Road Rage

By Shashwat Shukla

Road rage and Red eyes

I reach home and forget how

Just an hour ago I was so lost in history and language and math and the world seemed so big and wonderful

Just an hour ago I cared about all the corners and losses and learnings of the first people

And now all I can recall is shouting at a stranger in the street

The road ate my history

That’s why I hate the city street

The well paved death trap

It makes you driven and utilitarian and petty

It drains you of all the intricacy and steals you away into the mundane

The here and now of discordant horns irritates me into submission

The hustle and bustle of the crowded space is a crude rendition

Of the furnace shaped monotony that the street is

Boiling us all down to our reflexes and instincts leaving no room for empathy to breathe

Claustrophobic

I feel cheated of my efforts when the knowledge of the whole doesn’t apply to this part

Of the world all I can see is

A mad rush

It reminds me of the limitedness of interaction and that brevity is the name of the game

When all I read an hour ago was that beauty is never brief and never ever limited

Small

It makes me feel unnecessarily

Conscious of my own flitting skill

Where people, like falling leaves, go pale and lifeless and forgetful

Of the tree they came from

All that remains is the fall and the company of other falling lifeless forgetful and pale leaves

One of which am I

Pain

My hands hurt from exerting control over the metal horse that once purred like an adolescent cat but now neighs in protest of my sagging weight

This contraption makes a machinist out of me

I feel tired negotiating with thousands of strangers for an inch of space

The old civilisation, the tribal gods, looking on in surprise as if it never was building up to ‘this’

Dust and soot from the developing world settles into my eyes and my nose and my skin that shatters like overused tarmac

Just an hour ago there I was

Happy and content in my growth

Making new notes and sprouting new leaves of learning and skill

Developing my EI and IQ and other two lettered terms used to measure humanity in a human

And here I am

Lost in the minutiae of hydrocarbon fumes

Detached and dismembered when I reach

I forget what I came from and don’t care for where I’ve reached

All that sticks with me

Road rage and Red eyes

By Shashwat Shukla