MONDAY | Teen Ink

MONDAY

September 6, 2013
By DaniellaKensington PLATINUM, Bhopal, Other
DaniellaKensington PLATINUM, Bhopal, Other
47 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall keep on saying good night till it be morrow.


Ripples of vermilion surrounded the two of them. It’s a Monday. It’s the day which is marked on his calendar. Gaudy red ink circled two voluptuous, naked bodies. Scintillating eyes looked submissively at the two figures. Awnings drew down as he descended his eyeballs. Eyelids were pulled, sticking to gravity and eyelashes stood on their feet, vigilant. He looked towards the calendar, passive eyeballs looked tired. His sight was blurred, a few words had stuck permanently to his eyes and the bay obstructed the view. Black nucleus of his eyes turned blacker and the blue in his eyes focussed itself. Narrowing his eyes, he looked at the week. Each day was in a trap. They were encaged, enslaved, enclosed. Every day was an everyday. They weren’t safe inside the cages. Paper money was spent recklessly. Their bodies were being lacerated, day by day. Days were decreasing every day. Nobody could pull gravity. He couldn’t keep any safe. No guarding, tonight. He had just lost a job.
Mondays: circled.
Tuesdays: squared.
Wednesdays: rectangled.
Thursdays: Triangled
Fridays: Whispered
Saturdays: Waltz
Sunday: Did they ever live long enough?
Mondays have been circled. Curves at every angle. He had slanted the tip of his pen and drew carousels. They live in a circle. They’re on a carousel. They lie in a bulge of some bloody red animal. He liked bulges. Bulges on tummies. A potbelly- they are trapped in its contours. It’s a Monday. It’s marked on his calendar. Red ink glistens, its ripples become clearer when he tilts his face towards the right. A specific degree is required; it doesn’t do much if he simply tilts his head. He must do it with feeling, his shoulders must ache, he back must bend a little and he must feel his innards burning. Yup! Now he sees the ripples. Eyes narrow, their dimensions become smaller. Eyelashes curled themselves and played knots and crosses. Red ink is glistening. It stands on a shore of a crimson page. He is looking at the page. Particles of dust are flying past his hair and sticking to his skin. His skin is all sparkly now. Two footsteps and a shudder and a gliding of his hand across his skin lead him to a faucet. He turns it. He washes away the sparkly jewels. He rubs his skin. They fall down- they strike the sink. It is painted all over it now. He looks. They don’t move. They stay on the sink. Another turn. Water droplets balance themselves delicately over his skin and drip from his fingertips. Drip! Drop! Drip! Drop! A faint sound kills the background silence, piercing noises into its scenery. Drops fall on the sink. They make the tiny shards of sand go denser and wetter. He turns the faucet a little more. Full speed. It’s completely etiolated. Rain hits the sink and the floods have killed twenty residents and a thousand broken hearts.

