The stretch of elastic under the constant pressure; pushed against both ends by steady fingers. Slow. Whining.  I knew it would hurt when released, I closed my eyes so I could hear the sound better. The rubber climbs up, gradually, steadily. Will it fly? If I let go of my attention, at just the right time it might disappear before my eyes. 

SNAP. 

An alarm went off in one of the numberless floors which cascaded up over the roof. Though my mind replaced the sound with what was expected. The rubber band was still stuck between my index and middle fingers; but the feeling had gone. That feeling. Haptic and ticklish, like the tick of a clock in slow motion overcutting the rapidly shattering glass. Quick but Nippy. 

Distracted. 

That’s the word. Though it gets lost just as quickly as it came. 

Spitting out some residual mouthwash, I dash a towel across my mouth. Or do you dab a towel? A quick action most easily forgotten. 

Moving across now, past the rows and rows of clothes, and the empty, empty white room. There’s a mirror to check how I look, but some things appear closer than they are. Petrichor, the scent of fallen rain hits my nose though it has no reason to. I think about lost days, and the clothes I wore on them. 

The window is streaked with rain, and sometimes when it dries it leaves some footprints that you never notice disappear. I remember the routine, walking a daily commute to the bakery for the usual bread, the same bread as everyone else. The waiter always smiled although I was old and the waiter was young.

The windows here are all shaded different greys, they open out to more apartments and more cubicles, more ties, and more white shirts. To all the faces pressed against our see-through shackles maybe I am just as opaque. 

The lampshade turns on, it emits a dark white.  Bouncing off the walls of this courtroom. Some things just don’t make sense. I feel mundane again. Unable to bring myself to punch the window, unable to sit back and sleep. I am stuck. I am mundane. 

Nothing endures but change. When will I experience an ocean that rises and falls instead of staying completely still? Asphodel meadows, asphodel meadows, the listless trees that pepper the foot of the buildings. Paralysed set in place, swaying with the pusher/stopper wind. 

The skies that taunt me in the breath of Elysium that exhales through me sometimes. When I’m sitting on the edge of my bed. Completely still. Hunched, as if to think. To think, to think. Of an ostentatious occasion, and to fall a few feet off the balcony. 

Into Oblivion. 

Writer – Haran Thirumeni
Editor – Eva McNulty
Artist –Maryam Nawaz

–August 2024–