the orange temple
I put on my red earrings, shoved my feet into black Nikes, and left for work.
**********
They skipped along for attention in that bit of atmosphere beneath my earlobes; those glass beads along the rhodium hoop partnering my footfalls. If you squinted and peered within the multi-faceted beads, the trinkets would have laughed and played with the young light of morning, giving you glimpses of a rose-tinted street lined with trees and neat doll houses, along which the bus gently purred.
“God has not promised
skies always blue,
flower-strewn pathways
all our lives through;
God has not promised
sun without rain,
joy without sorrow,
peace without pain.”
My feet waited patiently on the dark blue of the bus floor, my workbag and file balanced on my lap. The beads grew solemn and moved more gravely as the rose-tinted reflections of my quiet neighbourhood gave way to the hard gray of construction and underground tunneling. Like a metallic caterpillar, the traffic crawled, till the feet deposited me at the makeshift bus stop, with the hands assigning between themselves who would hold the bag and the file. My feet hiked towards the stolid orange temple as they had for the past two and a half months, every footfall appealing the blue sky which was denied me in my daily confinement, and returned to me only the following day, in that fraction of time constant.
“God has not promised
we shall not know
toil and temptation,
trouble and woe;
He has not told us
we shall not bear
many a burden,
many a care.”
The hours trudged, slid and shied around me, as I tossed about in the kerfuffle of work and human relations. Like a pendulum, that single marble bead swung from its silvery grip pierced through flesh, and it seemed to bleed a tiredness that pooled atop my shoulders, drawing them inwards in a curvature my spirit resisted. My feet folded themselves beneath my body, and the red earrings chimed a stoical rhythm each time my eyes flitted to the inspirational poem placed on my desk.
“But God has promised
strength for the day,
rest for the labourer,
light for the way,
grace for the trials,
help from above,
unfailing sympathy,
undying love.”
Sometimes at work, I would pick Andes up and he afforded me a measure of cheer, knowing I have cared well for him. Andes, the cactus with the tiny pink flower atop his prickles. At home, my guinea pig had passed on on Wednesday morning. He was barely a year old, a cute long-haired variety with a shock of brown fur on his head. He had a face of a teddy bear, and had been given a clean bill of health by the vet. I had not taken any photo of him, and he had left.
I walked home at the outset of the weekend, my exhaustion eased in the night air. Two pairs of eyes followed me, and I smiled, at two cats curled up on neighbouring steps. In dappled ash and ginger they sat, as I wondered if they were sibling felines, and if they would flee if I sat beside them. I did not, their languid poses astride a flight of steps were plenty comforting enough.
**********
The girl in the Nikes tramped around purposefully, and her earrings anchored her in the femininity she shut out as much as she could while at work. And in the weekend, the red earrings lay quietly inside the doll house, ignorant of silent tears that crept out of her windows when no one was around.
(September 3rd, 2006)