Judas Kiss

I thought you were really into him

Yes. I am.

Then what happened?

He could not resist, The Judas Kiss.

Clarity

"I quit smoking"

"How long has it been?"

"11 days, 23 hours"

"How does it feel?"

"Not so great. The world is not as hazy as it used to be."

"I thought that was a good thing."

"Not when you see the things I see."

We Had No Geometry

When you think of our future together, what do you see?

Parallel lines.

Oh.

What do you see?

A pair of sine and cosine waves.

See. Parallel lines.

The Mystery of the Shrunken Jeans

Filed under: Conversations I never imagined I'd have.

R: This is yum. What did you put in this?

A: Dark chocolate, white chocolate, a bit of milk, unsalted butter, cream and sugar.

R: This is so good!

A: Also, explains why the jeans don't fit anymore.

R: Dat ass!

A Love Song For No One

Memories are meant to fade; sooner or later, they vanish without a trace. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, something happens and the memory plays in your head so clearly that for a moment, it feels like it was just happening. 

It can be anything; a passage from a book you're reading, the sudden whiff of a familiar perfume, driving down a once forgotten road.

And sometimes, a song.

Bittersweet, like intense dark hot chocolate with whipped cream.

Music that resonates in the deepest recesses of your heart.

Lyrics that make your knees weak.

A duet that makes your eyes well up.

You're back on that hill watching the city light up as the sun sets. There is laughter, someone pushes your hair to the side. You smile, you look away.

You think this is forever.

But nothing is forever. 

And then the song stops playing, but life goes on.

http://sound2.mp3pk.com/indian/rdb/rdb10(www.songs.pk).mp3

The Promise Of A Brave New World

Any goodbye could be our last goodbye.

But never is this a more glaring possibility than when saying it to family and friends who live really far away. 

And even more difficult to bear is their lingering presence in the small things they might leave behind; a single sock, a hair clip, the scent of their perfume in the pillows and sheets. 

You feel their absence at the empty dinner table, in the silence of your once chaotic meals.

You hear their voices in those semi-conscious moments before you fall asleep.

You even miss their "wisdom"; those hours they spent in your room reminding you of how every decision you took led you down a path of self-destruction and then trying to tell you how to live your life.

I am just emotional today.

Nevermind. 

Goodbye, blue sky.

The Bobby Pin Dentist

I once mentioned that the job of a primary school teacher is the amalgamation of many different jobs. This proved to be true yet again. Today, I was an emergency dentist and my tool of choice, the bobby pin. Yes, indeed. I honestly felt like one of those Army doctors in the middle of a battle field trying to use whatever they can find to help the soldiers.

To be honest, school during lunch break isn't any less than a war zone. Students trying to finish everything as fast as they can, running around, chattering like monkeys, throwing water at each other, crying because they don't like their food with the poor teacher on duty making sure no one gets hurt, everyone finishes their lunch, no one falls into the trash bins, opening packets of biscuits and chips for all and sundry all the while trying to finish their own food. I don't know how most of us are not alcoholics. 

Today, I was trying to quickly gobble down my pizza when one student started wailing. Why was he wailing? Did someone hit him? No. Did someone spit in his lunch? No. Did he fall down and hurt himself? No. 

He was crying because there was a guava seed stuck in his teeth. 

Welcome to the world of a primary school teacher.

I first thought I should tell him to man up. It was just a damn seed in his cavity. What are those fingernails for anyway?

Then I looked at his big, fat chubby face. Those sad eyes full of pain, looking up to me to save the day. 

So I put on my Wonder Woman costume and decided to be the savior of all mankind once more.

Okay...I'm exaggerating. There is no costume.

I pulled out a bobby pin from a student's hair and got alcohol swabs from the first aid to sanitize it. Then I washed it to remove traces of the swab and with one flick, out came the seed. The kid looked at me like I had just saved his life. And if you really think about it, I had.

So whoever said "Those who can't do, teach",  all I have to say is, "Bitch, Please".

The Opportunity Cost

Disclaimer: I love my job.

Before reading further, please commit to memory the above mentioned disclaimer. 

Good. 

Now.

This post is about how much I hate my job.

I really shouldn't say this, but I will because parents need to know what monsters they are raising. I mean for the sake of sanity of people everywhere, please stop spoiling your child. STOP. The next time your kid throws a tantrum at a toy shop about some shit expensive toy they want and you think "I'll just buy this so he shuts up" STOP. Turn around. Look your kid straight in the eye, smile and then SMACK THAT LITTLE TWERP UPSIDE THEIR HEAD. Then turn around and walk away.

No child, no matter how filthy rich their parents, should be brought up believing they can get away with everything. Teach your kids the value of hard earned money. And if your child has that kind of retarded idea about life, then you are to blame. You were too lazy to raise them right. So smack yourself upside the head. Or better yet. Let me do it.

But this isn't really what this post is about.

This is about the most basic right a person gives up when they decide to become a teacher. The one right every human should have to express their pain, their anger, their frustration. 

