Spots Of Time.

Three.

Somewhere along the path, if you spot that same old snail sailing across the cemented waves of your rusty front porch, just ask him with a certain attire of indignation and hope, just what is he doing, at this pace?
Wouldn't you like to see that glimpse of your other half, back in the garden showering under the leaves, petals, and frills of dirt smothered upon her face, when you don't come home, she's worried and now she starts sailing, she's somewhere nigh, you could catch her if you head back? Or would you let yourself crawl as slow as time and as fast as times when time is a conception you forgot to assort and abide to, take on the mantle to be the purveyor of the slippery time, rein in and clap your hands; hoping to come out of your shell and dance naked and in leaves of fig, and in the arms of your wife who was collecting baskets of shells for another decade. Would you ask her about her day?

He's waiting for the ship.

The journey does not count, the destination is all he sought for.

He still locks head and horns and his eyes squint if you pick him up or squash him down with your feet, splashed his insides splattered all over. He was the soldier in the war with time. He was waiting for his feet to grow, straddling as slow, worried of the wind, being furtive under scornful and tedious glances of the world.

But let him go, let him cross your porch, let him take a lifetime to seek his place in the world.

The scholar with the broken leg tried to sprint once again.

He failed yesterday when the pain blasted off the synapses and sent him twirling and tumbling.

One's resistance to fall and pick up an estranged self calls for blazing trails and stony paths.

To find the silence in a clamour, to find the solid ground of a firmament held firm with the steps, he picked himself up again.

The morrow looks beautiful with the birds. He thought to himself.

He has stepped up on a culvert to be close to the voices of those birds busy nestling the morning.

The birds of dawn, all in merriment, knitting tunes in a fashion, ushering melody to the tensions, the spring in the university was blooming, and birds with swell hearts still rejoicing to reviving yesteryear's streams streaking with the golden rays.

The wheezy wind and the fresh breath of air to a frog's lungs could be the arrival of that glint in his leap, leap and leap, the stalks are strong and so are the lotuses, divine right to be fulfilled in its leap, the frog squints his eyes to take leaps on that dark purple pond.

The scholar with the broken leg finds himself back to his room, in a trance, humming to the birds. The day was filled with mundane tasks to get through. After satisfying his gut with a pack of cigarettes and some rice, he gulps down the tablets, the painkillers, buying the numbness for durability to get through the night. If it rains, his limbs would hurt, if it rains, his soul will dance.

Mr. Ansteckend has been reading history a lot. The discipline arose out of a bet. A wager where one couldn't waive, but stick to facts, now what are facts in the realm of history? Mr. Ansteckend, the scholar who broke his leg in the war, knew it was not the integrity of the bet, but the participation that will open up a window where the branch hangs up with a little flower of vermillion asking for attention and the window of idiosyncrasy stacks up another event to look forward to.

The butterfly now flits away out the window, and he watches her flutter her wings in jovial hues, till he collapses back to slumber.