Do You Want to Resume Life? (Y/N)

It’s around 5 PM, but you don’t know that yet. You haven’t bothered checking the time since 2 PM, when some part of your brain wanted to know how much time had been wasted in finishing inane leftover office work and watching yet another middling Netflix series. You were experimenting with some beats but aren’t feeling particularly enthused.

It’s been raining for a while. The kids next door have had their crackers and spirits dampened by it. With careful whimsy, you decide to step out for a walk to gain inspiration, even though you haven’t left the house on the previous six perfectly-cool-but-sunny days. Rebel without a pause, as D once said. You want to feel the cold that has given you occasional fits of sneezing all day and stopped you from turning up the fan. But you want to feel it on your own terms, so you fish out that full-sleeve shirt that makes you look thinner, and the comfy sweatshirt that has the combined scent of all the people you’ve lent it to in the past. You also spot your old pink cap and decide to flaunt it for good measure.

You leave the house at a brisk pace, your poorly-repaired umbrella firmly bobbing up and down. You risk a glance at some stray pedestrians to see what they think of your ensemble. Too late, you realise you’re not wearing a mask. A most likely faux pas, considering you were reminiscing about last year’s jaunts and the present hadn’t caught up to you in the entirety of its might. You swear you can see people judging you for your lack of facial decorum. All the world’s a stage, all the men and women merely glares. No matter, you decide you will be exceptionally ‘socially’ distanced. (Technically, you were socially distant much before the pandemic, it was only the physicality that changed. Or maybe that’s just you trying to be emo again.)

The streets have been dug up (again) and many of the familiar sights are shuttered. You feel personally wronged by this, almost impossibly petulant at the fact that you can’t nostalgically stare at shops and have to constantly avoid getting mud-splashed by frenzied drivers (much like yourself). Some more careful nonchalance leads you to the mallu-run cafe where you stop for tea. You’re glad it has survived the pandemic, and you even risk a smile at the plump chaiwalla who, to your disappointment, doesn’t really recognise you. Should’ve been less socially distant earlier. They don’t give out glasses anymore, but thankfully the tea is still the same. You move a bit to the side so you can cradle it and soak memories from its warmth.

An old beggar-woman hobbles up to you while you’re in the zone of trying to come up with poetic and poignant thoughts. You feeling resentful of this intrusion, while also feeling guilty for feeling that way. You stubbornly keep sipping your tea while the cafe owner gives a piece of pazham pori to the old lady. She waits for a few more moments, then curses under her breath and moves away. Your guilt kicks in fully as you chug down the last of the tea. You open your wallet to pay the familiar stranger chaiwala, notice that you have some change, and see the old woman walking away. Like a stalker, you follow her steps for a minute, and wordlessly hand her a 20-rupee note just to feel better about yourself. She doesn’t say anything either.

You finally notice the time when you get a message from M. Your history of texts with M are a reminder that we like friends who text us for no practical reason, sans expectations. You leave a voice note, describing how you’ve stepped out because you want to feel like you still live here. You only realised it when you said it out loud; the growing alienation from familiar spaces. You suddenly feel time flowing swiftly under your walking shoes; you smell it in the air mixed with the petrichor and the garbage truck and the storm drain. Time is eroding you as surely as it is dismantling that wobbly umbrella you’re carrying. Maybe that’s why you’ve stopped wearing a watch. Unconscious petulance. Remember how you used to boast that your wrist feels empty without one?

Almost mechanically, your feet take you to the lane where H lived. You can’t be sure, though, maybe you’re just dramatizing a perfectly logical choice to walk on a fully functional and puddle-less road. But no, it’s the same lane. You’re temporarily overwhelmed, standing in the middle of the road at a quarter past 5 while it feels like 9 PM last year. You toy with the idea of climbing the stairs to H’s house and knocking on the door, just to be sure. Then you remember that someone else–someone else you know–lives there now. Did you spend too much or too little time with H to constantly be reminded of this absence? Time doesn’t care. You find it easy to regret almost everything. H has scolded you often for it.

You also end up walking somewhere near A’s house, and by now you’re getting damp. You try to lose yourself in the streets for a bit, but then C calls. You weren’t expecting calls, and had ticked a box somewhere in your head that said you wouldn’t pick up even if someone did. But it’s C. The question of asking C to call later never even enters your head. C is like a personally-tuned empath at times. Even though you usually end up talking about depressing things like the performative lives we all have fallen into, or how the end of the world is right around the corner, it always makes you feel better. And so, despite the discomfiture of holding up your phone and umbrella due to your poor arm strength, you talk for the next half hour while letting your feet walk you back home. This time, you start off by listening to C narrate moments of unease over the last few days. With barely any prompting, you end up disgorging a month’s worth of self-critique in response (carefully skirting any actionable steps). You tell yourself later that coping mechanisms aren’t betterment mechanisms. But then again, who’s even coping?

You choke up a bit while typing out this mundane narrative, for reasons yet to be discovered. That’s okay, you tell yourself. The rhyme-addict part of you unashamedly makes up something with tears, fears, and endears. You ignore it. For now.