A Rupee for Good Luck.

Amidst a blurry sea of people making waves of conversation, impulsiveness cuts through like noise. For a race of beings who delight in controlling the tiniest threads of their yet unwoven picture, I saw no reluctance when the delicate branch that held us together fell to the ground and heaved a deep sigh. Ages of duty bred togetherness, held by simplicity and love, fell apart to a sudden pull of haste. 

Even sorrow didn't remind me of her in any other way. I pictured her healthy, her eyes slyly eyeing the last bite of her favourite bread, snarling at her physiotherapist and dying her greys with dignity. Her pale face on cold hard asphalt was an alien emotion, one I could neither relate to or feel. She fought hard, they said, relapsed thrice in four days, lived for six instead of three. Eulogizing. they spoke of her virtues as a sacrificing mother and a brave woman, who went against every tide that attempted to pull her in. But I didn't remember that. I remember her soft hands struggling to tie her age old saree, her first gift from Dada. I remember her in the indulgence of jaggery and poppy seeds, and cranberry preserve and soft sillages of rosy apples from her village tree. I used to enter her room at night after my cruel games with the parrots were over. and in that veil of contentment I would sleep to her strained voice telling me about two sparrows squabbling over a pot of khichdi and how there would be none left for me in the morning. I used to laugh and scare her with wilder stories of the city I lived in.

 When I was seven, I strung my first novel from some blank pages and glue. I thought it would be fun to write about cruel grandparents and my eyes watched her for the slightest sign of offence as I read it to her. All I earned was a snort of amusement as she reached out to her cupboard, pulled out an envelope, enclosed my makeshift notebook in it. and neatly scripted the address of the biggest publisher in the country. Her hands slipped a 500 rupee note in my palm and  one rupee, for good luck. I bit my lip and held on to the coin for the longest time.

But only did her innocence and love reach me when I bent down to ask her coffin for forgiveness. It returned in the embraces that cried to me about my name in her fading memories and in the last couple of conversations, which were devoid of her usual gossip, her usual disapproval, and rich in prayers and good wishes. She slept after she spoke to me that night, soundly into the night, letting go of her pain, a reward for just a few moments of a good bye. 
I think sorrow was a deceitful passenger, who crept into the laughter as we sat in her favourite restaurant, in a tangible atmosphere of affectionate touches and fond exchanges. It stood in a corner and watched us, its icy fingers tugging at a heart string or two, choking the air out of some as they recalled her dying fear of being buried in a pit. A bystander of the prayers, the burdening guilt of every curt reply, every unnecessary altercation. It took a special delight in the loneliness of her children, whose stoic faces were torn with grief.

I think somewhere in between finding her lost slippers and stealing the last mouthfuls of cardamom after festivals, I had forgotten to stop, sit and play those videos of her on loop, where she fought with monkeys who stole her fruits and hid treasures of goodies from us for her guests. I sat in the dusty bioscope at the end of the room, and every single expression, her voice , hit me with those horses and chariots she used to show me through its window. 

As I bit into the last chocolate she had kept aside for me, a dash of salt cut through the unreal sweetness, an honest admission of difference so real, so important for all of us to go on. As she lived on in the dusty covers, in the old gramophone that played Ghalib on repeat, I sat there to carry every bit of the loss with me, which had also become an inseparable part of her journey with me.
I quietly sent my gratitude for all those years, for being the soft white saree I used to lean against as she made biscuits early in the morning. For never settling for anything less than perfect, be it the taste of my mother's cooking or her roommate in the ICU. I thanked her for her grounding, and her hope that I will pass "first division". I thanked her for loving me afar and those tiny gold earrings she sent me as a token of remembrance.

Sorrow never left his corner, and I think he intends to stay. But just this one time, I went up to him with some biscuits, cardamom and cranberry preserve and wished him a pleasant journey into my  bittersweet longing to see her again. Somewhere, in the mustard fields, the parrots still wish for our cruel games and the coal fires burn , waiting for her sweet potatoes. Her absence is in the anxious sparks, dying away, and the empty bridge across the pond, missing her footfall. 

When I look at it. she's there. Crossing over and stopping for a moment to look back. She beckons us to follow her, and then remembers the unlocked door at home, and motions us to stay. She trudges on ahead with resilience and pride, but this time, she trips, falls, and vanishes with the breeze into the sunkissed clouds. 

I can only hope, I get to see her again. 

