Time

I caught myself day dreaming today and scribbling the names of the months ahead down. There was April, then May and June and slowly, I found myself thinking of the months in a curve. It was as if the year was a circle and in my mind's eye I was walking down time lane. It was curving. I caught myself in a curve and halted then wrote this...


I see time ahead of me.
Curving into weeks, months and quarters,
forming a full circle,
making a complete year.
Then spiralling into the decades
that make up my life.

Pick any point in time,
a fleeting second or a moment, and
it's a pixel
in a continuously spiralling canvas,
hovering in mid space.

The starting point was a dot,
the tip of the spiral of a cone,
the moment I was created and told to be.

Our end may not be as harshly finite and defined.
A gentle wisp
like the edge of a ripple,
left to ponder on the time before its time,
and what we made of it and how it came to be.

I see time in a bright shade of grey,
or perhaps violet
and blue
combined,
in moderation to the eye.

I see it in different shades,
in different shapes,
for each one of us
blended
merged to our own form.

I need a doctor; Flight and Routine

Here are three writing prompts over the last week...

The first was from a random song picked from a random online radio station. The song that I came across was Dr Dre - I need a doctor. I took the first line and rolled with it...

The second is entitled Flight and the third Routine. Enjoy!

Dr Dre - I need a doctor

I'm about to lose my mind. The drip drop sound from the leaking tap down the corridor echoed like the dull slam of a drum. A constant expectation that my senses now waited for in dread. Sure enough, two seconds later the reverberation eases its way through my skull. Painstaking.

I've lost track of time, save for the count of the endless drops of water, acting like a clock in an infinite void. I don't know how long I've been lying here in the dark.

I try to roll over to will myself away, in a far away place, deep in the crevices of my mind. But I cannot move. My drugged body has disassociated itself from me. I can't feel my limbs so I lie still and wait. I take a deep breath and imagine a safe place. I find an early memory of myself laughing, at ease, not a care in the world. But the images fade almost instantly and disintegrate with the sound of a renewed drop of water, continuing to alert me. Bringing me back to the here and now and my sad state of affairs.

They wanted me to speak and tell them about the serum. Well I'm ready now, to tell them all. Just make that sound stop. Just bring the life back to my body and let me be again.

And I hear a creaking door open. I squint at the neon and the other outside sounds invading my subdued cell. A figure looms in the doorway. I struggle against a parched throat, "I'm ready to tell you. Please, I need a doctor."

Flight

"Can I bring you a drink and welcome snack?" beamed the air hostess as she handed me a shiny cosmetics bag, along with a pair of pyjamas before leaning over to lay a fresh duvet, a fluffy pillow and soft slippers on what looked like a bed nearby.

I stared at the items in my lap, looked up at her then down at the bed to my side, suddenly not knowing whether I was coming or going.

"Er... uhhh... wa-water please? yeah... yes thank you," I questioned more than answered and I could hear the air hostess giggle all the way down the aisle.

I eyed the others around me and saw that they were already settling into their cosy armchairs; it seems that first class was just the cure I had always needed for my fear of flying.

Routine


"Can you do something for me?" asked Linda in a panic.

Shona stopped typing and uttered an aknowledging mmmhmmm to her nearby supervisor. She thought she could guess what she was going to be given. Another exciting research task. Another phonecall to an important official perhaps. Or even better, another meeting she would have to attend.

A huge stack of documents suddenly brought her to attention as they landed, or rather were slammed down on her desk. Shona looked up with raised eyebrows from her behind her glasses.

"I need all these scanned in and sent off to the client in an hour. Can you do that? Can you get it all done by then? Make sure they're all in date order too." Linda said it all in one breath as she smoothly made her way back to her chair and started hammering away on her keyboard again, now in complete oblivion, relieved that she had she offloaded the most boring task in the world to someone else.

Great, thought Shona to herself, another hour of good old-fashioned routine. And she reached for her stress ball and chewing gum.

Insight in a Time of Illness...

I'm tucked in bed, box of tissues on my right, mounting pile of used tissues in the bin down on the floor on my left.  Water bottle, book and of course my laptop within easy reach. I'm sick with the flu and off work. I look out of the window and wish away these germs. Wishing I were healthy and on the go again. But these moments do have some value. And I contemplate and think.

How easy it would be just to have the simple ambitions of finish school, uni, get married, have a couple of kids and live life. Instead I choose the unconventional. The unordinary. And I put up with the mundane and the very ordinary day in day out to get to my goal. So I sit and wonder. Will it all be worth it? The hardships and challenges that I encounter. The seemingly dead ends and trying to channel a new way through the brick walls. Will they be worth it?

I don't have the answers. It's times like these where I only ask the questions and wonder. But then I pick myself up and continue where I left off. Some times God sends me a sign (I have learnt to look out for signs) to tell me to carry on and so I do. Other times I'm left to my own devices and have to find the faith within me to believe that what I'm doing is what I'm meant to be doing. But am I doing it the right way? Is there a right way?

Everyone has weaknesses and whereas I think I know mine, I don't seem to learn to stop being accommodating. At the risk of sounding very idealistic, naive and cheesy, I have been encountering more and more people who will stop at nothing to step on others to elevate themselves. Mostly it is an ego boost for themselves in an atmosphere that stops at nothing to undermine. But I am not made that way. I cannot undermine and I cannot use people as stepping stones. The problem is when people choose you as a stepping stone. A diplomat at heart, I find ways to circumvent it. Although in such situations, it requires direct confrontation and a little bit of lingo below the belt. I have never been able to adopt that attitude. So I come across as accommodating. 

I have been told that I can intimidate those in front of me when I choose to. So I guess I do have it in me. I just don't like doing it and I brush aside these ego boosting charades of the other as immaturity. I can see right through them and I can choose to stop them any time that I want to. So is this a weakness?

I go back to thinking about the simple ambitions and how everyone is just out for themselves. Trying to achieve whatever it is they seek. Even those with the not so simple ambitions. They're all the same. What a selfish selfish world we live in. And I think back to myself and wonder. Will all that I'm doing be worth it? Is there an unselfish aspect to what I want? Or am I just kidding myself.