It’s a Monday. It’s marked on his calendar. He is wondering what Monday is. He holds the pen in his hands. He hadn’t seen something so straight and perfect. Thighs aligned with the waist and shoulders and head. He looked at him- an accurate, geometric and naturally occurring. Nothing was so straight, not even a line. He hadn’t ever seen a flowing fountain or brook or blue ink-like kisses on a page. Red kisses. They had put on red lipsticks. They’re naked bodies, safe under the contours. He places a stack of fingers on the pen. It’s a Monday. It’s marked on his calendar. He knows how to hold a pen. Nobody taught him that. Nobody teaches nobody anything. They must teach something to somebody or anybody, if not everybody and nobody, not nothing and everything- something, anything. Fingers bend down, relying on crutches, lay bent, as if in a ready position. They’re off on a race, on a jerky ride: they push the pen up and down. The pen does the curves, the waltz, the symbols. It carves curvaceous bodies, with the curves he likes to see. The pen circles days. The pen sends kisses all across the page. His fingers don’t move. Ink kisses lie on the paper and the pen fell to the ground. It’s a Monday. It’s the day which is marked on his calendar. It stops. The kisses stop. It’s a breakup. The red ink had drifted away into mid-air, it was dangling from the earlobes of the breeze. He tilts his head to see the ripples. The same degree- as if he had bent down to kiss the pages, to stick his lips with that of the page. A bit of lipstick kissed his lips, in return. Returns, he liked returns. He must return. A return journey to Monday with no stoppage and seven stoppages if you want to reach Sunday. That’s tough. Stop! Go! Stoppage! Stop! Ugh, complicated!
It’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. Four footsteps, a leap, he blinks his twice and he reaches the shoe-shelf. A netted shelf, decked with shoes. His hand moves towards a pair of sneakers, he holds them delicately. Dirty, brown soles rub against his pants and he specks of dust are etched onto them. Six footsteps- a faucet comes in the way. No! He doesn’t need to turn the faucet. Water is still dripping from his fingertips. Drip! Drop! Drip! Drop! He hears it again. The sound strikes the sink and reverberates, his eardrums are throbbing. Specks of dust washed away. He turns back. Sneakers- bought five years ago from the store down the street where the local drunkard used to sit. He carries them gently now, holding them miles apart from any sort of clothing. Gravity pulls the shoes to the floor. Thud! That’s what he heard. He takes them. Bare feet with cold skin shudder. He glides his feet into the shoes. He could feel the ground beneath him and the roof above him- a blanket, bed linen. They’re inside now- warm and enveloped in layers. Shoelaces- he ties his shoelaces. Loops and loopholes, knots and free ends intersect into a convoluted, clichéd pattern of usual ‘shoelacing’. One glance at the calendar- It’s a Monday. It’s a day marked on his calendar.
A bunch of rattling keys were enveloped in his palms. It’s a Monday. It’s the day which is marked on his calendar. Keys, collided, skidded down. They made music, they clanked together, they clapped their hands, embraced each other, they kissed each other. His knuckles were protruding from his skin, his palm coiled and keys held between little spaces.
He inserted the key into the keyhole. A perfect fit! He wriggled it into the keyhole and there it was- like a missing jigsaw piece. The key was inside. It was pressed into the keyhole, so hard that it couldn’t shimmy itself out. Not without his help. Yes, they could see, It’s a Monday. It’s the day which is marked on his calendar. Every day is marked on his calendar. The numbers are marked on the paper and his hands are marked on the keys. The keys are marked between the little spaces in the keyhole.
Hinges on the doors relax and contract their muscles. Doors slip and slide , in and out of the room. His hands have captured the doorknobs. They lie in the centre of his palm. His hands circle the circular doorknob. Ready! Set! Go! His hands are ready to give it a turn. To the left or the right? He turns it to the left and pushes the door. Closed. He turns it to the right and pushes the door. Opened. That’s a new life. He’s stepping out of one and walking into a new one. That’s life- before life and after life. That’s the life! He was going to step out of worlds and walk into new worlds every now and then. Life- he had found it! It was lost among ferns. Frozen ferns, seized in ice cubes! Actually, no. Walking on a cobblestones on Monday morn isn’t exactly called life, or anything near to it. Stupid life is like a stupid hangover. Don’t run into it and don’t hope to run into it on a cobblestone walk on Monday.