So I went up to the stream, tossed a rupee and wished her good luck for all there was to come. Then I left, like she would have wanted me to. I had her letter to the publisher to post.

Notes.

You'll never know this, but you chose a child.
I'm the woman in a loose sweatshirt, addicted to strong coffee, leaving behind a sillage of strawberries and paranoia. I sit on your wooden floor, doodling absently in the corner of a notebook, gently biting my fingernails and twirling one strand of my hair around my finger. I try to think, then I try not to think about my inability to think anymore. I'm never awake when you come home.  You always find me curled up on the floor carpet, fast asleep, drowning in a heap of papers.

You shake your head and find your way to the kitchen, and there it is. Bright pink today. Waiting patiently on the fridge door. "Dinner in the oven, don't burn the crust". With a faint smile you peel off  the note and eat in the company of your solitude.

I can sense every tense moment the next morning. I can feel you watching me. You can sense my desperation, my longing for a conversation. But you calmly drift off to sleep. A faint breeze rocks the sepia photographs framed on the walls. The haunting fragility of memories is a mere accessory now. 
A year later, I try to look within the deep recesses of my emotions to hunt down slivers of existing regret and my failure brings me neither satisfaction nor sorrow. Your arms were not meant to be home. Your laugh wasn't meant to be the soothing symphony for my restless mind.
You were always lost around me and I was finding myself, so when you left, your feet echoing further away from the door, I was glad that in my strange, twisted way I helped you find your destination, at last.
I was chastised for my detachment, my lack of affection, my lack of concern. My unnerving tendency to escape into oblivion, knowing every answer but finding the right questions. I made you tear your beautiful hair, which I loved running my fingers through, I made you into a book that forgot how to read itself.

You used to laugh at my idiosyncrasies, till I became one for the world. Then I was no longer the pleasure that came from a solved puzzle. I was just the frustration that came from an unsolved one. I was the realization that came from holding the wrong piece, one that didn't fit. That was when you abandoned me. I wasn't a conundrum; I was incomplete.

Out in the cold night, you will pull your coat closer to you. You will walk back to the old apartment ,where we stayed all those years ago, where the floors were stone and where everything was comfortingly closer. Where you found my detachment so annoyingly attractive, where I pretended I never cared. You will leaf through the familiar scents and stories of our dalliance and maybe, just maybe, a tear of nostalgia will escape your eyes. You will crash on the floor, breathing hard, lost again for a while, aimlessly hunting through all the belongings that never meant anything to me but everything to you. 

And just, when you will make peace with yourself, the false backing of the last drawer will  give away. Inside, will be notes of every imaginable shade, stuck firmly. They speak of you. Everything about you. From the way you like your bagel, to how I cut down my bath salt supply so you could fuel your gadget obsession from our monthly budget. From the fact that you hate my favorite song, to the fact that I pretended to hate it so that you could play yours. My concern, hidden by a veil of insecurity, will find you. My compromises, spectators in our shadows, will find you.
My notes will find you.
My love will find you.
And I will no longer be the puzzle you left incomplete.
I will be a fragment of your memory.
Bright pink.
Flapping cheerfully from the refrigerator door
Telling you, dinner's in the oven, don't burn the crust.

The Broken Watch Glass.

Tick

Hauntingly beautiful day, one of those sunsets which linger in the monsoon, bathing the trees in a golden glow and the cool breeze laden with promises of petrichor. Last box of memories out from the attic, she thinks, as she wipes her grimy hands on her black dress and searches its contents. As the canticle fades away with the last of the eulogies in the lawn, she is left holding a simple watch with worn out leather straps, the watch glass frosted at the rim. 

Tock

She sits, watching from a distance. Trying to read people, warily, juggling between being the cynosure of the gathering and indulging her heart with the quiet it longed for. Never alone, but always lonely. She searches for a diversion and slips away unnoticed, clutching her watch. Half past noon, on its familiar, seemingly eternal face. Such a paradoxical illusion. Makes you feel you have forever, yet  doesn't prepare you for when your thread of time is severed before you can blink. The presence of which comforts you and simultaneously terrifies you. 

Tick

Live your life, they said. Find who you are. Spend some time with your soul. Feel the air skip lightly from strand to strand of your hair, enjoy the woody, smoky spice it brings with it. In return, it takes back an untold story in whispers, like a little secret. With a twinkle in its eye, it says that this wondrous tale was between her and the road, and her and the road alone.
Midnight, calls out her watch, and she stops the car. Lies down on the cool grass and traces her own hitchhiking map across the galaxy. Smiles, laughs and falls asleep.

