Lone Shoes on Dance Floors

Disclaimer: Quote overheard in a conversation yelled across space and time. In college, really.

***

"Some ****ing Cinderella left a shoe on the dance floor. I tripped over it and fell. Damnation."

That poor Prince Charming!

If only he had not been drunk, and noticed that single shoe (not just to curse its presence on the dance floor), he might have found his Cinderella. Not a complete certainty, no, but it could still have happened.

Wait, though. Aren't we making an assumption here that Charming would actually have wanted to meet his Cinderella? Maybe he'd already found his Cinderella, and this shoe was one of those freak accidents along the way that make your nose bleed and gross out your Cinderella. Or maybe Charming's Cinderella was the wrong Cinderella and this was the universe's way of telling him he had the wrong one and should keep looking. It's also possible that it was this owner-of-the-shoe-Cinderella's way of sending out a signal to her Prince Charming (a different one), and this one just got in the way.

Maybe this was Bachelor Prince Charming, a charming cynic who didn't believe in fairy tales and had no time to spend on Cinderellas and glass shoes (four inch heels notwithstanding) except to cuss its audacity to lie so brazenly and inconsiderately on the dance floor. Or maybe he was the Henpecked Prince Charming, who had grown up and long since forgone his belief in fairy tales and true love.

Or it may not have been Cinderella at all. It could have been Snow White, deciding she didn't particularly like the way she had to bite into insidiously poisoned apples and wait around for her guy to show up. Or Rapunzel, who liked bobbed hair, high heels and partying better than imprisonment in tall towers. Or that daughter of a weaver who didn't want to meet Rumplestiltskin. Perhaps we're just attributing personalities to her; it could be that she was just another cynic, and her shoe recalcitrant.

It may just have had a devious plan to trip someone over; after all, it can't be fun being staccatoed in tune with Punjabi songs for hours on end. It could have been miserably lost, and just in Charming's way. Or maybe, just maybe, the shoe realised that this Cinderella and this Prince Charming (cynicism and indifference notwithstanding) were meant to meet and be, and decided now was better than later or never.

Come to think of it, it's just one shoe, and a million possible reasons surrounding the mystery of its lone presence on the dance floor.

Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice: Did You Say?

Put man in a cage
And he'll show you claws that you
never knew he had.

(Yes, still in haiku mood. Though what I should be in is exam-study-mood.)

Elections are such nasty things.

Naivete or not, I can't help thinking that there is a nice, non-nasty way of doing these things. Surely we can all exist without pointing out flaws in other people (that may or may not exist) in hateful terms?

Maybe you'll say I should wake up to the real world. Well, I'll tell you now: Alarms will wake me when I'm needed, and I'll butt in and butt out asap.

Rain

It is raining.

It is that time of the year when all the rain-fairies are out, and they light up the darkening trees and lend to those funny, rotund globules of rain glitters and shines and happiness. Us, too, if only we were to listen closely enough.

***

I was reading this blog today, and this is the result.

Rain

Drops of water fall
jewels from infinity
mortal once on earth.

Learning

Once upon a time, long, long ago, this little one in a small class of very inspiring people heard someone say: "Change is the only changeless law." And: "Everything passes away."

The little one didn't quite recognise those deep pearls of wisdom. Now, that is one milestone of learning.

The next one is coming to terms with the first one.

Trees by the Library

Leaf, little green leaf,

Shot with silver light:

When you dance with the wind,

you dazzle my eyes.

You droop in the rain,

but do you ever cry?!

I can't but delight, drenched,

in your rustling glee.

With every prayer, I ask

That I be born a tree

To have you adorn

My brown, scarred body.

Reality

Did you hear of the deer who thought she was going to die because all the grass in the world was wilting?

She lived in a painting.

Glass Half Full

"Congratulations! You are now an ant!"

Wait. O_O

Have I been promoted to a class of diligent, industrious living things, or is this a belittling demotion on the cycle of rebirth?!

***

PS - Yes, I know cycles/circles can't have hierarchies, but well... Who says we're talking logic here?

Mundane Tasks

Oh inspiration, dear inspiration, wth are you?!
Why'd you leave?!
With you, I was a pink-and-green cloud flying high
in the sky
Now you've flown,
And I feel alone, all alone:
A lonely printing press in a dark corner;
it churns out words by the thousand,
conceived with hope, but they're damned:
Never read but marked, frowned upon...

And I'm just here sitting, typing out words
just one in a colony of duds.

Shadow-play

There it is again! That shadow. Oh, you intriguing, intriguing shadow! Whose art thou?!

***

It's summer in --, and what a summer! The locals tell us it's never been this hot, and that the rains used to be far more frequent.

But today is one of those glorious anomalies - rain and a cool breeze. And a moonlit night too. I am walking around the building, and making cloud-babies out of those amorphous Legos. I've seen a dragon (all Chinese and red and gold, I'd like to believe), sugar candy puffs, hearts with wings, Chucky (*shudder*), powder puffs, a kelpie, a milk carton with feet like in a video I've seen long ago (I forget which song, but I remember he meets a girl milk carton and goes to heaven, halo and all)...

A brief interlude with the music in my ears and coffee, and I'm almost home. I look up, and the clouds-babies have all been shooed to bed, and the stars are out partying, and a freckled half-moon. It's impossible to ignore their frolic; I'm an ardent fan. I'm staring quite unabashedly, and lo! there's a shadow over the moon!

I'm tempted, conditioned as we all are, to dismiss it as a chopper out on a joyride, but it moved too quickly for that. I use the old technique of watching, but not quite looking for, and there it is again! It's slender, like a cross; both vertical and horizontal, and gone before I can focus on it. Like a speckle: there, but not quite.

Maybe it was an insect flying in front of my eyes, and by some weird law of science, it felt as if it were far away. It's a plausible explanation. Or maybe it was an asteroid speeding.

But I've decided it was a witch - out, perhaps, because she's happy about the weather, and wants to make the best of it, like all of us. Or she could be the boogeyman to the cloud-babies. Maybe there's a coven tonight, but wait, aren't they on full moon nights?! She could be out on a secret mission, spying for the Queen of her Clan. Or on a secret rendezvous with a lover who's not a wizard. Or maybe it's just her shadow, out while she's brewing her secret potions in the dark of night, just to get away for a while from work. Or maybe, just maybe, she engineered the weather. I'm glad she did, if she did.

So what if it's only a half-moon night? Even witches must have their breathing space.