Sun Worship – Chapter 8
All in line
The stage is set. All the graha are in alignment for a final showdown. This had to happen. This will happen because it’s all part of the game. The Tree of Liberty will be refreshed by blood and that’s that.
We were there. We were all there when it happened. From the music and the arts; we thought we can make a change for the better but instead we built our kingdoms and embezzled the money like the so-called leaders we tried to get rid of. The leaders of a country are the reflection of its people and we are society of mentally challenged, greedy control freaks.
We won’t take no for an answer from the most weakest and vulnerable among us, because that’s our thing. We cover like animals when the powerful and mighty rush past us in their expensive vehicles like slaves when they see Pharaoh.
The world is still contained as the sky is the limit. Whatever we do it’s not enough. Humanity is an adult with ADHD, it slows progress but there are days where months happen and we are thrust into unfamiliar territory. We are still peasants of old in mortal fear of the lords who run our realms. Our first lessons are that of fear and we are conditioned to be the good citizens of this human farm.
There is no escaping reality, each one of us has been burdened with purpose that is hard to fathom. For some it is to die in front of a busy intersection so the traffic cops can make stringent measures to the safety of other pedestrians and motorists. In that respect, the man who gets crushed by a truck is a martyr. An unwilling sacrifice for the good of all, nevertheless.
Read this and count your blessings. You can afford a newspaper on a Sunday. Call your loved ones and tell them how much you care for them because who knows what tomorrow will bring. Hug your mother and father, go out for lunch with your friend, text your ex and tell them there are no hard feelings.
There is no greater love when you love somebody despite their faults all the while your faults bother them. They will try to change you, correct you and give out stringent ultimatums. That sort of love is only born out of massive trauma. When you go your whole life being treated like you don’t matter and a liability, you tend to over compensate for things when it comes to love.
But let bygones be bygones. Tomorrow may not even matter because we have to live for today. This may be the most misunderstood lesson of them all.
Till we meet once more.
Words: Jonathan Frank
Birds of the same feather, flock together
Success at the Grade V scholarship exam changed our destiny
If not, can it be attributed to some kind of an event, arbitrary
It warranted both of us, for a period, to be closely together
Until both of us slowly but surely approached the A/ Level barrier
Being a member of the same village, I helped you as a sister
Which enhanced our intimacy that we cannot forget for ever
A/ Level, the gateway for University, you did extremely better
That did earn you a berth in the Medical Faculty to be a doctor
Although little did my fate warrant me to get over the A/Level barrier
The fact remains, your success enables me to spend the days happier
In the campus, do banish my memory to float in the empty atmosphere
Without even a semblance of sorrow, to embark on your vital career
By virtue of your results, you became qualified to be a doctor
I have decided to be a driver to face life ahead as it does occur
You have become eligible to be with birds in a higher feather
May you blossom as a doctor and spread fragrance in the world over
It’s great, You brought honour to everyone in our quaint village
Your endeavour will undoubtedly become a precedent for courage
I look forward to see you prosper with a loving partner in marriage
To blow the trumpet in a boastful tune to display the village image
Your eligibility to become a doctor, is more the merrier
For, as has been the case always, your success is my pleasure
It so happened, we are no longer birds of the same feather
And it’s quite evident that we cannot, any longer, flock together
Words – S.S.J. Fernando
The Remnant
The rainwater tore in
Unrelentingly
Through the fraying fronds
Thatching the roof
Of the shanty.
On the ageing cement floor03
Cracked here, broken there
The rainwater flowing freely
Laved along the crumbly clay wall,
And the muddy water soaked
The old gunny sack, holed and folded,
Carpeting the cracked door-step
As it meandered out.
Outside, an old bicycle
Rusty and rickety now
And long past its better days
Leant against the limewashed clay wall
Sodden now with rainwater
Cascading from above
And blown in from out
By the buffeting wind.
A few dry coconut husks,
Drenched now like babblers after a bath
Were adrift on the muddy puddles
Dug by the relentless drilling of the rain
That took on the colour of silver
Against the space, empty and amorphous.
As the muddy flood laid siege to the shanty
And stormed in
The soggy clay walls caved in
Collapsing like a sandcastle hit by a wave.
Caught in the muddy avalanche
Of the four clay walls imploding
Falling, folding into itself
Everything inside, namely,
The rickety table and the creaky chair,
Their two beds with grimy rush mats
Over the sagging coir mattresses
And the ancient cabinet with the broken glass
Was crushed to the ground,
Like a beetle under foot.
The old peasant and his wife,
Who had both been kept away by the rain
Came home to a heap of mud and wattle
(with their bicycle atop like a relic dug out of the earth),
That looked nothing like a home now
(not even when the humblest possible is counted)
And watched with cold sorrow
The drenched ruins
Of their humble paradise.
The flood had all but destroyed,
Or washed away,
All their possessions.
All, I mean, except misery.
Words – Jayashantha Jayawardhana