Tock

Sometimes when your anger blends with your isolation, it suffocates you. Sitting in the corner, wet face, thinking and rethinking those icy exchanges and angry altercations. Was it her fault? Why was it always her fault? Her knees draw in closer, as if tempting her with a warm hug. The embers die without so much of a crackle, watching her carefully. Once in a while, they exhaled with all the energy left in them to produce one lively spark to cheer her up. The spark dances, spins but doesn't catch her attention. Sleep, another day to drag yourself through, she thinks. I don't pretend, I bear, I don't give up that easy.
Her graying hair gleams, the embers sigh. Just nine 'o' clock this time.

Tick
The world freezes, except a distant voice, a distant face, frantically trying to rouse her from her stupor and she lay still, as still as her train of thought which had stopped taking its wild trips down imagination's beautiful city. Her head shifted gently to the side, as she saw all the old pictures on her desk, twelve years seem so short right now. There was one after her first promotion, the one she gave up having a family for, and one with that old woman who kindly made her tea when she had a cold and never came back to meet her again. She smelled bagels, and remembered her morning coffee, freshly ground with half a bagel. Just how she liked it. And the little girl, with her fresh, young,hopeful face, delivering her bread and helping her mother. Always wished her a good day.

Tick tock, tick tock

A peaceful smile on her face. Her eyes, close. Somewhere, the breeze carries with it another story. The tale of how the frosted watch glass, finally broke.

Ace Your Cartography

The best advice I never got was to map out my bizarre life. Take every thing down from those triple dimensions and put them on a flat floor, chalk out my locations and most importantly, get my landmarks in order. But my life adamantly refuses to be  mapped. The demarcations that are supposed to be stark and simple, are a mangled mess of smudged ink. There are mountains of issues and rivers of sorrow, and then there are mountains inside the rivers. I live in a town in my head, one which has every road to Nowhere land  but none, for Somewhere land. 

The erasers won't work on the ink. The only choice was to build a new map,  which is easier said than done. I neither had a concrete canvas, which would be sturdy enough to etch my dreams on and neither a good pen, one with a strong willpower to never distort.
So naturally, I adopted the age old artist's solution: I simply flipped it to draw on the other side. There is something so unnerving to be on the flipped side of your sole sheet of paper. Your second, final chance. It never fails to illustrate the idea that you're out of options. You'll never get a fresh sheet to work on again. If you get it wrong this time around, there is nothing changing and a messy life you'll always have. 

While drawing I realized that the entire basic layout of the map remains the same. There is absolutely no difference, because, stubborn as we are, we hate to admit that some our decisions might have been wrong ones. They lead us to the place where we wanted to be, and no matter how much better it would've been to pick the road not taken, there is nothing you want to change about the only thing you're absolutely sure of- where you stand with your choices today. 

Then how can this map be different if I can't change my routes? 
That's where my failed cartographer met a smart one. She took the tiny red dots that marked the capitals of my cities and gave them different paths to follow. I saw The Book You'll Never Write be the capital of Why Not? from Haha No. Initially, it was hard to forcefully accommodate Apologize in the Ego Box, but now it easily drifted towards Love and Relief, as if it belonged there.
 
I realized I could make a difference in what I decide my landmarks are, on this map. Embarrassment was an ugly red one on a shady street. Fearing not being good enough and overdoing things was the first sharp turn on the entrance, with jagged rocks that harm a lot more than just your flesh.

The best I could do was to view the shady street as an unexplored area, which may contain a candy floss stall for a better landmark. The best I could do, was awaken a desire to not let Embarrassment take precedence and to watch my step on that sharp turn.

However, nothing comes close to the importance of a ghost town. A little thing that stuck with me after reading a particularly interesting story by John Green. A ghost town was a little something that I put on my map to make sure no one else plagiarizes it. A town, a part of me that I never meant for to exist. But there were people who came along, read my map and tried to find their way around me. They dogeared the portions which intrigued them and disappointed themselves at some elaborate signboards which promised a greater experience than what they got.  They marveled at how intricately some barriers were built and how intensely it could rain sometimes.
They also reached my ghost town, and tried to find the place, which the map assured them exists. All they found was a barren ground with nothing to see, a blade of grass here and there. Some turned back and left. But a chosen few stayed. They set up a mini gas station and got some bricks and mortar. They built tiny little shelters for themselves, watered the land and grew some flowers. Built a flourishing diner which served the best steak you'll ever find. Above all, they defined a place within me which was one I longed for, but was never supposed to be there. 

