Mania and depression met at a party. It was love at first sight—but soon enough, one realised that the other had got it by the eyeballs.
This is my entry for the Writers Victoria Flash Fiction 2020 contest run by Writers Victoria. Every day throughout April, they’ll publish a prompt on their website and Twitter handle. The competition is to come up with a flash fiction incorporating the prompt in 30 words or fewer. Interested? Check it out!
There’s no right or wrong. No rhyme or rhythm. No period, no commas, and no bloody capitalisms—oops, I meant capitalisations. It’s all about order, or lack thereof.
No rule book, no guidelines—no restrictions can be placed upon it. Sometimes we need to be passive to be actively engaging. From a drunken writer to the sober reader, from one heart to another, poetry is raw—like broccoli—uncooked it has a crunch, with every munch like mulch it lives with you, seeping within you.
It’s an uninvited reality check, like a rule-brealing badass teenager that refuses to abide by laws—setting out to transform the world with their far-fetched ideas and enviable immunity… to sensationalism.
Poetry is escape. Like the tiny, almost invisible insect crawling up your desk, words, with their innate and not-so-explicit meaning, clamp into oneness, clasping your throat, binding you to a chair, and leaving you mesmerised at their beauty, their soul-sucking tentacles wriggling in the air in front of you, with life-affirming waves, playing, teasing, gripping your attention as you slowly fall…
……………
…………
………
……
…
.
into the deep,
d
e
e
p
pit
of love for words.
Growing up in an Indian household, grains, wheat, and meat were staples. Split red lentil soup with rice or bread was dinner on most days. I thrived in that environment.
I used to wake up to tea—strong leaf tea infused with full-fat cow’s milk—that’s what I survived on. And I always told myself the uncomfortable gassiness, bloating, and smelly farts were normal.
Until I grew up. For one health reason, I decided to go vegan about three-four years ago. And since, for many socio-economic reasons, I’ve continued a vegan lifestyle.
Not long after my transition, I realised that there was another sect of people reacting to gluten the same was as I did to dairy.
Now, I have friends who can’t eat gluten. I’ve cooked for them, and shared meal with them. And so, I’ve become more attuned to the amount of wheat and gluten I consume.
That’s why I like challenging myself to make gluten-free meals. After all, I cook for myself. How bad could it be?
So a couple of days ago, I tried to make gluten-free pasta. I aimed for a simple rice-flour-based spaghetti-like noodle. I realised soon enough that the flour wasn’t as pliable as wheat. Of course, it had no gluten—what was I expecting?
However, after some rigorous kneading, rolling, and scrunching it all up into a ball, I chose the easy way out. Surely, little blobs of dough would still make bite-worthy pasta? I ended up making gnocchi, without a single traditional gnocchi ingredient.
I used a vegetable and tomato curry as a sauce, and to my surprise, it came out well. I was even proud of how quickly everything came together—it was faster than any basic baking endeavour that requires proofing and waiting overnight.
Mix, roll, cut, and shape. Why, it was easier than deciding what sauce to make for the pasta!
Today, at the supermarket, as I looked at the price of gluten-free pastas, I couldn’t help but laugh in my head. Now that I’d done it once, I knew I could make much more for much less.
Food shouldn’t be about convenience. That’s the unhealthy mentality that leads to food-related issues. Instead, when you pursue it with precise care, food becomes art, and that art can sustain us.
At least ninety percent of the people I interact with daily involve themselves—and boast about it—in some sort of activism against governments’ inaction on climate change. Until as recently as a couple of months ago, people rallied in closed spaces, furiously discussing the endless possibilities of rallying outdoors, with cheeky signboards and stern yells at authority. It feeds their ego—makes them feel like angry mothers, with a hand on the hip, waving a finger at their uncontrollable toddler.
Now though, with the world gradually going into an impending lockdown, I haven’t seen any of these cluster bombs around me.
Instead of halting traffic and playing their own part in increasing the excess gas pumped into the air as drivers clutched their gears, revving engines, instead of yelling at the top of their voices, as if that’d make global leaders care more, and introducing unnecessary noise pollution in otherwise, quiet streets, instead of wasting everyone’s time just to make themselves feel better as if they’ve achieved something, these non-violent protestors are now in their homes.
Socially distancing themselves from each other, but still unsure what that means, some gather in smaller groups, in each others’ living rooms, to chat about the world and despair at having to cancel protests.
In the meantime, though, the earth has just woken up.
Remember, the first time you let an ant crawl on your hand, how mesmerised you were at its tinyness? How you allowed it to wander up and down from your elbow and knuckles, smiling at its worthless, feeble life at how easily you could crush it? It’s a wonderful experience—to watch an ant strut. Until—it starts to tingle your arm hair, and you feel the ant moving, you sense it more acutely, and soon, you can’t help yourself but smack it or slash it away. The fascinating creature becomes a pest, and like a dog ridding itself of a flea around its ear, you shake it off.
We’re the earth’s ants. We’ve scratched her too long—and now she’s shaking us away.
As we crouch away from all contact, hide in the confines of our own couches, life as we’ve never known it, is returning to its original state. Look at Italy, for instance.
Venice, a travel destination for many, was always too small to treat all the greedy tourists of the world. As a result, it’s faltered under the weight of human pollution. With the country in lockdown, however, because of you-know-what, the waters of Venice are clearer than ever before. Without any humans around, swans and fish rejoice because they can finally breathe the oxygen in those waters.
How sad is that?
The planet’s fine, mate. It’s the people who’re fucked.
Alters with landings,
travelling—as adapters—
human perceptions.
The Chaos Within 