Strange thoughts can cross my mind in a hotel bathroom after a long flight. It is that moment when the world fades out in the gathering darkness of a strange city and all that matters is a warm shower before going to bed. The shower is so futuristic that no matter which way you turn the shower head refuses to activate. The water flows into the tub and out of reach, alternating between cold and hot.
I sit on the edge and soak my feet resigned to give up and go to bed grimy from long day. I don't want to call the front desk and present myself an idiot needing help turning on the shower. I wonder if anyone else in this hotel is struggling just as I am. If unlike me they have the courage to ask for help. What separates someone like me from those who can magically grasp the secrets of strange faucets and get them to yield water at will. Am I all alone in this.
Events like this take me back to my college days when I was struggling with engineering drawing unlike anyone else I knew. Is there a part of my brain that is undeveloped and therefore, I simply do not see what is obvious to others. I have similarly struggled with doors and locks that need something beyond what is "normal" to open. Each such incident brings in its wake a feeling of time standing still and gathering weight as it does. Nothing will move to moment forward to the next step - to that instant when the door opens, the faucet starts to flow, the shower sprays warm water and so on. I did figure out the shower that night but it was an interminable passage of time.
crossings as in traversals, contradictions, counterpoints of the heart though often not..
Subscribe to my Substack: Signals in the Noise
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Big Fail
Story of a columnist who got too reliant on AI and failed to fact check the work because it might have performed well before The article is ...
-
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no ma...
-
Published in Serenelight Shiv is fond of saying that he is left where magic realism meets Haiku and remembers having mentioned this to Joie...
-
I, Ananya, am a suburban single mother minus the SUV that often comes with the territory. Ten years ago, I would have been awed by someone i...
No comments:
Post a Comment