Timely inspiration

Too soon to get back on the proverbial old horse? A few months of pent up thoughts finally spilling on the page.


We all talk of inspirations...what movie made us do one thing or the other, who unsuspectingly convinced us to go here or there, what song pushed us to accept or reject a proposal or creme brulee. Is there an inherent quality in the flick, chick or tune that helps us make decisions, or at least deludes us into thinking we are making the right ones? Or is it all just a misunderstood matter of righttime-rightplace?

Just some timely cake for thought...

Train of thought

(vintage pre-blog writing)

It must be cold out today. You shiver slightly, clutching your worn leather gloves close to your chest. You use your free hand to grab hold of the pole as the carriage lunges forward. Your thin brown hair brushes into your eyes and you’re careful to replace every strand in its place; glancing at your reflection in the window to make sure nothing is awry. Must be your new haircut. I wonder where you go every morning. I mean, you can’t possibly have a nine-to-five job, you take the 10:34 metro every day – and that’s including the weekends. I wonder if you have a boyfriend, or a girlfriend.

You furtively slide a perfectly manicured hand into your concealed coat pocket, fingering the buttons on your cell phone. You furrow your immaculately shaped eyebrows; you remember that there is no reception underground. Whose call are you waiting for? It is then that you notice me watching you. With only the shiny metal pole that you grip between us, you feel naked and exposed. You are not used to being watched – that position is reserved for the blonde, blue-eyed bombshells, you think to yourself. But I can’t help but watch you. I catch your eye and you are quick to look away, looking intently at your watch as an excuse not to hold my gaze. Although you look away, I know that you see me.

We arrive at the next stop. Your whole body jerks forward as the train comes to a halt. You seem to be caught off-guard. Maybe you have something important on your mind. I wonder if I am that something important. I guess I must seem strange to you; as I watch you. But you don’t seem bothered; you make no move to distance yourself away from me. On the contrary, you carefully choose your carriage every morning; as if to make certain that we are in the same carriage. Our daily proximity to each other almost validates our existence.

I turn my head away; compelling you to watch me instead as I have watched you. I yearn to look up and see whether I’ve been able to tempt you, but I decide not to. Instead, I look at my reflection, looking at you, you looking at me. I smile to myself; I have silently convinced you.

Why is it that I find you so intriguing? For one, you never smile. But you don’t seem unhappy either. I wish you would smile. We have never spoken but I want to believe that on some level, we communicate. I am not the shy type; I am the person standing in line at the bank and who talks to you endlessly while you mutely wish for my swift disappearance. So why is it that I can’t muster up the courage to talk to you? With each passing day, it becomes more and more difficult to make that verbal exchange. I have become too comfortable with our imagined telepathic exchanges.

You steal a glance at me, pretending to examine the metro map, which by now I am sure has been emblazoned in the depths of your mind. I wonder why you are always alone. But then again, I am always alone. Not by choice though. You reach into your oversized bag; it never ceases to amaze with its contents. You rummage through for something that you seem to have just thought of. The intent look on your face turns into a frown, and then suddenly, a smile lights up your eyes. You take out a DVD and hold it tightly in your left hand, your knuckles whiten after a few seconds – it’s a Hitchcock classic; ‘Strangers on a Train’. I wonder if you are sending me a message, after all, we are strangers on a train too. Now I would offer to exchange victims with you, except that I am your victim and you are mine. You have victimized me by consuming my thoughts as I stand in this carriage every day, watching you. And I have victimized you by making you the object of my every thought. Still, neither of us shows any interest of changing carriages, and neither of us has missed a day on the metro yet.

You often carry a cup of overpriced coffee from Starbucks, but not today. I notice that when you do, it is always full as you always empty it into the same rusty trashcan as you step off the carriage and onto the platform. You never drink your coffee but hold the cup gingerly in your left hand, shifting back and forth between the two hands, warming each one as you secretly inhale the deep aroma. I, on the other hand, don’t drink the stuff. It clouds my train of thought.

Only four more stops before you end our encounter. I am sometimes tempted to follow you out but something always holds me back. Maybe it’s your aura, lingering behind to keep me company. I usually stay on, finding a seat to rest my legs when you walk out of my day. But today is different. Today you miss your stop. For a minute I am stunned. I’ve already found a seat and now you’ve thrown me off-guard. My hands are soaked in sweat and I wipe them vigorously on my jeans, adding to the collection of stains I’ve gathered. I nervously stare at your back, trying to fathom why and how your schedule changed today. Your face is hidden from view but after a closer look, I can see your reflection, looking at me, me looking at your back. And then without warning, you turn and look straight at my face; your bottomless brown eyes penetrate mine.

