Longing for Light of the Day

In a sleepless night,
My imagination took me to a Stygian dungeon
Alone I sit and trepidation has squeezed my heart
Leaning elbows on the knees, 

Covering the face with my hands,

I wished to stop moving in the maze of wandering thoughts

But mind,
That can not cease to think,

Has snatched my hope
I scream,

But realize I can't be heard
I should not pine for light of the day

For I'll not see it
I close my eyes,

Knowing that, 

It's death waiting with its gloom

100 Facts about Me…!

With laptop on my lap, I sat. Staring mindlessly at the screen, I wanted to write something but just couldn’t weave a single cohesive thought. It is as if I forgot to write or maybe due to a superfluity of thoughts that have been bolting into the mind of their own accord. However, that isn’t unusual either, because that is what the mind does – it creates the world around us. And scruffy minds like mine revel in walking down unpredictable avenues of thoughts, turning new corners, discovering strange new realms. 

So, I surfed the web, read a few tweets and then this hash tag #100FactsAboutMe caught my attention. I threw a few in the mix and then wondered if I really could write or even know 100 facts about myself. I can tell it was way harder than I thought but nevertheless, it was something worth contemplating for.

1. I have a very vivid imagination and I live in my head. 
2. I love to walk alone along the beach and watch sunset. 
3. I’m an antisocial hermit, I feel disconnected from the outer world as if I am the only person like me. 
4. I lack appropriate social skills needed to make friends and I take a lot of time to make someone’s acquaintance. 
5. I’ve never been in love. 
6. Like most antisocial people I love twitter. 
7. Since I lack adequate social skills, I try to be a bit social on social networks (LOL). 
8. I feel like I can’t share any of my feelings to anyone. 
9. Most people think I’m rude, conceited, but I am not. Though, I am not very good with people. 
10. If some people existed in my computer, trust me I wouldn’t take a second to delete them. 
11. I - more often than not – keep my opinion in my head. 
12. I do think about dying young. 
13. Barring Table tennis, I like most of sports but I love football. 
14. I’m a culé. 
15. I thought I was going to play professional football but then picked up a few injuries, especially the tissues’ damage in my right ankle. 
16. Among sports women, I think Yelena Isinbayeva aka Russian pole vault queen – is the prettiest around. 
17. I love poetry, music, movies and reading books. 
18. I can’t name poets, writers and books that I like because they are too many to mention. 
19. I hate blabbers and clingy people. 
20. I used to be a serious gamer. 
21. I’m not a morning person. 
22. My mom usually likes me home before the street lights come on. She’s such a simple woman. 
23. I wear lenses, though I have as many as 5 pair of glasses but I don’t wear them but sure I like to buy them. 
24. Traffic jams annoy me so much. 
25. When I left University, I thought I figure out the life already. Now I realize how wrong one can be. 
26. Owing to the fact that I can’t fit in, when I was a kid, I believed I was from another world. 
27. If I get time, I still like to watch Tom & Jerry, my favorite cartoon. 
28. I tend to watch most of the programs on YouTube. 
29. I am not a good swimmer. 
30. One time, a huge wave swept and banged me against the rocks 30 feet towards the right from where I was swimming and I had received so many contusions on my ribs, elbows, back, knees, shins and feet. 
31. I have a diverse taste in music. 
32. I have a love-hate relationship with myself. 
33. I lost 4 phones so far and I don’t know about 3 of them, whether somebody stole it from me or I dropped them somewhere. And the other one, while climbing stairs and texting simultaneously, I barged into a man who was on his descent. As a result I found myself watching helplessly as my phone bounced off the stairs and crashed to the floor. Phone LCD got damaged beyond repair. 
34. I can forgive but I can’t forget. 
35. I like to help people if I can. 
36. I love to walk in rain and get drenched. And sitting by the window, watching raindrops when I’m inside. 
37. Sometimes I get so sad for no reason. 
38. I like paranormal stuff. The X-Files was my favorite. 
39. Of all professions, I am not the least bit interested in teaching. 
40. If I were a felon, I’d be a bank robber instead of an assassin. 
41. Apart from professional work, I write about things I like and some of them I post on my blog. 
42. I’m a cynic. 
43. I’m a sad case. 
44. I have never been good enough, though I tried to be. 
45. I have done my Masters in I.R in 2008 and joined a news paper which I just left. 
