Category: 30 Minutes of Traveling

30 Minutes of Traveling: A Rabbit and A Writer

Alfa Maiya2 Comments

It’s all warm inside the big micro. I don’t know how but I know it’s going to take me home. Ah! such a lovely weather it is, only if it weren’t for the crowd inside the bus. Look at how many people are being cramped in, one stop after another.

Thankfully I’m safe here, cozy. I don’t like these eyes staring at me. Haven’t they seen my kind before?

Wait, hush! Someone is particularly starting at me. I know she’s a writer. I’m a rabbit, I should know these things. Super powers, you see.

Ah! the writer, those curious eyes hiding behind prescription glasses. I know she’s planning on writing about me now that my existence has become evident to her. But what she doesn’t know is that I have already written about her, inside my mind. Right now. Here, in these words.

Heavens! why can’t she write about the humans instead. But wait, I forgot that they re indeed extremely boring. You’d see a lot of them inside a micro bus, but a rabbit. Well well! It’s a treat I suppose.

My owner might be one of those good looking men in the world, but I’m cuter. And I know everyone around, especially the writer wants to pet me, run her hands through my white fluffy fur. But she won’t get to. No, she won’t. She’s far away from me.

Everyone is rather surprised at my calm nature. If the bus gets crowded, I hold on tightly to my owner’s arms. How wonderful it is to look at these humans wondering about us animals!

It’s getting really hot now. Some people get down, some people get in. My owner has been standing for a long time now! Poor creature! When will he get to sit and when will I have to stop worrying about accidentally falling off his strong arms?

The writer is still thinking about me. She thinks of me as a cute little being, but am I? I wonder! Oh wait the bus stops and hurray my owner finally gets the seat. I cling a little tighter as he sits down on the corner seat. Oh but now I can’t see the writer anymore. Maybe it’s good.

I’m going home.

I met a rabbit inside the micro bus and thought, what if the rabbit wanted to write about it, instead of me?  

30 Minutes of Traveling: Deep Fried Crunchy Samosa

Alfa Maiya2 Comments

I told myself it’s okay to
want to go all by yourself,
to take little chances to discover
pieces of you scattered here and there,
to have people stare
when you’re sitting there
waiting for no one in particular to appear.

I want to eat a samosa,
that deep fried crunchy samosa
I’ve always loved,
as a child, as a teen and as an adult. 

I told myself it won’t rain hard,
drizzles are merry times,
that sprinkle your shoes with a little water.
Even if it does rain
home is nearby. 

I told myself it is okay to explore alone,
to walk the roads you’ve walked with others,
newly blacktopped roads
welcome me with narrow bends.
Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea after all.

I want to eat a samosa,
deep fried crunchy,
but end up ordering its variant.
Right after I lay my eyes on it,
it feels like a bad idea.
Yes, it was a bad idea.
I hurriedly order a lassi
to improve the taste,
I end up receiving a drink
with sugar particles instead.

I tell myself it’s okay to make wrong decisions,
food is a little thing,
there are mountains to conquer.
All this for a deep fried crunchy samosa.

30 Minutes of Traveling: Lines

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These lines make me nervous. I love lines otherwise, lines that run through pages, lines that unmask people, lines that make up stories, lines that can be spoken, lines with words on them. But this is a queue. And I’m not fond of lines that are made up of people. It makes me anxious, like I’m doing something wrong. 

What is worse is perhaps not the number of people in front, but rather the ones after me. They are not many, I’m almost at the end. It would be over, only when its over. We’re moving at the exact opposite of what might be the speed of light. Why are there so many people here? Why am I here in particular? I don’t seem to find the answers. My only source of entertainment here is to imagine, turn these people into characters. Turn myself into one. Nobody seems to know where this is heading. 

There’s a couple in front of me, one offering the other to stand in their place. Rather sweet. But I wonder do they know I’m here right at their back writing about them in words they would probably never recognize or come across. 

The sun is generous today, warm and stark. But the wind blows. Faces of confusion everywhere. Why is it that they do not know. What is it that I do not as well. People have stories of letters everywhere. I’ve been standing here for hours now. I’m small and petite so I can slip in between without getting my hands or legs stuck. 

After a few hours, the chaos becomes a part of me. I begin to enjoy it in a very odd way. The people become a little familiar. Maybe they are not strangers anymore. After all even families are strangers that decided to stick together for a long period of time. Lovers. Friends. The universe. All of them strangers who decided to stay a little longer. 

Perhaps this line too, a preplanned, preconceived act of destiny or of choice. Let’s find out, shall we?

30 Minutes of Traveling: The Longer Route Home

Alfa Maiya6 Comments

30-minutes-of-traveling-the-lounger-route-home-1

What is the feeling between sadness and happiness called? On a balancing scale when you stand right in between of the two, not moving an inch to the left or the right. It’s like an empty feeling of odd satisfaction creeping inside, and you place yourself at the center of the cosmos, in full control.

I get down of the broken tempo which stopped after a few minutes. Its broken, the driver announced. For some unknown reasons I was ready to stay there, watching the passengers get down, one after another. I get off eventually. As I walk back, a few drops of rain hits the ground, filling the air with the smell of wet earth.

I take the longer route home.

It was suddenly cold. I was dressed for snow. But it doesn’t snow in Kathmandu. May be it is a good thing, or else we’d freeze during our sleep without heating. You can’t have the snow without the cold, or can you?

I am still warm and fuzzy with my big oversized jacket so I get onto another tempo, almost half empty but just perfect to place my belongings on the seat.

The abstract thought takes over my mind again. It is getting colder. Two young girls in front of me are shivering. But they are young, and the cold doesn’t bother them much. The air flow is almost perfect, enough to carry the smell of rain. I am still warm, and the ride seems magical, the roads seem different.

The first rain of winter that brings me the smell of wet earth. The feeling of absolute void comes back again, while I think of the hot chocolate I will make in the evening as I continue traveling into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Macondo. I think of the greetings I need to email.

January 2 is still new year. 364 days ahead is still new year.

But there is a screen dividing these two line of thoughts. The absolute void exists in its own while everything else is playing by its side, unaffected of each other.

I still think it is the weather.