What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here.

I pause mid-action and take a big sniff.
More than a year now. But the smell remains. Musty and pungent. Whitewashed walls. Servant smells.
What it was like then. What everything is like now.


Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
Sinking feeling..


I peep through the open doorway. Old trunks and paintings, dirty books, seventies London outfits, rags, medicines and keys. The history of a single phase.

Amidst she crouches, wrapped in thin, sickly blue. Her hair is disheveled, her clothes worn. As always.
Change? For her? An anomaly!
Where will she go?

What is this I feel?

Spin me round again
and rub my eyes; this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy


The grand curtains are pulled shut. The floor is now bare, the carpet pushed aside. The bookcase still contains his unstolen treasures.
I remember staring at her bare white bed. Screaming.
I recall a frightened kiss on a withered cheek. Days before I stared.

Dust looks beautiful in the sun.

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
All those years
they were here first


I laugh for her sake. Two prominent wrinkles beneath her lips. Her skin hungrily snatches the sunlight.
The paintings are beautiful, destroyed. Time shrugs and grins.
I ask if I can take a memory. The four bedroom portraits are on the floor.

Oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover, 
the sweeping insensitivity
of this still life


Why didn't this happen before?
And I recall the torture, the pain that was not mine.

I encounter Jekylls and Hydes. I push them away, I pull them back.

Golden sun filters on my face. The car is accelerating. My stomach is turning over.

Why do both left and wrong have 'right' as an opposite?

We turn left.
Fear.
Anticipation.

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
(you won't catch me around here)
blood and tears
(hearts)
They were here first


We're going up the bridge. Speed fast, constant.
My stomach is still rumbling, but I love it. It's faded into the background, a constant feeling.
Change. Beginnings.

Mm whatcha say?
Mm that you only meant well?
Well of course you did
Mm whatcha say?
Mm that it's all for the best?
Of course it is


They don't let me think. They start to chatter. They play their music. They need my advice.

Mm whatcha say?
Mm that it's just what we need
You decided this
Whatcha say?
Mm what did she say?


Pink, cobalt and sienna blends together and fades away. Cold, mysterious night awaits. My prayer vanishes in the air.
Favoritism. Arrogance.
Day will dawn.

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
speak, no; feeling, no; I don't believe you
you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit


I lose myself in conversation. Arguing, laughing, scowling, sarcasm. Being.

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit




All will be right with the world.

you don't care a bit

you don't care a bit

*song: Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap. I do not own this song or the lyrics.

:)

The last post was such a rambler. Sorry guys. Haha.

I think we're going to settle in here just fine. Sure, it's a bit quiet here, because the people downstairs are like super relaxed and calm, unlike my adorably cantankerous aunt. (I hope she never finds out I said that.)
But then, it's only been a couple of days. We're only just turning this house into a home.

Speaking of which, I'm getting my first dose of homemaking. Every morning, I get up and I do all this random cleaning and assist my mom in all these chores. Just because I want to. It's so retarded. Till now, I have always loathed cleaning with a passion.

It's just the two of us in the morning, because Dad and my brother go off to their respective office and university. We play songs on our portable speaker and joke around. Mother-daughter bonding time. I love it. Especially because my mom's my best friend. She's so cute! She keeps getting these advertisement messages from her bank and then she grits her teeth and fluffs around like an irritated pigeon.

It echoes a lot in here, though. It can be pretty cool and pretty annoying at the same time. Cool, because my voice sounds amazing when I sing. Annoying because the walls have ears.

Yesterday, when I went out on the terrace, I noticed a newspaper lying there. I thought it must belong to the people who live downstairs, because we haven't arranged for a newspaper yet.

But today, Mom went out on the terrace, and there it was. Another roll of the daily paper.
We opened it, and we saw that the paper boy had scrawled his name and number on it, so that we could get in touch with him and coordinate the fee and everything.

It's kinda stupid, but I thought that was very sweet. I instantly felt welcomed into the new neighborhood.

So, yeah. A paper boy made me feel better about shifting. Why do the most insignificant people have the most significant effect on my life? First the flower man*, now this.

Anyway. I found this in my laptop. From back in the old house. It's me, singing.

PS Sorry about the kinda weird ending. This song always makes me really emotional.

*Will update about the flower man later.

Bored? Yes, I am. And dying to get my blog up and running.

Before I tackle what's on my mind, allow me to say this.
FLUS SUCK.

Especially when they take your entire freakin' household by storm and you're the one with the mildest version of it, and therefore you are too ill to go to school and see your friends after the weekend, but not too ill to look after everyone else.

Not that I mind doing it, I guess. But I really, really, really wanted to go to school today.
Ah, well.

Entirely out of boredom, I was stalking this random friend of mine on Facebook (who is a girl, just FYI). She and her twin were friends of mine in fourth grade, and then they went off to Saudi Arabia. We haven't talked in years, and it sucks, because I honestly really liked them. But I kinda stopped trying to keep in touch after one of them was rather mean to me once on chat.

And of course, I can understand it now, since we were both twelve or thirteen at the time, and girls--especially girls who have to shift from a city like Karachi to this hi-fi mod-Scott (to quote desi terms) place--go through a lot at the time. But I kinda feel awkward, because, I don't know, they give me this we're-not-like-you-anymore vibe.

Anyway. So I just found out they're in Canada these days, at the University of Toronto. And I was looking at a few of their pictures, and thinking, we're all growing up.

In the sense that we're all beginning to make our own lives, away from our family. And maybe I should start getting used to that, since there aren't many months left till my eighteenth birthday.

I was wondering what it would be like to study at a university abroad. Maybe it would be fun. All that shopping and hanging out and new ventures and blah blah blah.

But maybe it would suck, because I'd miss my mommy. Stupid baby that I am.

Or maybe I'd be so swamped with uni work and trying to pay off my student loans with random odd jobs that I wouldn't have time for any of that glamorous crap. (Yes, I just played Fergie's song in my head to make sure I was spelling the word correctly.)

Anyway. That last dreary picture was probably a good view of what's really gonna happen to me if I go abroad.

Or more rather, what I'm gonna do to myself if I go abroad to study. Because I simply refuse to inflict that much pressure on my parents. Financially, that is.

If I had my way over myself, I'd probably be studying journalism and music and history and languages at some old, renowned university, tucked away in a beautiful suburban place, anywhere in Europe. The campus would be an old castle, something along the lines of Hogwarts, only less creepier and more grand, every crack spilling out a little of its history. I'd live in a pretty off-campus dorm with five other interesting people, and sit on the windowsill and write. And I'd be acting and playing the piano and studying literary works and RJ-ing at the university's radio station, and, and, and.... I'd just be so blissful!!!!

Oh, if only the world were an ideal place...
Or rather, if only I were an idealistic fool who wasn't too chicken to try new things. -_-

I kinda got the above schema from reading this university's application guide, a book that I received when I attended this open house exhibition for universities abroad. Royal Holloway. It used to be all-female once.

Isn't that a grand name, though? Royal Holloway. I'd love to go someplace like that.

Shut up, Peace. Focus on reality.

Sigh.