You smile at me, take the empty seat to my left and extend your right hand. Then the unthinkable happens, you speak to me: “Hi, I’m Rachel.”

the time of your life

Claire sits in a room, seemingly unaware of the others around her. Rocking back and forth, she hums quietly to herself, something that sounds like a lullaby, over and over.

A young man, sitting to her left, reaches out his hand to tap her on the shoulder. "We should make sure she's okay," he tells the rest. As soon as he makes contact, Claire emerges from her trance, weary and disheveled, to the sight of eight others, sitting in a circle, uncomfortable in their rickety plastic chairs which had been donated to the community centre many years prior. The man to Claire's left reminds her of a young poet, with thick wavy hair and grass green eyes. A closer look reveals a hard glassiness, an invisible barrier forbidding any trespassers, sacrosanct against 'the outside'.

The point of the support group wasn't a matter of self-help; it was a matter of self-preservation. Being able to walk out of the room with you soul intact, not having squandered it for a few moments of peace. Claire couldn't remember a day go by that she didn't relive the memory of her lost life in her head. And Claire was only ever in her head these days.


It had been an orange day. The changing leaves and the warm sun combined to form a deceptively comforting glow, one clothed in the underlying death of summer. She had left the turkey in the oven, not needing to baste it for another half hour, and wandered out of the house for a smoke, eying the calendar on her way out; "Christmas soon," she thought, "1998 is almost over." She sighed.

Claire could hear the familiar drone of family banter, studded with the occasional laugh from Uncle Morty, whose alcohol intake and protruding belly had been increasing steadily over the years. Claire walked away from the house, anxious to be alone, and flicked the lighter on, giving life to the cigarette, its end glowing with a passion of the knowledge of its impending demise. She inhaled the fumes and exhaled, her staccato cough punctuating the ruffling leaves around her. It had been a while since her last smoke. Her blonde hair, stringy and limp, now carried the fumes of a well-seasoned turkey. Her cashmere sweater housed the faint aroma of sweet potatoes. Claire was a walking-talking tribute to all that is holy and sacred during Thanksgiving weekend--the food.

It was only when she started making her way back to the house that she noticed the car parked a short distance away from the house, its engine running and its windows fogged up. She stepped cautiously, for fear from getting caught spying on the unsuspecting neighbors as she very much thought they were. She got a little closer and that's when she noticed the number plates--it was a rented car. She peered into the driver’s seat and could make out the outline of a young blonde woman. In the passenger seat was a sweet young man, his green eyes taking in every inch of the woman in front of him. Claire felt like an intruder and with sheepish embarrassment, she stepped away from the car, and made her way quickly back to the house.

When she walked in, she almost didn't notice the missing aroma of Thanksgiving dinner. She slipped into the kitchen, not wanting to explain where she had been. It was unusually cold and slightly eerie. Not a pot or pan in sight. She blinked several times, trying to understand what had happened. Had someone come in, finished basting, put all the food in the dining room and meticulously cleaned up? All in the time that she had smoked a cigarette and spied on the neighbors?

She walked into the living room where her family sat. She looked around at the vaguely familiar faces, none of which registered an ounce of recognition. "I'm sorry," started Uncle Morty, less rotund than Claire had ever seen him but with the same sparkle in his eye, "are you a friend of Lisa's?" Claire was dumbfounded, her thoughts raced. Lisa was her mother; she has passed away eight years ago from a misdiagnosed headache. It had turned out to be a cancerous tumor.

Claire's heart started to pound, her breath quickened and the room began to spin. In the distance she could hear another voice, "Oh, is Lisa still saying goodbye to that boyfriend of hers in the car? Someone should tell her that her guest is here." Claire couldn't hear anymore, she had fainted on the floor.


Claire looked at the stranger sitting beside her. He held out his hand, gesturing that she could hold it if she wanted. She looked into his eyes, lined with wrinkles from a lifetime of worry but expressing a kindness that she couldn't understand.

She looked at the clock hanging in the entrance of the community centre; 7:52. "Almost over," she thought to herself. Right below the clock hung a calendar, and Claire tried to ignore it, having been the source of her anguish for so long. The clock ticked on.

Claire felt a light tap on her shoulder. It was the kind stranger with the haunting green eyes. "Lisa, honey," he said softly, "are you ready to go?" She got up slowly, her pregnancy weighing her down and took the stranger's hand for support. Walking slowly out of the room, she couldn’t help but glance back at the calendar, hoping for some proof of a lost reality, but she couldn't escape its truth; it was still 1968.