The right to swear like a sailor.

Or a trucker.

I mean what am I supposed to do if my finger gets caught in the cupboard door? How can one NOT scream out obscenities when in such utter pain? But no. I am just expected to eat, drink and be merry. How is that fair? 

Sometimes I feel like a nun.

I Spy

I am convinced that the job of a primary school teacher is one of the toughest in the world. And I'm not saying this just because I am one myself. You are basically a substitute parent with the added responsibility of educating these wild things. You are also constantly switching roles from bad cop to good cop, from friend to foe, from an entertainer to a serious, frown bearing, glasses wearing, nose wrinkling lecturer all the while functioning as a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a mentor, a model and well...the list doesn't end. I mean, there is a reason I take four hour naps after coming home from work. But with all this drama, you get to have these incredible moments that only childhood innocence can give you. 

The school where I work, the faculty bathrooms share a common wall with the students' bathroom except, since ours has its entrance from the faculty room, most students have no idea that we are so close. We can pretty much hear every single conversation that goes on in there because of the air vents. Some of these conversations are hilarious. Six to eight year old children convene to complain about their day, or how harsh their teacher is or what they got for lunch and what they are willing to exchange (they actually have a proper barter system in place: one brownie for two bananas and a chicken nugget, two cookies for four nuggets, the list goes on) 

A couple of days ago I was chilling in the faculty bathroom, trying to get away from an incredibly boring teacher who loves to give religious talks to all and sundry. I was sitting and reading when suddenly, one of my student's voice drifts in through the air vent. She was basically bossing the first graders around, telling them off for not using soap, discussing lunch break with one of her friends...the usual. I was just listening to her when I had one of my "Edison" moments. I stood under the air vent and called out

"Umamah, get back to class this instant. This is a bathroom, not a club."

For a few seconds there was complete silence. And then..

"How does she know everything?!"

"Told you. She's a witch."

Heaven Under Her Feet

Just out of curiosity, do you have a tattoo?

No.

For God's sake, why would you even get a tattoo?!

Ami, I don't have one.

Yes, but why do people want them?

Ami, I don't know. Who cares.

Hmm.

Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if I did get a tattoo?

Khabardar. I absolutely forbid it.

You can't tell me what to do anymore you know...

9 months of carrying you and almost 30 hours of labour followed by a surgery and lifelong scars suggest otherwise.

A-0 Mom-1

Blessed Are The Oblivious

Time is strange.

A year ago, I thought I would never recover from my loss.

And today, I can't even remember what I lost in the first place.

I think time is beautiful.

Bleed Green

Their tea was getting cold, but they were oblivious to it as they sat on the balcony, under a canopy of green and white paper fluttering in the breeze of a warm August afternoon. She felt overwhelmed by wave after wave of nostalgia as she watched the children on the street run around with their little flags, every single one of them wearing some shade of green, bellowing out one national song after another, with an occasional shout of "Pakistan Zindabad" thrown in during those awkward minutes when no one could come up with a song. She remembered her own childhood; being woken up to watch the national parade, the whole family standing up to sing the anthem, the tears in her grandfather's eyes.

She had once asked him about it.

"When your heart is in two places at once, you'll understand."  

Wise old man. She missed him. And the Independence Day breakfast. Oh how she missed that. The oily parathas and the chickpeas gravy that made you feel groggy all day long. But it was the unconditional love and pride and the purity of those feelings she missed the most.

She turned to look at him, he kept watching the celebrations. She looked away and closed her eyes; she could still see the ocean of white and green. He reached out to hold her hand when she sighed, making her smile.

"I wish I could be seven again."

"What the hell for?"

"I don't know. Look at that joy. Look how happy they are. I want to feel that way again."

"That isn't joy. It isn't happiness. It's living a lie. This blissful ignorance will shatter soon enough"

"Uff! Why do you always have to be so morbid."

"It's not being morbid. It's called growing the fuck up. It's called a reality check. Look around you A. Do you really want this blind patriotism? Pretending nothing is wrong, that everything is perfect?" 

"Sometimes."

"Now you know why this country is going to hell. Half of us our drowning in an ocean of blind faith and the other half is doing their best to keep those idiots under"

"It can't be worse than this emptiness where you realize that you have nothing to fight for at all."

He just rolled his eyes as he got up and picked up his cup of tea. It would be the last thing he would do before a stray bullet fired to celebrate independence would find its way into his skull, the blood splattered flag behind him mocking him as he fell. 

Children of Flame And Ash

R: How do I move on?

A: You stop trying to pick up the pieces, let them fall and light one up as a symbol of good riddance.

R: Ugh. No. I want to find a way to move on, not kill myself in the process.

A: Meh.We all die young, little one. 

R: Haha! You are so full of shit.  

Yellow Diamonds

It's like being permanently stoned on low grade marijuana; a few brilliant highs in between terrible lows, gut wrenching headaches with  moments of total clarity sprinkled in intermittently; the world is grey, the world is a rainbow; and by the time your head clears up and you figure it's time to clean up your act, you're already six feet under.

