the confusions for later?
Can I push them out, or will they be hanging murkily round the door, whistling queasy tunes,
And when I turn around, they'll shove me in a sack and that will be that?
And even if I can make them go, will they be lurking right outside, waiting vindictively
To say I told you so, when I have to come back out the door again?
I should like to say Begone confusions! And then later say I never saw it coming.
Only I'd like to have seen it coming because people who didn't see it coming evidently
Need glasses, and I am far-sighted (I'd like to think).
And I should like to say Stay, Confusions! But that means every time someone says no,
I have to think Yeah, maybe No, and maybe walk out the door when nobody made me,
Just to avoid the ignominy of anyone forcing me out, kicking and screaming, even from
What I've always wanted. The other ignominy is private, noone saying I told you so,
Only the unruly inside voices screaming sometimes, I knew it.
And yet, should I like to say, Confusions, I shall deal with you later, please,
They will say, No thank you, Madam, we are here to collect what is ours only,
Please to cooperate, otherwise you will cooperate and not remember anything of it.