Stranger

This is an article i submitted for Vitruvian, the college year-book.


The milling crowd washed over him like the sea over the rocks, leaving behind a sickly scent of a curious mixture of sweat, cheap perfume and damp leaves. People, lots of them, made him nervous. As he looked around, a feeling of nausea swept over him, unbidden. He felt a strange sense of detachment from the consciousness of the crowd which seemed to him to be unremitting and unfeeling in its homogeneity. Soon he’d have to come to a decision. His faltering steps betrayed his anguish and the turmoil his mind was in. He diligently counted the precisely laid out cudappah stones beneath his feet as he thrashed forwards in the sea of humanity. It seemed important to him, somehow, to maintain a point of reference.

“Maga, are you looking for someone? Where is your mummy?” inquired the portly balloon-man kindly. Quite how he had reached the balloon-stand, he had no idea. But here he was, and he was glad for the company, ironic as it may sound in a place which was awash with humanity.

“Umm, I can’t find my mother. She was with me all along. Now I don’t know where she is.” Even as he said this, a grenade-sized lump formed in his throat. Acknowledging the situation he was in inexplicably made it horribly real.

“Not to worry. We’ll find her. We’ll go to the ice-cream parlor announcer. He’ll call out for her. She’ll be here soon.”

Desperate as he was to find his mother, trusting a stranger did not come easily at all to him. He remembered his mother’s endless instructions to approach strangers as if they were a communicable disease. Cloistered as he was all his life in the comfortable confines of his privileged little world where every adult he knew trilled in a fake accent and exuded plastic warmth, the simple honesty of the grubby looking man aroused his suspicions. But what choice did he have? He weighed his options; insofar his scared mind could and assented to this proposal.

The shamiana topped shack that was the ice-cream parlor was chock-full of people who looked as if the festive spirit had got to them and this manifested itself in the their clothes which were bright, to put it mildly. As they approached the announcer who kept mouthing inane hyperboles into his megaphone to draw custom, it was evident he thoroughly approved of this festive spirit. The balloon-man succinctly described the predicament of the “putta”, as he called him, and requested the announcer to intimate the mother of his whereabouts. This the man did, with much gusto and the habitual expansiveness.

When even after several minutes of impassioned pleading mother failed to materialize, the panic which had started as a little seed in his gut, slowly encompassed his worried heart. Hot tears welled up in his eyes, his tiny mind unable to comprehend the grief but dreading the unknown.

Vaguely, he was aware of the balloon-man comforting him and leading him by his index finger through the throng. As he peered around him, he found himself facing the Ferris wheel. The balloon-man paid for two tickets and led him to through the enclosure.

“Let’s see if we can’t keep you busy till we find your mother”.

The mention of his mother brought on a fresh wave of nausea but the curiosity of a 6 year old mind took hold. He’s never been on a giant-wheel before. Mother and wheel and jostled for control over his mind. Wheel won, barely.

As the heart-stopping sensation of suspended gravity swept over him, a scream of pure, primal excitement escaped from him, unlike any his baby-sat life had afforded him so far. What if his mother saw him now? Would she blow a fuse? Thoughts of distress slowly receded from his mind.

The balloon-man smiled gently, a satisfied smile of a job well done.

Soon it was time for the merry-go-round, the fluffy candy, bubbles-blows and eventually back to the ice-cream parlor. Entering the place, the figure he cut now sharply contrasted the one he did the last time he entered the shack.

Even from a distance he could make out the distraught silhouette of his mother in the corner.
Oh well, it was time to go back. He waved good-bye to the balloon-man, still a stranger.

Hello Multiverse!

Need to blog. Need to blog. Need to blog.

If only words had some power.

Oh,but they do!