today

I had the most brilliant and beautiful of insights last night. And I was all set to embellish them and put them on display… doll them up, spit shine, fluff, gloss. But they were heavy and hung themselves with invisible string to my lashes. My eyelids had no choice but to submit.

(I didn’t even brush…)

But they, much like my own true self, turned out to be far shyer than I had anticipated and disappeared without a trace. I searched and searched and searched…

I thought they’d be lost somewhere in the swirl that was my night’s sleep, buried within the whirlpool that I had made of Dorai’s bed (*). I sleep without a pillow now, so that’s one less nook for them to hide in but my reconnaissance went un-rewarded. Wherever could they be?

I let myself out of the house unobtrusively and started marching home, preferring the walk to various available modes of public transport. If they were hiding somewhere on my person they’d most certainly be blown off during the journey(**). No, walking is a safer bet.

Tip-toed up to my perch to ready myself for the day, I must get to the bottom of their disappearance. I undress with the greatest of care, lest they slip out from the folds of several layers of cover. Pause cautiously at each button, hook and string undone. Frisk my clothes and quite ruthlessly too (I am rude, I never even took their permission, the clothes’ I mean), but emerge empty handed.

I check between pink little toes, only to find flakes of my flannel socks. That and patches of pinker raw skin, who are aspiring to be blisters. I check behind my knees, just in case they’re hiding in the soft little cave there… nothing.

I scan my hands… an unlikely destination… the fingerprints are too fine to camouflage them… then check under my fingernails, only to find the dirty remnants of effort.

I scratch my unkempt and un-feminine (***) eyebrows in the hope that they’ll tumble out…nothing.

Then with my index finger, carefully trace the path from the crusty stuff that has accumulated during the night at one corner of my right eye, to the crusty stuff that has accumulated at the other corner. The path it takes is decidedly darker than is usual. Must be the lack of sleep and worry (lack of: sleep, worry: of which there is no dearth)… no luck.

Then the left… no luck. I am now convinced that most if not all is lost.

I fear sifting through my hair because I know what I’ll uncover there (rhyme unintended)- signs of age and dandruff (mostly dandruff). And even if they are hiding there, they’ll most likely swim to freedom when next I rinse my scalp (****). But I’m still hopeful that they’re somewhere in the midst of all the tangled and split ended madness. So I optimistically exercise surgical caution through the combing process and braid my hair just in case.

I don’t bother checking my ears, I’d have heard them whispering by now. They’re sneaky but not particularly discrete. One last-ditch effort to check behind the ears turns up in nought.

For the life of me I can’t remember a single one of them and this is indeed a travesty. They were gems I tell you… sparkly and crystal clear. And now, whoever will believe me when I say that they were real?

Curses…

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* or the bed that Dorai was kind enough to let me claim as my own, for the night.
** i usually prefer walking anyway. having an excuse is good though.
*** as i am reliably informed by legions of beauty parlour personell .
**** i blame those evil anti dandruff shampoos, they take away everything but the dandruff.