Kaleidoscope of events.
A collage of voices, sounds, and visual artistry.
Images that tug at my emotional chords, fusing the cacophony into a beautiful serene humming sound.
Here.
I am here after all this time
This is London.
I am like a dog dashing down the sidewalks, tongue extended in excitement, reveling in the new scents, looking at surroundings as though they had shed the cloak of familiarity and I had not already seen them hundreds of times before. Peering into faces with the fascination of one who has only recently come to the city, I find newness with every step.
Fresh as London’s green grass that does not need to be watered day and night.
Taxi drivers are glad to have customers. Long rows of black cabbies with their yellow lights beckoning stream down the street.
“Quietest Easter in my recollection,” laments one guy on a rainy April night. ” But at least I have a job.”
And then, as I alight: “God bless you, my love. Thank you for your business.”
I start to formulate a wish for him but he interjects: “Just wish me a busy night, love. I need all the customers I can get.”
Walking down the street, a tall man dressed in a suit booms into his cell phone: What is the matter with George?
A few steps away, and one woman asks another: You mean he won’t miss you when you go away?
I walk fast, for once oddly enjoying the masses of people streaming along the sidewalks of Oxford Street. Two plump black ladies on my left laugh heartily together about some shared joke , their laughter so unaffected, so contagious, that I find myself smiling widely and delighting in the way they have affected me.
Contagion. Yes now there is Swine flu. In the theatre, some rows behind, during a quiet lull in the actor’s performance, a man snorted. Not once, or twice but three times. One of the women in front of me turned around in the dark and scowled. That was enough to silence him for the rest of the show. Or perhaps he snorted quietly.
On the bus, I settle myself towards the back. Near the end of my journey, a large man with a bright red nose and bright red cheeks starts hacking and coughing at the back of the bus. Contagion. I can’t wait to get off.
Next to me, a young man I made brief eye contact with before we boarded. He is of a slight boyish build that is attractive. As his thigh connected with my own on the shared seat, I turned only slightly, not looking him in the eyes but through peripheral vision. I take a peak at the book he is reading. It is Dreams From My Father.
Ahead of me stand a couple dressed in black. I steal glances and stories start to emerge before my eyes. As they alight further on down the road, I reprimand myself. They could have been mother and son. Why such misconstrued thoughts? Never mind I assure my self. They are creative fodder and my stories will not reflect their reality.
At the mobile shop, there was a man in front of me. The shop assistant asked him about his date of birth. March 16, 1976. I looked at him then, trying to discern his age from the back of his head. He was buying a new mobile phone. She asked him if he had bought any new phones recently. He replied: “No”
Are you sure? She asked.
He then let out the truth in bits. “At the beginning of the month.”
“How many phones did you buy. Sir?” (Suh)
“Three,” he replied.
She refused to continue with the transaction on grounds that he had already bought too many mobile phones this month and had to wait another three months.
What did he want with so many mobile phones I mused as I stood there watching him accept his rejection. The sales girl had a scarf around her head with a bushy fan of hair protruding at the back and one dark brown lock pulled out at the front, strategically placed over her left eye.
Her green top hugged her body in a way that made her full breasts appear as ripe melons and rendered her rounded figure perfectly squeezable. I averted my eyes to avoid any further lasciviousness on my part.
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