It's not up to us to choose the path we take. We've been told otherwise, and have been lied to. Most of the times, you have to do things because necessity rules over emotions.

Years later, I'm climbing a steep hill, a journey I chose and whose consequence I await. I can't decide how to make the climb easier or the hill a bit kinder to my legs. But I have power over when I want to rest and take it easy for a while. When I want to replace the fancy wording in the Book I'll Never Write with simple ideas. There can be no alteration in inevitability, but there can be  strong one, in favourability.

I have a choice when I want to escape to my little ghost towns, sit, and take a drink. Refuel my old car. Buy Snoopy pajamas. Watch a rom-com. Eat fries (without sharing). I have a choice to love what I do. That's what lends the ink its will to stay permanent. That's what makes all the difference. 

Moon City

A hand.
Is that my hand?
I can clench my fingers, I can make a fist. I can smash the space in front of me, creating an eerie ripple in the ambience.
I strain my eyes to make out shapes and structures that make sense in this blinding light. To discover a drop of color in this macabre canvas, which engulfs you in its nothingness. 
What was it that stirred my consciousness? Was it the sharp pain in my calf? The resonant gong from a distance, that shattered my fragile attempts to regain my equilibrium?

I removed the jagged rock embedded in my calf as I slowly stood up and looked around. A faint metallic taste in my mouth. Clothes covered in grime. The street was empty, dark and desolate. The air, like a predator shrouded in a cloak of equanimity, wouldn't give away a soul hiding somewhere in the darkness, holding my answers for me. 

It was perhaps the reminiscence that lent the circumstance its intensity. The incident itself had been one of strange simplicity, When you imagine your purpose in life being torn away from you, you imagine drama. You imagine a fight, where you're a gladiator in the Colosseum and the crowd is cheering you on. What you don't imagine, is defeat.  You always win your purpose back and sink back, content in your mediocrity, happy, fulfilling your purpose to the best of your ability with utter disregard for the ensuing monotony.

Honey brown eyes.
The first thing that struck me when I first held her.
She was shivering, a child of merely five. I gently wrapped my coat around her. From the very moment I looked into those eyes and marveled at the beauty of the creature, standing in front of me, vulnerable, it was as if she ignited the spirit of a protector in my otherwise complacent nature.

Stealing apples. That's what they'd hauled her in for. Such a contrast from the vile men behind her, all murderers, thieves and men of great malice, behind bars for good reason.
How could I leave those imploring, hungry eyes behind? They'd be the haunt within my warm walls of comfort.
I took her with me and brought her a sugar cookie on the way. I let her run circles around my makeshift fireplace, warm her icy hands by my humble fire. It was also the day I learnt to divide my baked potato into two.

She developed a certain affection for the fire. She sat with the ragged,stitched doll I put together for her and told her stories to make her night easier. I couldn't help notice how more than half of her blanket covered the wet cat from next door. She'd sleep, exposed, on the freezing floor.
One night on the terrace, her tiny hands held me from behind.
I hoisted her high up on my shoulder and let her see the world from a new height. I looked up anxiously, alert for even the slightest tremor of trepidation. Nothing scared me more than her fear.
But she amazed me. Like she always did. With her twinkling eyes and sunburnt curls. She asked me, with a saturnine undertone to her musical voice, where had all the colors of the city gone?

Why are the buildings mere black silhouettes with highlights of white? Why were the people suddenly their true grey selves, as if a reflection of their persona? Where was the crimson red of the rose bush below? Or the blinding fluorescence of the hawker's shirt? 
My baffled mind was trying to come up with a justification, to convince her that her colors would return again. To comfort her, that her lucid perception of the picturesque world wasn't a white lie her beautiful eyes told her. 

I simply told her that the city we live in has two guardians watching over it. The Sun and The Moon. The Sun gives the world its inviting colors, its visual appeal. You can look at the colors, the sunlight brings with it, for hours, without getting tired of their vividity.

But the true beauty lies when the Moon comes to pay us a visit. In its pristine white form, the Moon simply illuminates the truth. There is pain when the deception is discovered, but the pain is a good pain. One you'd want to bear. The pain of honesty.

