Spots Of Time.

Nine.

That day wasn't supposed to have happened.

But it did.

We met, Jasmine and I.

In the violet hour where our souls entwined while the snake coiled around the hanging branch, where the river fairies sang, the flowers crowing and blossoming with the bees, birds and the leaves emblazoned under the sun, her father's exuberant garb, illuminating new roads to new things and new ages.

Now in this realm of illusion, I sit all day, sit with the black on white scholars, stare at my laptop screen, scratch a thousand factual scripts to enable myself in absolving and abdicating whilst burying my barred dreams by the trees, the petals, the green with the blossoms, for which the heavens sent me down straddling in the mystic university where everyday was spring but everynight was filled with traces of turbulent ridges.

Still her thoughts lay parallel to my reading, like two lovers boarded upon two different trains on parallel tracks; everyday they pass each other by and in those seconds, they stare at each other deeply, with profound abstractions smudged upon their edges, with curiosity incipient on their contours, where seconds feel like eternities spent.

I think about her while finding myself in altercations with the ministry of the thirteenth century, fiddling with the keys whilst opening the library on fire, being chased down by the officials for public indecency, climb the tower with Jasmine, take her to the Dal, to the nebula where her world is bent on pushing me to the depths; still I find each scanty thread like the juxtaposition of the rails, like the flowers of Narcissus staring at each other for validation, their thoughts circling around to each other, and then one has to take off at the next station, yet still find optimism rushing in their veins with the last glance and the interim to another meeting in that same space and time.

Once I heard one of the young students found himself enamoured to a blooming flower whose realm always intersects with his in an ad hoc manner. He had found a sweet soul in her as I might state in as it were. I encouraged him to see the world in rose-tinted glasses, I wish I could do the same while I'm tied down in my chains.

I lay around, with time still, time suffering for the serendipity, time bequeathing lessons for future generations, being hassled by the collision of Jasmine's chariot onto Ansteckend's boat.

But the opening up of worlds meant unearthing older wounds, the fissure ushering in archaic usurpations, riddling with the illogical stances whilst treading the crisis, meddling in affairs which weren't comprehensive as assessment of the present dilemma takes the worlds by storm.

I return to the same thoughts that used to burden me with the wind, the sun, the world and time.

If time be a rubber band, how long could it stretch before it ends in a spasm?

Could it be a conjecture where the collision is the end?

When the gods decided to push me down from the heavens, they told me to wait, to acquire the world of literacy so that I could be in terms with the ways of their worlds.

And how I deluded myself into thinking that was the road to meeting her again.

"Where is your boat?"

"Why? It's there."

"Be careful, I don't like how it's becoming."

The cook lighted up the stove.

It was like any other morning.

Everybody was getting ready for the day, the stalls and shops and the villagers all commencing with their respective duties, some acquiring fortune little by little, day by day, others being banished to acquiring the same amount for the day, whilst none still acquiring the tools for the dispensation.

My hands were tied like the ropes I've leashed onto my boat. The ropes aren't crass and not as coarse as a jute rope would prefer to be, but the boat the cook accuses of not becoming, has actually been there for four months more than his shop.

I still like being by the bank. I would still wait for centuries if Jasmine has to meet me, once again.

"Be careful, the boat looks like it's about to be whacked."

"Ah, you know how I tried! Anyway, I got to go."

"Wait, tell the seller for reimbursements."

I set my oars right, reeling in, treading out through the wary lake. People had already started to settle in with their wares and fares.

Fishermen, mongers, peddlers, hawkers, salespeople, dealers, local women seeking to sell wares and embroidery and others managing on their own, attempts at consolidating the business in the riverine community.

The sun was about to vanish to her world when we met. The violet hour descending from time, rushing with its clattering heels, trepidation written in the rifts the sky beheld, the crimson melting into the patches of purple, darkness reigning on this side of the region.

How can she have trespassed to this world?

When I asked her if her arrival was incidental, she agitated herself with the relativity of coincidences.

She mumbled and cried and told me to wait by the same hour.

How I wished she never returned to her world as I steered away from the trenches.

How she wished she could have stayed by the embankments.

Yet time didn't bring us together in the successive meeting.

And I knew the gods intercepted.