46. If I ever become a ghost, I’ll haunt my ex-boss the most. 
47. And I have many regrets. 
48. My one regret is that I am not someone else. 
49. If I had the chance to start again, I would certainly do everything differently. 
50. When I was a kid, I used to be afraid of dark. Now I find solace in it. 
51. I miss being a kid and being carefree. 
52. I hated school but I liked college and university. 
53. When I was little, once my Dad took me to his office, and after a while Dad asked me “Why are you so quiet, what’s troubling you?”, “I can’t understand what you people writing in these files”, I replied. 
54. When I was 9, my cousin (16) duped me to sneak into a fruit farm in their vicinity to pluck some papaya, guava and mangoes. He told me it was safe and they’d done it before. Farm owner almost caught me and he had a shotgun in his hands. That day I ran faster than Usain Bolt. 
55. My room is always a mess. 
56. If I had a chance, I would like to have a go at skydiving. 
57. I think it would be cool to visit Antarctica. 
58. I don’t care about people and what they think. 
59. I don’t interfere in others’ affair and hate when somebody pokes their nose in mine. 
60. Sometimes I feel short compared to most people, although, 5’9 is okay I guess. 
61. I really hate being ill. 
62. I appreciate my parents. 
63. I love my buddy and we are quite different. 
64. My favorite color is white. 
65. When I can’t sleep, I sit on the rooftop gazing stars. 
66. I like pizza and fried rice the most. 
67. I can't sing. Nevertheless, I try to in shower. 
68. I like Discovery and Nat Geo. 
69. I hate cats. 
70. I’ve never smoked. 
71. Sometimes I drive around aimlessly. 
72. I have a lackadaisical shaving routine. 
73. I have become super lazy lately. 
74. I fantasize a lot. 
75. I don’t live in present. Either I’m in the past or future. 
76. I would rather be rich and miserable than broke and happy. 
77. Back in 2006, I had a terrible accident on a bridge. My bike crashed into the fence. Luckily I didn’t fall over, and I escaped major injuries. Since then I haven’t ridden a bike again. 
78. I sometimes feel like I have the worst luck of all. 
79. I procrastinate a lot. 
80. I don’t like tattoos. 
81. I’m a geek. 
82. My favorite font is “Comic Sans Ms” 
83. I hate adobe updates. 
84. I always used Windows and most of the Microsoft products. 
85. I prefer Android. 
86. After waking up, cell phone is the first thing I reach for and it’s probably the last thing I touch before sleeping. 
87. I switched to SkyDrive from Google Drive, and also I started using Dropbox. 
88. I like growing hair and guys with long hair. 
89. My dandruff just doesn’t go away, though I tried so many remedies. 
90. I don’t like going to weddings, well I don’t like to join other social gatherings either. But to me, weddings are really boring and stressful. 
91. I notice so many things but I choose to say nothing. 
92. Rafael Nadal is my favorite Tennis player. 
93. Sometimes I like to watch movies, I have seen before. 
94. My favorite actors are Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, John Cusack, Sean Connery (he has the sexiest voice I think) and Nicole Kidman. 
95. I don’t like Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman and above all Cameron Diaz, I’d slap her if I could, and I think they should all just stop acting now. 
96. Espionage, war and movies about bank robberies fascinate me the most. 
97. I make a lot of mistakes and I think about them. 
98. Writing 100 facts about yourself is another mistake because it’s so damn hard. 
99. While typing these lines, I have realized quite a few things about myself. 
100. My name is Zaka.

Spiritless

Zaka

Gazing at a colorless picture
That I just drew
Wonder I,
If my world needs some colors...!

A Fairy That Never Was...!!!

Zaka

05:31 AM

“Nothing is as lonely as not sleeping”, tweeted I, as I kept wallowing in the bed. It'd been over 6 hours since I hit the sack. But I had only an hour of sleep and that too - in bits and pieces. However, for my nightmares, that sole hour was enough to kill me once more.

Last night, sleep deserted me like people who run away from a plague-hit town. I’m not an insomniac. Sometimes, I sleep straight up to 14, 15 hours. And yet I experience these sorts of nights when I feel like a man who hasn’t slept in an aeon.

......

11:58 PM

Burying my head underneath the pillow, I tried to hide from the phone light that kept blinking every now and then.

“Who’s it? I aint gonna reply”, spluttered I. Though, I knew that this restlessness won’t go away unless I read it.

“Hey! Nocturnal being! Catching up for being offline, are you? “, It was DM from another restless-soul - living somewhere in the northern hemisphere.

