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When the guard said write about everything nearby

This morning I was made of ginger tea,
yellow line, a boy counting masks,
stepping out of coaches, walking, and
crunching old leaves.
No, this was not all, but yellow
had spilled along.

The guard at the office, wore Khaki in a weather of If
shook my id card, held in hazy sunlight
with spectacles still in pocket asked, “Second Last day?”
I replied like a bee, busying the question mark.
X-Ray machine scanned all that bags had.
Meanwhile, the guard on a journey,
asked “What are you working on?”

                        “All of this.”   The bee had become
a dot to stop because what if I tell him
I just heard working as walking and that I don’t
like the colour of the ground today? What if I
tell him I was thinking to be a traffic light and
that sky has been a bad question paper?
Am I stupid because I worry about disasters more regularly?

I walk more softly now while passing across machines.
That is why I am late to pick my bag but the
guard had a few more things to scan
“Then toh there is a lot you can write about — Parali, dhua, environment.
Just write about everything nearby. Bas ho gayi dissertation.”
Snapping his fingers, the soundtrack of easy and simple.
Sun was still in shade keeping it all very real.

I wore my bag.
He shook another hand, another id card. And
Just like that we took steps to be relevant again.
And,
              Then he smiled.
That was last time I saw something that stayed long after the machines scanned out.
Looking back, it was also the spotlight.

His crinkled eyes kept pausing
everything nearby.




(Inspired from Respiration by Jamaal May)
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