Russian Roulette

I love standing on a train track when I can hear the speeding train getting closer. I step off the track only when the lights of the train shine straight into my eyes blinding me. And even then I stand close enough to be almost blown away by the strong gust of wind which hits me on my face. I can smell the steel and the iron of the train. I can smell that funny smell you get from old machinery which has been oiled over and over again to keep running. I can smell the diesel and the smoke and I can smell my own death. Yet, I return there every time to stretch my luck. Maybe one day I won't be able to step back in time. Maybe one day I shall have something different to relate, or maybe nothing to relate.

Insane Love

Maya was wondering when was the last time she felt like this. It was insane and she knew it, everyone she knew was settling into relationships which were stable, predictable and had a good future. Her friends were all dating or married to men with stable jobs and a predictable life. Past the teenage years it only made sense to look for something real and here she was, in love with a hobo. He was not like anyone she had ever met or read about. He had this amazing free spirit which she found magnetic, a desire to keep flying which only made him more appealing to her. Her senses told her he was all wrong and obsessing about him was plain stupid, but when the hell did the heart listen to the mind. They always functioned as two completely separate entities who can never reach a consensus on anything. Her best friend was moving into her new apartment with her two kids, her brother had recently moved into the suburbs with his family even her twin had moved to Paris to be with her boyfriend who she had been dating for seven year and here she was, going nuts about a guy who lived in a trailer park and would never commit to her. Maya knew she could never tie him down and she loved that about him just as much as she loved everything else about him. Strangely Maya even thought it would be the coolest thing to do move in with him in his RV. Life would be a crazy adventure with him and she wanted that, but at the back of her mind she was wondering if she would be able to sustain it. It would be like a crazy trip to Vegas but Vegas trips don't last forever and she was wondering how long this would.

In her Mind

Maya was cold and shivering. Not so much from the cold as from fear. It was the eve of Christmas and she was all alone in her apartment pondering about her life. It had been a long time since she felt in control of her life and career. Her work was making her edgy, the years seem to be rolling by and age was catching up with her real fast. Nothing felt right anymore. She had no one around who she could trust wholly and no one who would have faith in her. It was a strange place to be in. For someone who never doubted her own ability it was a new and bad feeling. In all the years she had been alone she always believed that she could do anything and her determination and hard work would pay off. Now she was having second thoughts, maybe just maybe she was not cut out for this. However giving up was not an option for her. She saw no alternative path and sometimes that made her suicidal but she knew even that would be same as giving up.

Lately she was seeing so many people around her take the easy way out. For some of them it was working out well and for some not so much and somehow the cynic in her told her that if she tried it she would be in the latter group. This was not the life she wanted anyways. It was hard to imagine that someone who at the age of 15 knew that the only thing important and worth doing was becoming successful wasn't even close to success after so many years. People younger than her had gone on to do mind boggling things which had changed the world forever. She was still grappling with the basics in life. Was it possible that she was not meant to do anything amazing at all ?

My attempt to post my first story

After gathering a lot of courage I finally posted a short story I wrote a few months back on my blog and within a few minutes I deleted it. My story like any other writer's, is inspired by my own life, the characters are based on people I have met and interacted with. The story was entirely fiction, so were the characters but somewhere I did draw inspiration from people I knew. After reading the story which I posted I wondered if I was jeopardizing my relationship with my friends and realized it's probably not worth it. I am no Ayn Rand, my stories will not change the world nor inspire generations to come. My stories are like short conversations you have with old friends when you meet them for coffee after a long time. It leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling later but somehow you never really recall the exact content of the conversation. All you remember was that it was an evening well spent.

Older, Wiser, Smarter !

As we grow older life teaches us a lot and we keep evolving as a person. A talk with a friend made me realize that as time flies by I am becoming more patient more tolerant and definitely less rigorous. Now that sounds like I am overloaded with a bunch of virtues which I believe cannot be the case. I have my flaws and am probably developing more but I am finally comfortable in my own skin. I am growing to accept myself exactly as I am without trying to be someone I idolize or admire. It's been a long journey here and hopefully in a few years time I shall look back and not think I was juvenile at this point as I do when I look back five years. But then again, the future is unpredictable and that is a wonderful incentive to keep living.