“Aha, she must have a plethora of thoughts and nothing really lucid to say”, I thought, “this doesn’t warrant a reply anyway”. But I couldn’t resist the temptation for too long and replied:

“Not really, my sleep pattern is sorta messed up, so u get replies from underneath the pillow. Lol”

“*giggles* Is it cosy underneath the pillow?”, she replied back in no time.

“Very *Lol* its kinda my soulmate. Lol”, I typed while meditating that there’s no harm talking to her, because sleep wouldn’t seem coming tonight.

“Whoa! ur pillow is like a soulmate, choose it with care. Lol”, replies were coming thick and fast.

“Tell ya what, ma pillow just whispers that she’s nuts, shut ur fone or else you will go nuts too. LOL”, I threw a teaser.

“*Sheepish smile* Ur pillow must’ve got me”.... reply brought a wry smile to my face. I flung the pillow and went to the bathroom, splashed water on my face. I knew it was futile to go to bed. So, I tramped up to the terrace.

....

02:35 AM

I love moonless nights and not much fond of starless nights. And don’t ask me for a reason, because I don’t need a reason to do things. It was a starless night. There never is anything enchanting about such nights. Shadows are longer, corners are darker and even a whisper echoes louder.

The wind whispered annoyingly at my face as if mocking me.

“Ahaaa, there’s a star, perhaps a loner”, I thought as I descried a lonely star shining tremulously in the vast sky. I had almost forgotten the ongoing conversation but just couldn’t help texting that:

“The sky is clear but I can see just a solitary star up there as if she too, can’t sleep”, I typed musing that she must have something to say. And I wasn’t disappointed at all.

“Sleep is for those who have a set course. The solitary wanders in the dark. Lighting up once in a while when encountering another wandering spirit”, reply came.

“Wow poetess, didn’t see that one coming, gonna have antoher go, see if I could meet some fairly in dreamland, whom might tell me some stories about wandering stars”, after talking gibberish for 3 hours, we finally found something worthy of wasting a sleepless night for...

“And if you meet this fairy, with her tales of the wandering light. Just sit next to her, hold her hand and then she’ll shine so bright...”

“I’m expecting her to glisten anyway, why do I need to hold her hand then?”

“What lingers of the velvet touch stays forever in you soul and that my dear friend is all one needs to know:)”..

“Na... if she tells me stories with a bright smile, thats enough for me, I wont touch coz I might hurt her, Just lemme go, so I can meet her, u making her wait”...

“If you look her in the eyes a smile will soon appear, but fairies aren’t always fragile for a touch they hold so dear. Go and meet her with smile so bright. Treasure what she gives you”....

“I hope so or else some nightmares with new ways of killing me – will be there for me in any case. Sigh”... my phone battery died as soon as I sent the text.

“Even, machines can’t bear the burden of sleepless nights”, sighed I. 03:19 AM was on the clock. I stayed lying awake on terrace and gazed at the lonely star.

05:31 AM

“Nothing is as lonely as not sleeping”....!

Autumn of Discontent

Zaka

In a deathlike stillness only rustle of autumnal leaves was heard as cold wind ran over whispering that winter’s frigidness is here. 

“The fall has gone too soon”, mused I as I turned and sauntered down the empty street. Fallen leaves squeaked under my feet as if solemnity of evening was being offended. Having walked a kilometer down the familiar path, I stopped. 

“Why does discontentment have to be the part of autumn?”, as this strange thought presented itself, I shrugged with an audible exhalation. 

“What can I say?”, I murmured as if the question came from someone else instead of voices in my head. I’m so fond of confusing my mind by dwelling on eerie thoughts that often excite my imagination.

The fall is mature and solemn. No wonder Henry Ward Beecher wrote: 

“October is nature’s funeral month. Nature glories in death more than life. The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming – October than May. Evergreen thin loves to die in bright colors.”

Gloom is synonymous with autumn, and yet, it is my favorite time of the year. When you look at the maples, you can sense as if silence listening to silence. Then I understand the true meaning of George Eliot’s words:

“Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird. I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumn”, said she.

Any Day Above Ground Is A Good Day

Zaka

Once in a while, everyone feels stuck - unable out to find a way. Life seems like a futile war that you are destined to lose. Despite battling it out for every inch. When I find myself in this state of mind, I'm like FML. It sucks, I'm better off dead. I mean life is so important. How could it be so friggin' fragile????

Most of you would agree that life sucks but does it have to be? There's no gainsaying that life is overly complicated and most of us just don't have a clue WHY?

