tsvetoslav shalev

… in her solitary bed, her fingers reaching down for solace below her waist, entwined herself in herself, drank her own bitterness and called it sweet, walked in her own desert and called it lush…

– Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh

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It’s Saturday, late afternoon, while I write this. A large park area near my flat. I sit on one end of a three-plank bench. Part of many lining each side of a kilometre-long walkway-come-bike lane. Carpets of dried leaves shuffle to and fro, spurred to life by the occasional gust of cold wind. So many of them, yet the crowns of the trees are still well covered. There’s ample shade from the scorching sun and a near-perfect streak of summer’s vibes for over a month, broken by a decent rainfall yesterday morn. My mind is calm, clear and quiet for the first time in… Well, in a long while. Something’s burning in the distance. Smoke permeates notes of foliage in decay and stale runoff water, trickling down the muddy slopes across from where I’m sitting.

I’m in love.

Again, yes, but like that first time from so long ago. Like that first time from so long ago, we don’t expect a second time around. She is confused, fearful, an overthinker so sensitive I cannot help but want all to myself. I always do, don’t I? A glutton for punishment, a miser toying with the notion of optimism, a beggar for the sweet nectar of her kind rabbit’s heart. Here I go again, holding my breath in delusive expectations, enraptured by the fickle promises of a shared future with another. Words, on words, on words alone. Sausage fingers kneading meaning out of thin air, a mind too busy to consider things with greater care.

Sunday, a week later.

My life at this very moment in space-time is almost as steeped in uncertainty as the day I left my country. Phlegmatic solicitors delaying the purchase of my first house (someday, a home?); my new job role kicks off in less than 24hrs, and I am already facing technical challenges; if rent and bills were a monster in a video game, you’d never be able to escape them, stuck in a death loop; matters of the heart, if the above “spilling-of-guts” didn’t make that abundantly clear already; and last but not least – Immigration troubles! But that’s a story for another time. Mayhap all of this will finally collapse on me. The whole spiel about baskets with too many eggs in them and trips and falls. You know. Or, I pull through and, on the other side, await gratitude and wisdom, a reason to further better my character.

I still haven’t figured out what I’d like to be when I grow up. As I write this hastily in order to have something – anything published – I still want to play video games, finish writing my short fiction project, learn more Japanese, complete my Web Dev portfolio, lose more weight and get stronger physically (mentally, too), sign up for a sports massage course and learn how to alleviate pain through touch, and somehow figure a way out to gift you something original to read through. And these are just the steam clinging to the lid of a giant pot. What I’d given up for mere ashes might help restore a raging fire, after all! Or, my mind is playing tricks on me again. You’ll know in due course. I’ll be sure to share.