But You Don't Really Care For Music, Do You?

He wakes up mid afternoon, owing mostly to the electricity..rather lack of. The sunlight is barely visible behind the thick velvet curtains and the room is suffocating because of the summer heat they have trapped in; the room smells of stale smoke, whiskey and sex. This is why he hates spending the night at her place. The curtains make the room feel like a steel box in the middle of a desert.
However, the sex here is just so much better. She's like a wild animal in here; the room is her terrain and she works it beautifully, and with it him.
She stirs next to him, half covered by the thin blanket, in her pink snoopy shirt and black shorts, beads of sweat rolling down her collarbone. She never sleeps naked. He asked her about it once, expecting some complicated answer like she usually gives. "If I die in my sleep, I don't want people to find me naked." Quite simple really.
She shifts and faces him, placing her hands between her thighs. Fuck. She doesn't even let her defenses down in her sleep. Most girls change positions just so they can subtly put their arms around the guy.
He stares at her intently, studying her, as though trying to see into her dreams. Her eyes flash open and she stares back, but says nothing. He isn't even sure if she is awake, but he breathes easy when she smiles her groggy, morning smile; frowning, tiny twitch of the lips and a wrinkling of the nose. She lies on her back and stares into space. "Thinking about him again?" he asks, the irritation in his voice evident. She smiles without looking at him, throws her blanket off and goes to brush her teeth. This was another one of her little habits; she never spoke in the morning unless her breath smelt she'd swallowed a whole mint bush; "Common courtesy," she said.
She comes out and kisses him lightly on his forehead, He hated that; it felt more like an act of condescension than one of love. Sitting on the couch, she lights up a Dunhill. "You can open the curtains if you want."

And he knows she had dreamed about him. She hated sunlight. The curtains were her way of apologizing. She felt guilty for the dream.
"I don't understand women."
"Let's not have this conversation."
"Why always the bad boys? Why always the damaged ones and your need to save them?"
She smiles again, flicking the ash on the carpet.
"Who said anything about saving them?"
"Well then, what else can it be? She looks at him for a moment as she inhales and sighs.

"Because they appeal to our sense of impending doom," she answers, crushing the half smoked cigarette on the table, her signal that the conversation was now over.

Samael

*Disclaimer*

Let's say, hypothetically,you meet a guy.

He is not only good looking, he wears shalwar kameez. You love a man in shalwar kameez.

He smells amazing. The kind of amazing that can inebriate you from a mile away; sort of like the Axe effect, but much less crass. 

He thinks you're heaven-sent (quoted). 

He laughs at all your lame jokes (your jokes are very lame) and his leave you in stitches. 

He thinks you're all sorts of beautiful, but he doesn't underestimate your intelligence. 

He loves dancing; you can dance all day, all night long. Sometimes, you don't even need music.

The way he looks at you, you have no doubts that you're the only person he sees; the world is inconsequential. You know how he feels because you feel that way about chocolate; he gets the same look in his eyes you get when you're eating chocolate; dreamy, like you can't believe there can be something this perfect in a world this damaged.

He writes you poetry. No one has written poetry for you before. The content doesn't even matter. It's still sweet. 

When you're with him, it is as though he is your planet and you are his sun.

His smile is priceless. His smile wins every single time. 

You know him inside out; not a single second of his life is unknown to you. Which is kind of corny, but who the fuck cares. He talks and you listen.

He even thinks out loud before he is about to make a move.

Such a good kisser; sweet yet dark.

He even found you a song. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

But he isn't the one you want. 

Bitch. 

Behind Closed Doors

"We have one thing to be grateful for. At least it is our daughter and not one of our sons who might be ill."

And that's the way the cookie crumbles. 

Banana Pancakes

The problem with flings is that at some point, the two parties will talk.
And words are poison.

Walls All Around Me, Impossible To Break Down

 "I miss you"

"Please...don't." 

But It's Nice Today, Oh, The Wait Was So Worth It

On my way home from college, mentally exhausted and physically drained after a six hour session, I had the perfect moment. That rare moment of absolute peace where the world seems to exist just for you, like every gentle summer breeze is carrying with it secrets only you can understand and the song on the radio doesn't remind you of anything at all. 

I was cruising down the bridge leading to the intersection, surprisingly cool winds for a Karachi May rushing in through the open windows with Jason Mraz serenading me on the radio and then it happened. 

I stopped at the traffic signal and it was like time had frozen, but at the same it seemed like it was passing by at a phenomenal speed. A man at the signal was selling a bubble blowing pipe and he was demonstrating it to nobody in particular. A few of the bubbles flew into my car, dancing to the song along the gust of wind making it seem almost visible. And then, Mraz crooned "through timeless words and priceless pictures, we'll fly like birds not of this earth". It made my heart warm and fuzzy and I smiled like I had never known any pain. Then the signal turned green and the world moved on. 

But it didn't matter.

I had had my perfect moment.