When you're knee deep in shit and pondering that there's no way out. You need a distraction then, or else you will lose whatever is left. As they say humor is the best companion to get through life. Yesterday, with flipping through the tv channels, I was trying to while away a lazy afternoon. A channel showing "Baby's Day Out" made me pause and then I watched the whole movie. Though, I have watched it a couple of times before. It just tickled my funny bones and banished  everything from my mind.

Just to stop my life from sucking, I tried to find something to laugh about. And I came up with these "Life Sucks" maxims. If you find someone whining, share these sayings with them. It may add a laughter to their life.

“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell” - Aldous Huxley

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. - Elbert Hubbard

Whenever life sucks, remember you’re going to die someday. So, any day above ground is a good day. – Unknown

“Life is like an onion; you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it” - James Gibbons Huneker

I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it. - Charles Schulz

“If the world didn’t suck, we’d fall off” - Unknown

“Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes” - Luigi Pirandello

“Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful that it happens in that order” - David Gerrold

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another… It’s one damn thing over and over” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles Schulz

The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization. - Karen Horney

“The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” - Thomas Hobbes

“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable” - Woody Allen

“You fall out of your mother’s womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave” - Quentin Crisp

“Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them” - Walter Kerr

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us” - Calvin

“Life is an incurable Disease” - Abraham Cowley

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything” - Tyler Durden

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry” - Ernest Hemingway

“It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done” - Samuel Johnson

“Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove” - Ashleigh Brilliant

“The world is a grindstone and life is your nose” - Fred Allen

“The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race” - Don Marquis

“Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation” - Bertrand Russell

Death is life’s way of telling you you’re fired” - Unknown
“It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others” - Unknown

Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. - Charlotte Bronte

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. - Christopher Morley

I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. - Jack Handey

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. - Richard Bach

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. - Alice Roosevelt Longworth

PS: If this didn’t bring a perceptible smile to your face, then surely you need to borrow a life. Because, I already see you can't buy one. And one more thing - do tell me about that pawnbroker, because I , also, need a new lease on life. This one ain’t working out. 

Sentiency

In the long hours of nights
Staring at my room walls,
I would lie awake
One night,
The walls asked me to open the core of my heart
They thought they had the ears to listen
The heart to bear
Since,
When night falls
I sleep
And,
The walls weep

Broken thoughts

Physically disconnected from the world - I haven’t shaved my face for almost two weeks. Dizzy and flustered - I’m feeling like a soldier who’s in his first battle – sleep deprived and occupied by thoughts of fear. Fear of unknown, and what’s there? Who is there? Beyond that intangible line. One step beyond that line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead, lies uncertainty, suffering and death. No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be learned what lies on the other side of death. 

On my terrace, as if searching for something, I gaze into the distance, at the horizon and at the sun. How beautiful the sky looks. How blue, calm and how deep. How bright and glorious is the setting sun. There was peace and happiness. I should wish for nothing else, nothing if only I were there. But here in this world, there’s so much suffering, fear and uncertainty, like everyone is running somewhere and nobody knows where. I don’t know if I should run with them.

At this instant, sun began to hide behind the clouds. And the fear of uncertainty and love of life all melded into one feeling of sickening agitation.

You have to fall before you can fly...!

Zaka

In yesteryear, I have learned that while facts may be facts, if you ask enough questions and explore enough options you can find a way around seemingly unchanging situation. But at the moment, however, I seem to have exhausted my options. I need to forget about seeking ways to avoid certain matters and simply accept things as they are.

I used to pride myself on being bold, courageous and able to cope with all of life’s challenges. Yet at the moment I am feeling unusually sentimental - if not emotionally vulnerable. I’ve been thinking about making changes in my way of living or working, or perhaps both. While I have explored various options. No single plan has lasted. I hate to admit my life has been a dircetionless mess. I need time to figure out all the mess in my life that has been created by none other than myslef. I kind of realized that something needed to be recognized. What am I doing? Do I like doing this or like being here? Does this make me happy?

Being under pressure to make decisions is no fun, and if these involve the structure of your life. You have to ensure you do the right things. 

I make mistakes - in fact it won't be wrong to say that it has become a sort of habit. I let the opportunities go and then regret later. They say once in a life time opportunity stares you in the face saying grab it as you running out of time and I will not be there if you act later. And when that happened, you feel like man who realized that he led himself to a dead end. But then hope is that beaconing bird that you see in a hopeless situation. 
Sometimes a crisis becomes a biggest asset. A dead-end street could just be a place to turn around. There's always another day or so they say.