No one can harm you in the moonlight.
You can afford to risk a dream, in your Moon City.

Her wide eyes told me I had given her a new story to tell her doll. I laughed at her eagerness. To be of value to someone is such a wonderful feeling.

Every night from then, she told the doll about the Moon City. Adventures on top of the dark shadowy houses. Security and safety, treasures she'd never known. Satisfied sleep and uninterrupted dreams. A gift I was glad I could give.

Then it was that fateful night when the very pristine white I loved became the cynosure of my hatred. I don't know why they broke in and took her away. I could hear her scream. All I could do was claw at the white fabric of their uniform, helplessly. I couldn't get a grip on myself, how could I even hope to get a grip on them?
The last thing I remember was her brown hair sticking to her tear streaked face as she looked at me, terrified, from over someone else's shoulder. I remember running. As fast as I could. Saying, "I'll catch up with you. I'll get you back."
I recall the shove and falling, on the cold asphalt of the road.
And I remember a sharp pain eating me away.

The streetlights flickered on, lighting up the street. I slowly walked towards the house that'll never be the same again. I walked towards the house that'll now be residence to one who couldn't keep his promise. Residence to a liar, a failure, a cruel man who should be behind bars for good reason.

I want to be there when she discovers the true horror of the dichotomy of this vicious world. I want to hold her when the deceptive veils fall. I want to tell her that her safety wasn't an illusion. But I neither have the words, nor the conviction, of lying to her again. 
Wherever you are, I want you to know. I will go to the ends of the Earth to find you and bring you back to me, Your doll needs her stories, the fire needs your tending, my house needs your tinkling laughter and my habit, needs you.

I urge you to believe in the beauty of honesty, no matter how much it hurts. I wish I could give you the strength to embrace it. But in my absence, love your Moon city, Don't give up on it. If you ever feel scared, hold on to your happiest memories and all your dreams, like gold from the pot at the end of a rainbow of hope, They'll guide you from the perilous forest of vice and villainy.
 I urge you, in my absence, to accept and then fight, your fear.

Because nothing scares me more than your fear. 

Polar.

I expected to be born in the confines of a quiet, peaceful room, with my mother safe beside me, glowing with happiness and singing to me.
Instead, I was born in a golden cage. From the very moment my round eyes fluttered open, there were beaming servants all around. Relatives with fake, plastered smiles. Golden bowls with kheer and silver spoons. But I cherished the peaceful fact that I wasn't the focus of all that suffocating attention, but the reason why I was always fed the second bite from the bowl of kheer, was.
He was the one who lay right beside me, eyes firmly shut, with creases around the corners, lips in a thin line,  one chubby finger curled protectively around mine. Born just a mere minute before. 

He was fair, while I was dark. His eyes were a conserved shade of grey, while mine were a bubbly, eager brown. He was born a boy, with the expectation of carrying the family name far, heavy like a mountain on his tender shoulders. I was just that other twin. The one which would be a pride to some other family in the future. The girl.

It was always as if we were molded from two different kinds of soil, fed with contradicting souls but gently laid in the same womb. His tender shoulders, now lean and athletic, always got a proud pat from Baba every evening. It was his fair hands that got all the first kisses, the prime blessings. Some would be resentful of all the attention he got, but I preferred this seclusion. With the limelight rarely around me, I spent most of my time in my own little oblivion. Imagining spy agents and insane adventures with vigilantes, always to return back at night with new memories shining from my eyes, just like all my favorite endings. Reckless to an extent, but just safe enough.

Each time a cloud of unrest overtook my mind, I found my feet reflexively climbing up the cool mud stairway that led to the terrace, which I never entered. A barrier of superiority always held me back, as I stared from a tiny window space near the door, built in a corner of the wall, at him. Studying from all those books Baba got him from premier bookstores. Living up to our dreams. 

So I sat there. On the landing, on the other side of the door. Wondered if sometimes my concern and my love ever reached him. If someday, he'd come to accept me and love me more than those books of his, if it would extend beyond leaving the last bite of my favorite dish for me, more out of impatience than affection. If someday, I'd get my brother back in the same train of thought, in the same cradle.

The day he got into Baba's favorite college was also the day my mother found a groom for me. For the very first time, the giving away of sweets from our family was a two way street. As people shook my outstretched hand congratulating a very dazed and bewildered me, a feeling of envy towards him and his eternal, retained freedom began to rise. 

