Category: Prose

Life, Prose, Random, Thoughts

Picture Perfect?

I. Ogunbase

The sun hangs low above in the skies across England, even though the warmth it dishes out is minimal. Minimal, in regards to the North as the cold air of the yester-nights rain hangs overhead.

It’s chilly.

Coats and Jackets brush by each other as employees bustle about, lost in their own respective worlds. Everyone gets to Work to work, but really, hoping for something else. Something different.

By the time the warmth descends, it is lunch time. The working force pushing themselves away from their desks and out back in the open, enroute the canteen and the bars selling more warmth in the form of food. The mind is joyous even as the tummy rejoices.

Its brief, moments like this. When the sun hangs at the right angle to filter it’s light through the trees branches and shower the Earth with more warmth, the wind blowing the fallen leaves into the air.

Picture perfect.

For a while.

Then the moment lasts forever. The warmth turns to heat, as the jackets and coats come off. The body pores pour out sweat in record quantities as the body laments the heat. The trees wither and die, the leaves dry up. The wind remains, stuck in the air causing the atmosphere to get stuffy. Humid.

There’s a word that comes to mind here.

Stagnant.

Like the 9-5 madness of the robotic world. Waking up, getting to work, leaving work, eating, minimal free time, sleeping. Weird order. Necessary and yet, done in the most involuntarily subconcious way possible as the mind has rationalised it into simplicity.

“You must work. To eat. To live.”

Stagnant.

As the dreams mixed and matched in kidulthood get shelved because the “big-boy” adult pants are now being worn and luxuries can’t be afforded anymore. Dreams, offset by worries. So we stay content in mediocrity. Lament at the fact that others have made it while we are stuck here being stagnant.

Sometimes…

…sometimes…

…wishing things could revert back to when they were picture perfect.

Retrospect, huh?

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Prose, Thoughts

Warm. Dark. 

I. Ogunbase

I was privileged enough to read a fictional book about sci-fi impossibilities, which was written in a way to suggest the possibilities of such occurrences. In the book, the premise was that humanity had advanced to the point where a company had engineered a tapeworm to house all the antibodies a human body will possibly ever need.

And with a single transplant, down the base of the spine of the human, they will be safe from every disease. Except, as per any horror / thriller / Science fiction, the tapeworms move from the spine to the brain, feasting it on until they take control of the body. Cue in science based zombies.

The main character of said book, “Sal”, who so happens to be a tapeworm has a coping mechanism called her “…warm, dark…”, symbolising her earliest memories of sliding up the spine of the comatose body she was placed it. The rhythmic beat of the heart, steadying her fears and alleviating her worries.

–

The ‘warm, dark’ serves as some sort of haven, shielding me from the worries of the world, as my eyes shut and my ears dim out the sound to only listen to my heartbeat.

[dum-dum]

Sheltered from the madness that infests the world, I cradle myself to normality as I try to re-adjust to the darkness that blankets the world. I failed once before, but maybe, just maybe this time round I can come out above the sin-infested sewer-hole I happen to live in.

It’s not here [gestures to environment] but here [points to mind] and here [points to heart]

The ‘warm, dark’ is solace. Solace is safe. Safe is dangerous…[Sometimes]

We are getting to the end of one thing and the beginning of something new.

Maybe Solace will represent a safe haven consistently this time…

Maybe.

Poem, Prose, Shorts

A Letter To You

I. Ogunbase

I want to write you a letter.

At first the feeling dawned upon me like sweet morning dew gracing the beautiful green of trees and plants everywhere. The colours became clearer, the sounds became sharper, and deep within me, I knew I was dead certain that I want to write you a letter.

But I am stuck.

You see, I find myself dangling on the edge of possibilities of what the letter could entail just for you, but still left indecisive as to what would be best.

Do I write to lift your spirit up? To tell you how life, while complex in itself, is simple when left in the hands of your Creator? To motivate, teach, push and assist you through all that might hinder your progress? I recall the day we spoke last, about dreams and goals and I recall you being just as indecisive as I am right now. You remained unsure as to what path to take. Thinking back, maybe I should have nudged you down what I thought would have been better for you. Then again, I wonder… would you have been offended if I did that? I don’t know. Hindsight.

Do I write to describe and display my vulnerability to you? give you the potential to wound me deep with your pen and word? Do I tell you the things that make me weak? the things that make me afraid? Do you remember when we had the discussion we had about the mistake I made when I was relatively young and naive? I had gotten so relaxed in flesh that I didn’t see the pitfall in front of me. My goodness, did I fall.

It’s all hilarious now when I look back, but my goodness was I afraid. Of consequences, of future, of self. Hindsight.

Do I write to address the issues of the heart and how I feel about you? Will you accept it this second time round? Will you forgive me for writing it, as opposed to saying it? Because my oral articulation suffers when incoherence sets in from anxiety pressure. We did this dance once, back when we were younger. Maybe I shouldn’t write it, as that led to you raising me up from my metaphorical knee and softly rejecting my advances. Maybe I’m still naive. Maybe it’s not meant to be. Maybe it was fleeting.

As more possibilities cloud my thought-space, I find myself still considering what would best be put in the letter that you’d read addressed from me.

I’m still unsure as I realise I can write about the dreams I dream about.

I can write about the fantasies I play out in my head, all colourful, diverse and ultimately expensive enough to demand a hollywood budget.

I can write about my memories and show you how much nostalgia I carry within this body of mine.

or maybe…

…maybe I should write to leave a piece of myself with you.

Can I…? Can I write a letter to you to remember me by? A letter to leave a piece of myself with you, should the day come when I am gone and ‘we’ are no more…

The future is always filled with uncertainty, so I can’t promise I’ll always be here, no matter how much I will love to be. Having lost a lot of friendships along the way, I can’t guarantee the same won’t happen to us.

It may even be out of my hands, as everything the Creator wills, happens for a reason.

I think I’m going to write a letter to you.

I just don’t think you will see it.