Amen/Omen*

The sky had no clouds but was as filled with grey heaviness as a glass is filled with milk. You could poke a finger into that sky and a sigh would escape from the hole you made, through which a lone seagull will escape, mourning.

Evening. She stood there stirring her coffee and staring, for against her window 300 iridescent bodies flung themselves, hummed, hovered and dove against and into glass and sky and dark in a frenzy, circling the outer rim of the light from the lamp, a madness shining in their glittering eyes.

A host of dragonflies. More than 300, she was sure.

Dec 25, 2004 8:52 PM
"laxmi reads powerful thunderstorms into
this congregation near my garden lamp, my driver on the other hand --
a practical man, who possibly did better in biology than I did, says
they are just gathered for body warmth and will soon fly away. The
trick is in knowing when the body has had enough, for if the heat gets
too much, they just wither away like corpses on a pyre.

Am going for a run"

I had smiled at the beauty in that, even if it was a terrible prophecy. Such beauty she had, and still does. She saw dragonflies. She's going for a run. I will love her forever.

December 26th, 2004 7:05am.
I woke in a gently rocking bed. Mum making dosas. Dad reading the Hindu. Neither had felt it.

Dec 26, 2004 10:52 PM
"Everyone's calling up everywhere... family in sri lanka.. those who
had gone on a pilgrimage for christmas to velankani... sam's
production buddy who was on a shoot at that taj on the maldives... 5
stars on bamboo shoots, jesus christ... sri lanka is still the worst
hit. Nagapattinam is miserable..worst bit, its raining there too.

We will go see if we can help the children. Will mail you when I get back...

have I ever told you how I hate being woken by a swaying bed?"

November 27, 2005 sometime in my night. She and I on Gtalk; I am being told of dead dragonflies outside, in her pool, on the lawn. Maybe the body has had enough heat, and they have all lain down to sleep. She and I nod, but do not smile-- Because it has been a year, and because there is still a little less than a month more to be certain that the dragonflies are finally still.

_______________________________________________

*Written for this week's writing exercise on S&C, a Ryze network: the theme was "paranormal", and the idea was to write a true account of an occurence in real life, in less than 750 words. Kudos to Gmail for the search option: I resurrected year old emails for the quoted sections.