Tag: people

The Song

Children in groups,

they knock on doors

and step on the toes

of unpleasant foes

they sing old carols

and cheeriness befalls

they eat chocolate balls

and ignore mother’s calls

‘Cos they find their calling

in a season’s greeting.

The Visit

She answered the phone and heard her daughter’s voice for the first time in many years. – Today’s Author

“Hello, Ma. How are you?”

Click.

Must be a wrong number, Mrs Graham concluded. She turned her back on the phone and walked to her couch, and Dr Oz.

She sighed as the doctor announced a commercial break. The phone rang again. She heaved herself from the couch mumbling, “Oh, these things never leave me in peace.” She trudged over to the telephone stand in the kitchen and picked up the receiver with a trembling hand. “Hello,” she meant to say in a crisp voice. All that came out was a treble. She tried again.

“Hello,” Shaky this time, but not as squeaky.

“Mama! It’s me, Karen.”

“Eh?” She cleared her throat, “Karen?”

“Yes, yes, Mama! How are you?”

Mrs Graham crinkled her eyes, “Who’s mama?”

Click.

“Hello?” Mrs Graham looked at the silent now-receiver in her hand. She didn’t understand. One moment there was a woman’s voice, and the next, nothing. “Hello?” she called into the receiver. “Anyone there?”

She heard no reply. She could hear that the jingles had come to an end, so she went back to Dr. Oz.

By the time the show ended, about an hour later, the doorbell rang. Mrs Graham let it ring for a few moments before making a grudging effort to get up from the couch.

The bell continued to ring as she traced her footsteps to the door. Imagining the old days when she would just yank the door away, she turned the knob with a soft touch.

There stood a young woman at the door, her eyes wide and lips apart in uncertainty. She looked about medium age, tall, and tanned. Her curly hair danced to the breeze playing outside. Mrs Graham looked at her in exasperation.

Earlier, whenever the bell rang, Mrs Graham would rush to the door, hoping it would be someone to visit her. They had told her she had a daughter. And a grand daughter. And that they’d stop by whenever they had the chance. But ever since she had woken up from her coma, no one had called.

“The girl’s house is over there,” She waved her hand at the house opposite to hers. She had grown tired of young high schoolers stopping by her doorstep looking for their class mate who threw parties all night.

“Mama, it’s your daughter.”

Life Cycle

I get paid to write. But there’s a price to it too: I write not for myself. I write for a business that sells to other businesses. And because I make it my business to deal with all this business on a day-to-day basis, I have opinions about the way people do business.

And I realised this only last evening when I was busy being busy. After three years, I realised it on a Friday the 13th. I was writing a blog about the various businesses that people do nowadays, about how the nature of money-making has evolved from traditional ways, and how people find creative methods most of us haven’t even heard of.

Like that common saying — “there’s an app for that,” — it’s amazing that every “app” is a business in itself. If you can imagine it, you can earn out of it. It’s a part of human evolution, and now we’ve begun to see the monetary value in every thing around us.

Whether it’s a tree with roots extending to the pavement, a sloppy drinker who couldn’t contain his wine to the glass, or a woman too lazy to clean her own nails, there’s a business for that.

But the weirdest thing of them all is that these businesses aren’t monopolies. They have competition, and heavy ones too.

As we grow lazier, and long for an extra beanbag to prop our feet up while binge-watching the latest in House of Cards, there’s always a businessman (or a few) caressing fresh bills. The more we choose comfort, the more businesses opportunities pop up. We once managed with one pair of shoes. Now we need one for running, another for weight training, and yet another for indoor sports. After all, we earn it, and we can afford it.

The more we earn, the more we want. The more we want, the more choices and business opportunities come up. And that just means businesses fighting more to outperform competition.

And here I am, writing for one business, against another business, so I can earn more and want more.

A vicious cycle, if there ever was one.