Prose I

The ceiling seems to move around in circles.

I stared at it curiously. The whirring of the fan alerted my five senses. The silence is deafening, and yes, I am fully aware of the paradoxical nature of that dead metaphor. Even in my head I analyze my usage of the English language.

A book lay beside me, with imaginary dust settling themselves on its blue-monochrome colored cover. I’ve paid a fair amount for it, and on the first day I excitedly tore off the plastic cover and skimmed through it slowly, like a kid savoring his first candy in weeks.

Now the novelty’s gone, and I couldn’t bring myself to flip through the pages any longer.

Something’s missing.

I hesitated, and looked beside it.

I was never a fan of this medium of transmission. Constant messages being sent through every single second… It scares me a little how fast information could travel across. It is unfortunate, I think, of how much we have come to depend on it.

Call me an old-fashioned romantic if you may, but every now and then I find myself wondering as to what it would be like to a be star-cross’d lover, patiently waiting for the postman to give me my salvation. There is a touch of fear in this slow, uncertain routine, and everyday I’ll be standing by the window until a letter arrives, addressed to me, in that familiar cursive writing I adore. Elaborate proses on daily fixations, deepened longing… It saddens me that such melancholic emotions hardly exist any longer.

I gave a small sigh and thought of the things I’m missing.

On second thought, I’d rather not.

The sounds of keys jangling, the image of a melting ice-cream cone, storeys of abandoned buildings, illusions of heavy, dusty books in dark corners, sitting down on escalators, long conversations on wooden benches… I shrugged my head as if it would clear me of this repetitive cycle of thoughts.

I don’t know why I keep going back to the ice rink.

I figured, even in this fast-paced information age;

I still channel the same old longing.