Two travelling Honda salesmen. Abhijeet jumps off the train in the early morning light, running along the platform, laughing, happy. It's monsoon, and the day is dewfresh, misty, cool, green.
Heavy rain, later. S&A are in my office, working. I see a small plant on my desk. I water it.
Night. Stealing jet fuel from the camp's storage trucks. The place is flooding. Silver Hornets disappearing under the rising water, shimmering in the orange light.
Some months later
Hot, dusty sepia evening. The car's empty now, except for Inanna, uncoscious in the back seat. I'm sitting on the bumper, watching the evening fall. A small child runs up to me, waving something. It's a bunch of peacock feathers. I buy one off him - I don't really know why, right now, but it seems important.
The other children are playing by the road, but their faces... tired. Afraid. Their movements are jerky, fearful. They're always watching. Above the street, on a balcony, a young teenage prostitute stands, screaming in anger at someone inside. The clothes strung up on the lines between the houses - as dusty as the road, don't really see the point of washing them - are hanging still. Not a breath of air, just the dry heat of dusk.
I'm in water. Cold. Deep blue-black, motes of sunlight dancing off the surface, streaming down in geometric perfection until it glitters off the fishes in dancing, random chaos. The fish are brilliant - flickering about, too fast to identify, apart from the silver movement, swimming with us.
Heavy rain, later. S&A are in my office, working. I see a small plant on my desk. I water it.
Night. Stealing jet fuel from the camp's storage trucks. The place is flooding. Silver Hornets disappearing under the rising water, shimmering in the orange light.
Some months later
Hot, dusty sepia evening. The car's empty now, except for Inanna, uncoscious in the back seat. I'm sitting on the bumper, watching the evening fall. A small child runs up to me, waving something. It's a bunch of peacock feathers. I buy one off him - I don't really know why, right now, but it seems important.
The other children are playing by the road, but their faces... tired. Afraid. Their movements are jerky, fearful. They're always watching. Above the street, on a balcony, a young teenage prostitute stands, screaming in anger at someone inside. The clothes strung up on the lines between the houses - as dusty as the road, don't really see the point of washing them - are hanging still. Not a breath of air, just the dry heat of dusk.
I'm in water. Cold. Deep blue-black, motes of sunlight dancing off the surface, streaming down in geometric perfection until it glitters off the fishes in dancing, random chaos. The fish are brilliant - flickering about, too fast to identify, apart from the silver movement, swimming with us.
What made you dive out from the cool blue serenly beautiful colored fishy waters?
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