It’s a Monday. Yes, it is. It’s a day marked on his calendar. Yes, it is. He’s switching worlds. Three footsteps ahead and he’s lost. The keys…the keys…Ah! There are in his pockets. They clang, collide, bump into each other and they are swearing. F-words and B-words are being written on walls and lampposts. He sees the cobblestone now. Not this Monday morn , please! There’s no turning back. Dead and singing- the keys can’t fit into the keyhole. There’s no keyhole left. He had forgotten. No one returns before Monday is over. He must walk the cobblestone path. Filthy cobblestones! They are live crevices and caverns in a road.
But it’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. He’s in a new world. There’s no ceiling, it’s only the sky. And there are no Persian carpets but a cobblestone road that leads to a dead end. Dead? Dead! Yes, he dies every Monday morn during the walk. He’s killed himself several times and he usually wakes up dead and alive. That’s life.
Was he ready? He looks at his shoes- the arithmetic in tying shoelaces. No one seemed to care. Mistake! There was no one. Because it’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. And no one walks cobblestone roads on a Monday. But these were Monday blues. Blues- blue sky above him. That should keep him okay.
Five footsteps, a look at his shoe, he blinks thrice and looks at the sky for a brief moment. He’s on the cobblestone now. Tiny folds of mountains were dug in their graves, their peaks were striking his feet. Roads were precarious. Weren’t they supposed to be that? Potholes- yes, rocky potholes. No, they aren’t. It’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. He felt like making a language. Peaks of tiny mountains cut through his feet, skin was peeling off. He looked at his shoe again. The sole had rubbed off, little pieces of the shoe lay on the ground. His skin had become a quilt to the cobblestone street. Streams of red blood, he’d seen two streams of red lipstick. It’s a Monday. It’s the day which is marked on his calendar. It was a new Monday. But this happened every Monday, so how could it be new? Nothing is new except Monday or maybe it isn’t. A gap between his upper and lower lips, there’s a staircase in his throat and it contains a quivering voice. He breathes out air, coming with an ascending voice- a shriek! It fills the landscape. It repeats itself.
Ooh!
[SHRIEK]
Ouch!
[SHRIEK]
Aah!
[SHRIEK]
Ugh!
[SHRIEK]
Monday. Calendar. It’s marked.
[NO SHRIEK]
His foot lies three footsteps, two blinks and one sneeze apart. He’s walking ahead. He’s limping, falling, skipping. Blood has been mixed with sweat. It is trickling from his head, his foot and the red stream is flowing into houses. It’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. He is surviving. He is living. The cobblestone walk is near an end. It’s one step before the end. He lifts his leg. It’s a carcass hanging upside down from corrugated, invisible bars. Drip! Drop! Drip! Drop! That’s the blood. His foot undresses, shamelessly. Shameless creature! Blood- drops enlarge, the drops that once kissed the feet are now separating themselves from his foot. They ooze out, pushing against and pulling far apart. They fall down, with a footstep of the watch, strike the ground. There’s a stream. They flow past, like thin water. He looks at the stream, it flows beneath him. Where is his foot? Ooh! He can see it now. He can see a pile of skin- they’ve become the rocks. The stream has become a sea and the cobblestone street has become the seabed. He didn’t notice he was swimming in the seabed- red seabed. It’s the Red Sea. The cobblestone walk is over, now. It’s a Monday. It’s a day which is marked on his calendar. It’s day. Sunlight glistens, delineating clouds. That’s a spectacle. The sky doesn’t change. Okay, maybe it does. But even if it does, it doesn’t grow old. He does. He knows he does. His life becomes shorter as time becomes longer. Moreover, it’s a Monday. Monday sky is nice. It has the circle- the sun. It’s there every morning. On Friday it hides and it sleeps on Sundays. He couldn’t believe it was Monday. But it was Monday. It was marked on his calendar.


Today is Monday. It’s marked on his calendar. Cobblestone walk- Done! Mission accomplished! He found the love of his life- the sky. First kiss, first dance- with sky. Tomorrow is Tuesday. It’s marked on his calendar. Cobblestone! He’s not going to walk on the cobblestone again…until next week. But what’s the way back home? He asks himself questions while he is halfway through the ten steps it takes to go to the nearest cafe. He’s taken five, he’s on sixth. He might be done with four more and a blink, and another kiss and he might try to negotiate with the earth. He looks…he looks…what else are eyes for? He wonders where he comes from. Probably, from the seabed of the Red Sea which lies amid the cobblestone paths. He’s trying hard. He’s still not sure of Monday. There’s someone at the café and he’s shaking his leg while he’s reading about someone who died. Died- like his foot. It drowned in the Red Sea, he’s got a story to tell. The man’s holding the Tuesday newspaper. Oops! It’s not Monday. This happens every Tuesday. Now he’s off for some cappuccino- double shot, maybe.
Seen 11:57pm
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