Inspired

Her mind seems blank. Sometimes it tries to think, but it’s hard. It seems to be moving at a very slow, sluggish pace, like it’s just had a big lunch. But it’s a brilliant feeling.

But now it’s moving rapidly, and she feels that the kind of insight she’s getting should be put in books and taught to children as part of their school curriculum. A special course called ‘The Ways of The World’. Because let’s face it, school doesn’t prepare you for the real world, for what’s out there, outside of the safety blanket of those four walls. School’s fucking useless.

It’s amazing really. The range of emotions she feels right now is nothing like the range she can feel normally. It’s broadened, the spectrum. Her horizons have broadened. There’s new sensations, thoughts flying around rapidly in her head. Their speed almost blinds her. They knock against the sides of her brain and fly with increased momentum to the other side. Like dragonflies. She can barely keep track. They switch rapidly, from one thing to the next. Happy, sad, anguished, desperate, ecstatic, nostalgic, amused, bewildered, surprised, sorrowful. There’s a valid reason for each. She wasn’t even aware the human mind could move at a pace like this. What comes out of her mouth makes perfect sense. She wonders why other people find it funny.

It’s pretty, the smoke. It forms images in front of her eyes. Such a waste. Pretty things are almost always undervalued. Why do people run after the grotesque and leave the ultimately beautiful to waste away, she could never understand. It’s the same with relationships. The really beautiful people almost always end up dying alone. She supposes it’s their way of finding hardship in life, to make them stronger, more resilient. Even more beautiful. Yet never appreciated.

She gets lost in the beauty of the smoke coming out in front of her. It’s mesmerising. Even as a child, the soft shapes formed by the lit camphor at Diwali pujas used to invite her, tempting her into their labyrinthine cave. She’d get lost, looking at those forms for hours. It was perhaps the only way for her to get through those Pujas.

She feels heat on her fingers. Time to roll another.