Scrambles to his feet, hurry, messy, beats dust off his bum, his elbows, his knees, stands up straight. Yes Sir. Drop-dead silence in the lines behind.

Right Away, Sir.

He runs, leaning to the right on a limp, into the Acco. Kicks off his boots, stands in the shower for a minute. Drops the torn vest, sweat, blood blotches, grit on the floor. Pulls another vest on.

Hesitates a moment. Picks up the mangled remains and stuffs them, awkwardly, in the back of his cupboard. Trophy of his trying.

He is cowering in his shower. Global warming made his shirt sticky and the shower curtain nearly fell on his head and a large and ugly rat that was scared by it scurried across the path of his exit and is cowering behind the pot.
He sinks down into the tub and leaves a trail of wet, half-sweat half-bathwater on the white tiles. He will not leave a trace, or an impression. His brain is quite blank and it has been for a week and the presentation he has to make today is shoddy. He is avoiding getting out of the tub and putting on his tie and going to work because he does not want to present it. He wishes he had the courage to go to work dressed in only a tie because it is a lousy place to work and he doesn't have the guts or the initiative to quit.
The tap at the sink is leaking, but undramatically- wheezing and spitting like an old man, and he is guilty that he has put off fixing it for so long because he is wasting water, and because his old man sounds like he might go any day now. He feels guilty because he’s been putting off seeing him, his Own Father, but he doesn’t go because his father is unreasonable and crotchety and disappointed as old men are and have the right to be, only that he himself doesn’t want to have to be around while they’re doing it. He’s going to be one soon enough.
But since he's not, yet, he remembers that he also has to file his income tax- he earns quite decently, really, as he should for doing such godawful work, even though not too well and with no enthusiasm. He also needs to get his blood pressure checked, feels a little weak about the knees, is a little weak about the chin, and is trying desperately to grow a beard, or at least a goatee, to cover up, but he’s never been a testosterone type and the stubble refuses to grow up. Perhaps he really isn’t well- needs to go for a checkup- maybe he should just take the day off and deal with it tomorrow.

But- but- I try so hard! I try and- and- I do what I'm told, and- Nothing happens!

She is weeping bitterly, the little girl, and I do not know how to tell her.
I know what I must not say. That it is about fair and unfair. Or about what just -shrug of the shoulders- happens. Or about just Doing Your Best. And that It'll All Come Right In The End.

But how should I say that it's about waiting long enough. And then, if things really don't happen, about honestly finding out why. And then keeping on working to make it better.
I cannot say it because it sounds didactic and unsympathetic and because I do not have the words or the bond to explain.

So I hug her tightly and read her a fairytale. Hansel and Gretel, or maybe Cinderella.

hubristic of me.

Dust and books line the walls, piled on the furniture, floor, everywhere, blocking the light from the flickering lantern. Thin and hungry and brilliant, eyes red-tinged and lit, voice squeaky from disuse, lips cracked from the cold, Faustus screaming at the heavens-
"Why won't you talk ? Why so unreasonable ?"

silence.

"My Soul, what price?"

silence.

But it turned out not to be a monopsony.
Omniscience, did you say ?

Love her too much to let her go.
Love her too much to have her choose otherwise.
Love her too much to share.

Is jealousy wrong ?
It is but natural.
It is natural but
In Kindergarten they teach you this stuff-
Share the crayons.
Don't hit the other kids.
When you're grumpy, it's time for a nice nap.
And hot milk. Maybe even a cookie.

And this is how we counter those things-
The wrath of Achilles and the vengeance of Othello-
Cookies and teacher's perfunctory pat.

The book of poems just sits there,
Brash gold-and-silver wrapping,
Too much sellotape for too little experience,
I look at it longingly sometimes.
In the passing of hours in
This assignment, that required-reading,
This meeting, that talking,
It laughs at me, crackling.

I can pretend that the ugly purple cover,
The bad translation, the vernacular-ness,
Mujhse door le jaati haai,
Kii ye koi class-vass ki baat nahin hai,
Sirf- it is not like me.
But it is.
And when the dog falls asleep and the tree cries
And the words I only half understand grasp at me through sheer sound,
Hurl themselves at me,
I feel a surge of something.
Is it relief, hope, despair ?
Ki woh mujhe chhod kar gaye nahin.

I need to reassure my cynicism. It wavers, sometimes.

I need to read poems about consciously being mad[ly] in love.
So much so that we now use the clichees consciously, defying
Both those who use them ignorantly, as commonplaces,
And those who studiously avoid the pollution,
And so Proclaim to the World that our love Subverts Conventional Meaning-
Ours is Language and the World that's in it!
While believing, beneath, that it's all just hormones anyway.

I need to attend plays of socio-political Worth.
Nod vigorously in self-righteous assent, like everybody there,
Be suitably dressed, nothing too bourgeois, like everybody there,
Critique State oppression, middle class Conservatism and Indolence-
But I can never prevent those popup points:
My family's Middle Class. I don't know who the State is. I don't see
What use it is to the downtrodden that I use my leisure time
To nod vigorously at their hurt.
I need to believe that they'd stutter, ashamed, helpless, without answers.

I need to imagine those scenarios, you know the ones,
Where my friends turn out to not give a damn,
The men I love forget me, my family dies on me
[The self-absorption reaches its peak here but,
Threaded through the shit, can you see the naive trust?]
I die, and nobody cries
[Wryly smiling, viciously reminded
That I am not free of the proverbs, Chinese, Yiddish, mother's]
To remember, grateful for the harshness,
How little I have grown, contrary to unreasonable certainty,
Or hope.

I need to hear of people who have done badly
Despite being born with effortless perfection,
To despair, fear though never pity,
Throw up my hands, exasperated at the futility,
To Believe, desperately, and realize the familiarity
Of it, like I never stopped doing it, and
Hope that that is true, to mitigate the petty calculatedness.

I need to be reduced, to be crushed and trained to cringe,
Because- one final confession-
I cannot live in the moment, extempore,
Steadily leaving the minutes behind, like emission trails;
I am tied to each one that passes as if I gave birth to it.
I cannot easily turn my back on
Lost friend, disappointed hope, on emptiness,
Without practice.