Dust.

With some luxury of time, you picked up the borrowed book of your friend. Something thick was floating between your finger and the fat book. You stare at your finger and the brown of your skin appears tanned, it’s the dust. You rush to the window, slide your silk curtains. The light coming through shows the shadow play of the minute dust particles dancing with their partners. It’s a dust storm breathing outside and you; you are just a minor storehouse. You push the curtains back on your view and now look back at your room. You realize the objects have put on weight. The dust piled on intoxicates them. You try to find some space in the maze of left over dish from past month, books you never returned to the rightful owners, remotes of many gadgets that you have rented, newspaper that you flipped through and then ate on them, the excreta of your cat that left you without asking for a gentle caress, the clothes that you bought in offseason and then left them to wait for the right season, the beer cans squished, the wine bottle rolling, the cigarette butt charred, the shoes and chappals mismatched with your gifted stench, the posters that fell down when you stopped looking at them. Yes, you had stopped looking at them for inspiration. And, the mirror too had stopped telling the truth; it had slept with the blankets of dust. After the calculated steps put through the beautiful creation of yours, you reach the duster, which needs dusting too. You don’t know that. You come to your mirror. You think of waking her up and run the duster on it gently. You wipe it once, twice, thrice, many times with love, care and anger then with vengeance. But, it keeps folding new and replenished layers of dust. You are sweating now; the saline water has dust floating in it. You are panting; you realize that your very first attempt is not making up for the past years. You step back and stare with half unsure thoughts at your beautiful mess. It isn’t so bad, is it? You have lived hugging the dust for so long, why clean it up now. You wipe it off and the very next blink, it is back. Smiling at you notoriously. You have done that before haven’t you? Fix the ceiling and yet it drips again. Now, your eardrums love the sound of it. You have convinced yourself to move to the couch and not pick up that dusted book again. You are back in the crouching couch in the nestled dust and know that it is not worth changing the anatomy of the things. And, your cat is not coming back. You don’t know that. Do you? Still you have left the broken window open for her. And, all that comes through is dust.