Poison

By Simran Malhotra

“Give me poison”

“Give me poison”

Like a rut

Behind me in a consistent manner

The speaker not more than 3 years old

Loud and clear

Pacified by only his iPad

His birth givers unperturbed

Sitting and listening to this for an hour

I’m massively disturbed

His birth givers are now rattling a loud and annoying toy

The grandmother called in for reinforcement

The child in his own melody now improvising each note

I’m holding back the urge to tell them -

“if you can’t handle your kids, why have them”

Though I doubt it would have any impact

So I sit patiently waiting for the torture to end

The kicking has begun,

Thank god he’s not sitting directly behind me

My Co- passenger’s seat is violently shaking

She’s got more patience than I

She seems smitten by the man on the window seat

They work at the same firm

My AirPods are dead

Between unidentified sounds behind me to now “I love planning everything including my

shopping list for Bangalore”

I am observing it all

“The dev team is too slow” and “product ghatiya hai”

My brain is now processing trash

At this point I want to turn to the flight attendant and request her to please,

“Give me poison”

By Simran Malhotra