I still can't forget my haldi. He came to me and bent over gently, kissing my forehead. Then taking my painted hands in his, he handed me a small, velvety box. My wedding ring, which I would give to the groom's family, which he had personally picked.
That night, I went to the landing for presumably the last time. Leaning against the door, I no longer heard the familiar rustle of the pages turning. On peering in, I found him simply lying there. Gazing up at the sky, one leg on his knee, deep in thought.

I was greatly puzzled when he looked elated on my big day. He gave me a hug. Told me he loved me more than anything else in the world. It's as if a cold hand gripped my insides. Was he happy to be getting rid of me? Was that expression obligatory instead of affectionate?

It was in my new home, I got the call. He had left the very night of my reception, wordlessly, slipping away in the celebrating crowd. He hadn't met anyone, had he met me? Told me where he was going? 

It was under my pillow, in the room I never returned, they found the letters a little while later. Mentioning failed hints at expressing his own ideas of what he wanted to do with his life. Mentioning pressure and frustration over being ridiculed and rejected. The same sentences, looped.  Leaving just a flicker of hope behind. No one ever found him, but every one, in their heart of hearts, assumed where he had gone. My brother, didn't even speak his mind freely in his last letter.

Maybe, I wasn't the caged bird. Maybe, my freedom was always the envy.

I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I prayed to find him, wherever he was. With a jolt, I remembered the tiny little moments of his love, his protection, which I had always overlooked in my despair of his ignorance.

We were finally in the same train of thought.
Polar. Equal opposites.
Yet, one.

Geppetto

I don't know how I'd define freedom. It's as exasperating and frustrating as trying to describe and comprehend a color you've never seen. I only have a tiny sliver of an idea of what freedom must be like.  I might not have had that to hold on to, either, if it wasn't for him.

I was three when I saw them place burning logs of wood over my father. He was sleeping peacefully, in the open, in the chilly air. I recall inhaling sharply. He'll catch a cold. But the fire kept him warm. And engulfed him.

Two years later, he came along. For the first time since my father's death, I saw my mother laugh as freely as she did. The spark came back in her eyes. She started believing in happiness, in life, again. 
The house seemed to light up when he was around. The tiles shimmered, the flames flickered and even the clocks plastered a plastic grin. His shoulders became our mode of transport and his lollipops our reward. I always bullied him, pulling his hair and giving him directions. Little did I know, that's exactly what he, was giving us.

Woodcraft. That was the magic he enchanted me with. He had a small workshop in the garden of his palatial mansion. My human senses were perhaps inadequate to completely take in the aura of magnificence around its interior. The walls were carved with fairytales. I saw trolls, bridges and I saw goblins. Mischevious pixies with pointed wings, rainbows with pots of gold. I saw giants and ogres, villages and cities devoured. I saw the smug pied piper of Hamlyn, leading the plague of rats to their musical doom. 
And I saw fire. Indefinite shape. Undefined beauty.

His nimble fingers moved all over the wood, and he'd nonchalantly sit beside me on one knee, talking to me, while transforming that muddy stump into a gift for my birthday. I closed my hand over a miniature sculpture of a funny looking boy with a long nose. Pinocchio, from my favourite story. I looked up to the man, whose crinkly eyes stared back at me with good humor and fatherly love. I scrunched up my nose. "I still don't like you. You're not dad." The sawdust dancing around him froze in the air. The splinters embedded in his fingers suddenly started hurting. He simply smiled and let my comment pass.

The day he set my brother and I in the hall of his house. I ran squealing, my hair splayed out like a wildly flapping flag, senses clouded with the unbelievable liberty of losing control and ignoring rules and ettiquette. That's probably how I'll define freedom. With the sound of my quickenning thud of footsteps, flushed face, and erratic heartbeat.

Time flies. Two years became twenty. I look back to the lost man sitting all alone on that chair, gazing out the window with a dreamy smile. They call him a madman. Some thank the gods he's senile. They see him as senseless and useless. But each time I look at him, I see the man who loved me as his own when he was under no obligation to.

I gently wipe the dribble of boiled apples from his chin and laugh lightly. "I still don't love you, old man."
He reached out and playfully rested his finger on my nose.

Even when his nose didn't grow long, Geppetto could always tell when his Pinocchio was lying.