Morning

Another morning. The smashed eggs from skyscraper birds lay rotting and tyre-trodden on the road I walked to work.

And she still carried that worn brown diary in her wretched palms that perspired in the sun and the rain and washed the red off the leather, and possibly guzzled her words inside that bled and stained the corners of the book; bled and bled more until the letters vanished like a charlatan conjuror that left his ugly blue coat behind. And yet, she carried the book around; while she stared at the dusty sunlight that seeped into her morning coffee through the stained windows; while she daydreamed and painted words in the air; while she smiled at the urchins on the road and gave them orange candies that slit your tongue in orange-sharp slivers; while she strained to count the fat, colour confused pigeons that pecked her fingers as she fed them grain and they fluttered their fussy wings and hooted in gurgles.

And one day, she was gone. I didn’t bother looking.

And another day, I found the familiar book in a heap of yesterday’s hot newspapers and flipped it open.

In the stark emptiness of the pages, I cried.