Of power-cuts and things

The lights go out; fans slowly churn to a halt while you sit and try to breathe in this insufferable heat. There is a tear shaped drop trickling down the sides of your face, beside your rouged cheeks, it is close to the hollow of your ear. You smell like salt. There is a scream forming in your gut, knotting itself up into a tight cluster and rising like smoke, almost reaching your throat now. But you gulp and push it back down with your tongue with the patience born out of the indifference you have so diligently cultivated. You close your eyes, turning your sight inwards but all you can comprehend is the sun’s blinding light that strikes your face like a sharp, focused slap. There is a pile of unwashed clothes lying on the bed next to you, and a pot of red Poinsettia. You scoot to sit down on the floor and press your palm against the tiles, trying to absorb some of its coolness and letting it travel up. You think of fire, you feel exhausted. You’re walking at the extreme side of the road, the edge. That’s the way you like walking, always a brave heart. In your head, you break into a sprint, so fast that you leave behind everything you have ever detested. This feud isn’t even original; you are the retold story of a thousand men, once more. You have been trying to suspend judgement but this doesn’t feel like summer, it can’t be.
You take the plant out to water it. It is strange how your our mind ascribes metaphors to memories and events. The smell of wet mud, and you think of mangoes, summer school holidays at your grandma’s house.