Doppleganger

It's been a recurrent dream. And while the settings vary, the central theme remains the same. The boy with curly hair in jeans and T, holding a large pile of red books. It happens in London once, once in Delhi I think and once somewhere that could be anywhere. It is followed by earthquakes and mass destruction, but he is there and I can't figure out who he is.

I am told it could be my way of recreating my old friend John.

I am not so sure because John figured in two of those dreams with us.

I suspect it is my Doppleganger.

And something, somewhere has set him free. if only, he'd step out of the dream. It's the creatures who hover in dreams that are more dangerous than the creatures who inhabit the day.

DO NOT USED

Sign
Pasted
Above urinal
In office loo

An omen
Set free
In wrong Grammar-

A bathroom notice that
Locks past, exiles future
Yet looks
Amused

"DO NOT USED!"

Glass eye man

I slept late yesterday. And woke with a nightmare.

Everyday, while turning in, I go through a whole range of mental paroxysms. Mental, not intelectual, not emotional. I lie, my eyes shut, and as I try to sleep, I listen to my voice in my head and try to figure out which of the many figures within this skin has chosen to surface with sleep.

I do not remember who fell asleep when I lay down yesterday. But when I woke, I woke with a nightmare.

The world of dreams is an amorphous world. What you remember afterwards is not the whole story, more like a few leaves from an old book, that you try to order and piece together, try to build a narrative from- grope at certain images and faces, trying to figure out why they appear so familiar.

I do not remember whether I saw one dream or many, one leaking into the other, after I fell asleep yesterday. But when I woke, I woke with one dream.

This much I remember though, a woman in a black shroud, waiting - I think I desperately wanted to meet her. And I remember also, a room with damp walls, musty but large. And I remember someone patiently stalking in the street, on the roof, behind the door, on the pavements, feline, predatorial: tall and lean and pale, with green glass eyes.

I wonder who woke up in the morning? Him or I?

Memory off Old Delhi Railway Station

(from an old scrap I found in an old diary from the old days. And it had faithfully recorded conversations of a bright-eyed group...and hope...and madness)

-Ah!There you are!
-Oh hell-O
I was looking around for you!
-Hello
-Hi, this purple T-shirt looks beautiful
-Thank you, thank you very much.
-This is for you.
- Ah! They're going too!
-Yeah!
-What time's the train?
-Eleven
-I've brought you something
-A poem?
-Well yes!
-Where's the ca mera?
-In my bag
-Shall we have a photograph?
-When are you back?
-Monday. I wanted you to come too but you see things didn't work out. Like a cigarette?
-Where's the lighter?
-It's with you
-Do you know how to fix a roll?
-I'll do it
-But are you sure you know?
-I have done it
-Come on, let's stand this side
-It's liek a school photograph
-So what! Is it fixed right?
Oh he's taking the photograph!
Are we all in the famre?
Come closer! Come on click!
-Oh shit!
-I knew it wouldn't work
-It's never happened before
-That's ok. Try again.
-Shouldn't it go under this?
-No, no it's like this only
-here have a look at this.
It's a 17th century lyric.
-You got it from the Internet?
-Yes! I am sorry but you've got to jump from this line to this
-Right! That's ok.
Ah! Beautiful. That's all?
-Well! There's another...it's called
-Right! Right! I get it.
It's good isn't it?
-Hmm.
-I think it's done.
-Shall we ask somebody who knows?
-Ask the boy overthere
-The boy with the specs?
-he'd know
-The IIT type
-He'd know
-I think it's done
-OK come together. Let's give it a try
-Oh! God!Not again
Thank you anyway
-This isn't stopping
-It must stick into the hole. Mustn't it?
-No! No! I'll do it
-Shall we go out and get it fixed?
-The trains about to leave...

Spiderman

Then one day Spiderman thought Peter Parker was an impediment.

Peter was a drag. Peter was always under debts. Penny pinching bastard. Peter. Peter had no fans. Peter had no social life. Peter never achieved anything! Not a thing!

Peter was always in the lab plodding. But he never got any results. No discoveries, no inventions. He was such a, such a bumpkin.

Such an embarassment.

And so Spiderman killed Peter Parker. Starved him for food, thought and time.

And one day he found Peter dead in the room. (or so he thought)

And he dragged Peter's body out and away to the kitchen garden. There he dug a grave and buried him.

All the spiders of the neighbourhood rejoiced. They crawled up and down walls, hung from fans and cielings and clapped.

They talked and yelled and sang and made merry. And Spiderman, a little nervous, clapped and danced and swung with them.

But when the spiders quieted every day and lay in their webs, when there was no chatter, and when the lights went out in the city, Spiderman was afraid and wary

Because Peter
That measely eater
Though under the flowerbed
Was
not
quite
dead.

And called out
From beneath the mound
A muddy muffled sound-
I am not a spider, I am a man
Buried by the
Friendly
Neighbourhood
Spiderman!

Conversation between bullet and breast

The bullet
Said

To the breast

You have
An outside chance

To live
Again

Beautiful one.

I
Have

None.

Dear cap

Dear cap

I love you

More

Than

My

Head.