I Dare You To Move

Summer afternoons have a dangerous tendency to turn people into amateur philosophers. The mornings you can immerse yourself in world politics and shocking revelations about celebrities (like how Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt fell out over a house, oh my god!). Evenings you can think up something to do – go for a walk or something, attend some retarded parties or get-togethers filled with people you don’t know... but what do you do with yourself from 2 to 5? sleep is probably the most obvious answer, and it should be similarly obvious that after waking up at 10 o’clock which, again, is not exactly the crack of dawn, now is it, try as one might sleep eludes the eyes. A lazy, lazy time...time seems to stretch beyond the limits of credulity. I can think of about a million things I could be doing – reading one of the five books currently pending attention, doing one of glass paintings mom would like so very much to adorn the walls with, get started properly with the math project I’m doing, watch TV (or, rather, bore yourself into a coma or excite yourself into a rage with the shit, the pure shit, that passes for entertainment), call up friends, and oh a million other similarly productive activities. But the fan whirrs lazily above, the curtains billow out in the breeze, the sea shimmers in the afternoon sun far away, and all I do is lie here, lie on my back, staring at the ceiling and out of the window at the blazing blue sky and the tufts of cloud drifting by. I lie here, awake, alert, listening to the sounds all around me, trying to discern the minutest movement, the tiniest squeak, the smallest evidence of life around. The gentle snoring of mom in the next room. The honking of cars in the street below. I live in the nerve-centre of the city where rush is the keyword and having nothing to do when all around you can see people in Brownian motion is a pleasure not to be lightly dismissed. It fascinates me, this torpor, this inability to even stretch my hand and reach for the bottle of water on the table, this complete immobility that I can shake off at a moment’s notice, oh of course I can, only I don’t, I just don’t and let this inertia take over me, conquer me slowly, spread across my veins to reach every nook and corner of my being, such that for a moment I can almost feel my heart stop its beats and succumb to it, my mind shut down and succumb to it.... A crow comes and sits on my windowsill. Don’t ask me why it couldn’t choose some less exalted position – I live on the 13^th floor, for god’s sake. An ambitious crow. Interesting. It doesn’t seem to mind my presence much, though. Be my guest, I feel like saying, consider the balcony all yours. Oh, don’t worry, I will – written all over the creature. Bold bastard! Look at it now, inching it’s way into my room! What nerve! Shoo, I want to say, go away! And I can do it, of course, only I don’t... I just keep watching....soon the crow loses interest and shoves off. Good riddance, but dude! My company bored even a crow!!!! I feel vaguely insulted.

The clock tower strikes four. A slow, sonorous sound, not something you readily associate with this crazy city... And that’s when I start wondering about who I am and where I’m heading and I know I’m in for trouble now...philosophy is not after all my forte, I’m going to be an engineer for god’s sake, but these bloody summer afternoons....