Prose

London is its picturesque grey with pregnant rolls of silver clouds hanging low above the building roofs – if you were to brave climbing and stand on one, you might imagine you could touch the clouds, pull and wrap yourself with it.

Leaves of wet newspapers flutter weakly, bleary headlines sodden on pools of reflection on the concrete, beneath my winter-weary boots.

I have missed days like this, I have missed (more…)

Slowly the flurry danced down in the air, twinkling and twirling in the cold night, glistening in the weak yellow lights of the street lamps.

She stood by the bus stop, waiting.

How long was he going to be, she wondered. She didn’t like waiting in the dark so late but she had no choice. (more…)

“Why is there ice in my pocket?” said the big brother, pulling his hand from his pocket.
The little boy laughed and laughed a laugh of pure unadulterated joy.
The big brother gave a half hearted chase, with the ice in his hands and a smile on his face as the little one ran a distant away in the snow.
“Quick the bus is here,” said the big brother, seeing the reflection in the shop window before the red double-decker bus turned its corner.
“How did you know?” the little brother asked wide-eyed as he saw the bus materialise a few seconds after the big brother had spoken.
And the two brothers boarded the bus, the little one still chortling at having got one over his brother with the ice.

Nobody wants to wait forever…

we don’t live that long.

The father brought in his little daughter and stood her in front of the elder gentleman.
“Let’s take a picture like that!”
The girl smiled appropriately.
“Say hello to Sir Fazle.”
She did, and the elderly gentleman conversed with her, asking her about school life, exuding warmth and peace.
Her father smiled broadly. “You’re too young to appreciate who you’re standing next to. But when you’re older and understand, you’ll thank me.”
He was right. She may not fully understand who is this gentleman her father was making the family take a photo with. But when she is grown up, when the gentleman may no longer be around, when she researches his name, she will feel the privilege of having met this legend in person, of knowing the person behind the name.

A friend recently text me that
the past 3 years of his life was a waste.

Without knowing why he believed that, I text back:
Nothing in life is a waste if you learn from it.

Since deciding to actively write this year, it has made me more aware of life, to notice and appreciate things more. When I’m doing something mundane I ask myself, how would I describe this experience right now if I were to write about it? This slows me down and makes me fully experience that particular moment, whether it is listening to the sounds as I’m walking home, or trying to describe the taste of something I am eating.

I’ll stop whenever I have an idea and try to scribble it onto my notebook that I carry around. I whip out that notebook during ‘dead times’ like a bus journey, when I have been inspired by something. Or if not inspired, I will still whip out the notebook and edit something written earlier. The person sitting next to me will glance over, probably wondering, What is she writing in her pink notebook? With her pink pen. She must be obsessed with pink, look she has a pink headscarf as well, and her white dress has pink flowers and butterflies on it. And OMG, no way, she’s wearing pink JEANS? I didn’t even know PINK jeans exist?!

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