The Flickering
A short nostalgic trip to starry terrace nights with a few insightful revelations— On the prompt “starry night”
The cool night zephyr brushed against my face, caressing my sweaty neck. I tied up my hair a high pony, letting my neck breathe some fresh night air. I stared around my terrace, my eyes slowly adjusting to the pitch darkness. The terrace was a huge relief compared to my stifling duplex in the hot temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius. The broken AC in a lockdown is a cherry on top of the already melting cake.
I relapsed into my ‘starry night terrace memories’ — as I’d like to call them. When I was a kid, the terrace used to be our night-time campsite in summers. We used to get mattresses from the house and build a cute tent with mosquito nets (to shoo them away), slurping away jelly custard, a specialty of my mum, star-gazing, and eventually falling asleep under the ink-black vastness bedecked with twinkling ornaments. Starry night camping destinations weren’t a necessity as we had one in our terrace. The innumerable sleepovers with friends, family; engulfed by the dark skies and spooky ghost stories to go with; the candlelight dinners with my childhood best friend — of homemade burger and ready to eat noodles (Maggie)— so much more memorable than a fancy dinner at some elegant bistro. Not that I’m not a fan of elegant dates and dinners; but there’s something quintessential about the sweet, homely, simple affairs.
Eventually, when air conditioning became a necessary fad, we stopped camping on our terrace, unfortunately.
The nostalgic trip to starry nights on the terrace pushed me to make some cold milkshake and enjoy it’s iciness on the terrace, under the skies with my mum.
I sat on the built-in cement Katta, gazing up, marveling at the moonlit blue Heavens, the tall coconut trees bathing in silver. In my society, for some reason unknown, most of the bungalows have their own coconut tree (maybe it could’ve been started as a trend.) The moon, a Celestial Diamond; evanescent beneath the wisps of clouds. Over the years though, the starry skies aren’t like they were before; pollution and city lights responsible for throwing a blanket on them. But this quarantine has made the skies pellucid again.
The elegance of night skies is something to behold forever — the sparkling stars solitary, lone yet beaming brilliantly upon us; as if extensions of our own selves, really tiny specks in the Universe from the perspective of Infinity, yet still contributing in the embellishments of the Blue Paradise, in their own unique constellations.
Aren’t I also a tiny, flickering, almost invisible star in this Heaven of literature, writing poetry and prose, on an already existing platter filled with millions and trillions of poems ?!
Yet I’d like to believe that my flickering counts. Bit by bit, in a teeny tiny way; but it counts.
#scbwiwestchallenge #writeeveryday
Thank you for reading!
Amy Marley’s gorgeous, starlet Haiku:
Rasheed Hooda’s tasty Tanka on pizza as his comfort food:
