Flitting

It's getting dark outside
The winter cold almost upon us,
I know you are thinking about me as I am about you.
We are cut from the same stone,
pebbles in a stream of consciousness,
eroded, uprooted and heaved
into different corners of the world.

Morning surrenders itself
into a haze of melancholy
hanging grim from a pale moon.
And when it's eight o'clock
I'll catch a faint whiff of your favorite perfume
as if you had reached the bottom of the stairs.
But that's all there is,
the door won't open and you won't come in.

I'll come back
before you start to forget my face,
before the glory of the sun fades on your cheek,
before the tern returns to it's nest,
before the thunder reaches it's peak.

Overlap: A Collection Of Poems

"Overlap is the first book by Indian writer Mayukh Chatterji, a collection of 25 poems that speak about parts of our realities that do exist and those which we wished existed, stories and of course, romance."

Yes!!!! That's what it says on the Amazon website (Buy Overlap@Amazon) !!!
From all the years of blogging that started way back in 2008, I compiled 25 of my poems from my blog and wrote a new one called Overlap, designed the book cover and put it all together and published it through Amazon's services. The book is dedicated to my family and I am thankful to my friends who helped me with their inputs on the book content and the design.

With this, I am now a published poet. This blog post does seem a little self-obsessed but I did manage to put it all together and get it done. The main influence for this sudden drive has been someone I met recently who has become an essential part of my life somehow.

The book is available as digital content across all Amazon Kindle devices and the Kindle app for mobile phones across the world. However, it is available as a paperback in select marketplaces of Amazon, namely www.amazon.com , https://www.amazon.de/ , https://www.amazon.fr , https://www.amazon.es , https://www.amazon.jp , https://www.amazon.co.uk , https://www.amazon.it

But the paperback book can be delivered from  https://www.amazon.de/market place to most countries around the world. I hope to reach out to readers and build an audience for myself through my writing and the book is somewhat of a success to encourage my own self to keep writing.

Read and review at (Buy Overlap@Amazon)....

                            

Without you

Everyday isn't everyday without you.
There could be blackouts and storms
or my house could burn down.
But it wouldn't really be much different without you somehow.

I know I'll fade away.
But I wish you wouldn't let me.

No...

She said no.
She could see what she had done.
But she said no.
It broke her heart.
She looked at the ground and stared at the pieces of his heart lying on the tiny square of floor space between them.

Unmoving, he looked at her fingers resting on the lines of fate on his palm.
She shifted a little and fate changed itself.

Inside that bubble created by two letters,
the silence was deafening.
He felt a weight descend on his shoulders.
She felt light as a balloon.
The surreal had worn off,
overtaken by reality and age.
The final picture could not be the same as the one they had envisioned when they started painting three years ago.
She would dissolve with the paint.
He wouldn't notice she was gone.

He put the ring  into his pocket and smiled.
After all, she could say no if she wanted to.

Arrival

I am sitting at the International Arrivals section of Dulles airport right now and watching people.
Reunions are always special.Different communities of people arriving and being received by their loved ones is something to watch. However different they are, I see no differences in the way they are greeting and hugging each other. Their language may be different but the body language is the exact same- the smiles, the grins, the way their eyes are lighting up, the hugs, the kisses, the running into each other's arms - there is no difference between people. The Arrival Gate is one of the best ways that you can understand we are all the same, the differences we see or read about and hear about are elements fostered in our own minds giving rise to misconceptions, assumptions, prejudices.

Each child is ditching their bag(s), shrieking and running into their father's, mother's, grandparents', uncles', aunts' arms. They are the best part to watch. Such unadulterated pure joy. It's an amazing experience to watch love among people - you always know there is still so much good in the nooks and corners of life that usually get overshadowed by daily routines, politics and hate.

Imagine the possibilities if we all stopped a little in our lives to move together as one community instead of focusing on differences between our own selves.Unfortunately, most of it is in our nurture and the way we are brought up. A lot of prejudices and differences get built into the brain and our habits which almost becomes innate and is difficult to overcome. But all we need to do is consciously try. A little effort could always go a long way.

Loneliness

There's something about loneliness that is extremely appealing,almost sensuous, in the way that it  meticulously seduces and lures most people into its bear trap. The offer it makes is an escape route from the ever changing chaos we live in - peace, quiet, solitude. This very first offering is its last one and enough to start the avalanche to rock bottom. You foster in this new found solidarity and convince yourself how amazing this feeling is. Somewhere your perception of time gets changed and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a month or two of peace and quiet.

During this time you have cut off from the world to enjoy your new found existence.
As you walk through this tunnel of yours, you glance back one day.
That's the point when you realize the escape route makes you feel different now - alone.

The tunnel has nobody else, it's eerily quiet and the lights behind you have switched off as you trudged ahead. You pause and debate moving ahead now. In this moment of indecision, there is an involuntary urge to stay bathed in lights. After what seems ages, you decide to take a chance and make your way back. You turn around towards the darkness and glance back at the lighted part of the tunnel once. You take a deep breath and start back. This time the lights around you don't turn on as you walk. However, you can see till some distance ahead of you from the lights behind. Then you round a bend and all the light gets sucked up by the dark walls - now all you can do is fumble around in the inkiness to make your way back to the entrance. Needless to say, to go back the same distance takes more time and effort than it took for you to cover it in your initial spike of exuberance and euphoria.

Holiday

Just before stepping within approximately a kilometer of the train station, I could suddenly smell the whole trip.It was a scent that bordered on familiar at the very edge of my consciousness, awakened at that last moment spurring up my heartbeat- this strange unapologetic mix of fast food, diesel fumes, stale sweat, unclean bathrooms and its counter-attacking feeble lavender air freshener. With that sudden new realization courtesy my olfactory senses, the dripping rivulets of sweat cooled off as the mind finally accepted the entirety of the excitement of a holiday that lay ahead of me the next few days.

The body is a wonderful machine. Until then, my mind, exposed to several months of homework and examinations had not yet let go of the daily routine, sure that I would return to bed that night and awaken at seven in the morning next day to put on my iron uniform and lead shoes to start another school day with heavy-lidded eyes, all the while wondering how the teacher was so wide awake and brisk in his manners this early - "Maybe that's what grown ups just do-something changes in you while growing up and you are just wide awake in the morning", that's what I told myself as everyone took turns at announcing their presence in the classroom.

At that moment, however, the acceptance opened up a new world. The struggle through the crowds and the traffic towards the station seemed to be a minuscule point in a universe that consisted of oceans, waves, seashells(that would be collected in a quantity so high it could be a Guinness record for a child), mountains, lush green fields, sand bars, sunshine, wind, siestas, villages, towns, factories, railroad crossings, bicycles, dark skinned people, fair-skinned people, old people, middle aged people, crying children, spider children, silent children, social children,awkward teenagers, honeymoon couples, shops, colors, clothes, toys, walks, laughs, swimming trunks, sweaters, hoodies, shawls, towels, car seats, shampoo sachets, board games, card decks with frayed aces and bent Queens, peanuts, boiled eggs, rock salt, 'bhelpuri', 'jhalmuri', 'frooti', tea, coffee, endless sugar-cones filled with softy ice cream, food trays, water packets, newspapers, spilled gravy, simmering hot food, blankets, air-pillows, mineral water bottles, barred windows, open windows, languages, torn comics, old books, new books, doodles, crayons and entire households packed into three suitcases fastened securely to the underbellies of the blue seats with a snakelike chain held in place by a lock whose (Alice In Wonderland like) tiny key was the most safeguarded item; all of it being rocked together in a drowsy steady staccato.

I was about to step into an entire plethora of references from which school essays would arise and stories during language exams at school would be spun. I smiled and climbed up to build my own cozy corner on the topmost bunk as the engine hissed and the people faded away.

That Butterfly I Could Never Catch

Rustled it's wings and liquified the colors on it's back
like the ocean does to the sky on the horizon,
it tempted my inexperienced fingers to savor a touch
on the powdery blue and shimmering gold
yet like the proudest queen that walked the Earth
not to be touched by the unexceptional,
it rose into the air the moment my naked fingers came close.
I pinched the summer air, hot and heavy from
the exhaust pipes of the rat-race cars and the smoke
from chimneys stemming out of hearths where
apron clad men and women cooked brains
to serve to dark men in dark suits and dark sunglasses,
the very definition of contrast to my butterfly
sitting on its next perch of wild primroses that stared with their jaundice eyes
without a feeling in the world by themselves
but add them to the hand of a man about to go on a  first date,
there was now something about the flat petals and their jaundice eyes.


There were other butterflies around me to catch
but the blue and gold was etched into my pupils
as they clenched to keep out the sun.
I failed over and over till the sun went down
and my pupils finally dilated
enough for me to accept resignation.

You Are

A boy who, all of a sudden in the middle of class,
slips his hands into the left pocket of his friend's trousers to grope at his private parts.
A girl who wouldn't pick up calls or meet him after
she left him a text saying she was pregnant because words can create and destroy the world.
A boy who started chain-smoking at the age of fourteen
and tried to quit in vain till you found your nicotine patch in God.
A girl who never paused to listen to what others around her were trying to say
because you always kept a packet of condoms in your room till the right time.
A boy who disappeared inside a well years ago
and resurfaced out of the blue as a woman and shocked everyone who knew you and didn't.
A girl who stitched together magazines to shut herself out from the cold
and got interviewed by the biggest magazine in the city for your debut ramp walk.
A boy whose mother picked you and your friend up after school,
who showed him his first dirty video after lunch when he came back to your place .
A girl who collided with a wall while you were dancing
to a tune released by Britney Spears ignoring your homework for the next day.
A boy who understood the ways of the world at ten
so got labelled as the bumbling class idiot by his friends and overconfident by his teachers.
A girl who decided to take the matters into your hands
but got beaten up by your own husband while your in-laws looked on.

I Realize

There are these memories ingrained
within every person and object I have chanced upon,
stirred alive on dark winter afternoons
that sleep slowly into oblivion so deep
that you could hear brittle bones getting ground into dirt
which rises up and floats around everyone else
infecting everything and tying every one of us together
and the ones that are stirred alive in dark shadows
of that lone tree on the hottest day of the year where
there was so much food that I beckoned
squirrels and birds to help us finish the lot
as everyone else drowned in a siesta
except the children who were now free of maternal reigns.

Bodytalk

I'd call unknowingly
You'd know before I do.
Even if we're  over,
habits don't die soon.

My eyes don't blink as much
as my brain strays to your eyes.
As our bodies did all the talking
I couldn't spot the lies.


Should I hold on to bits of you like
flaky leaves on winter trees?
I'll run away
I've made my choice
but my feet are slowing down.


What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.
What a waste of time.

Interference

A million waves
interfering every day
my wave doesn't know its way.
It sees its matching color
and knows about the crossing points
but it doesn't play the game.

***
She sits with her dog
and watches the rain
sweep the city in a frenzy
and smiles for no reason.
Like a diamond crumb
found beneath the earth,
she's red, blue, green,
shining gold and silver.
She watches the world
as it succumbs to the storm
numbs the hustling feet
and takes a new form.
She likes this new world
where she can hear her dog breathe.
where her dog is scared of lightning
and not of random people on the streets.


I stare at that photograph of hers for a long time.
I wanted to watch the cleansing with her and her dog.
How an entire world was connected in the most disconnected sense.
Could it be one of those days where things seem to click?

***
The rains cleared the air,
maybe my wave will find its way today.
So I dial- it rings three times and then there's a hesitant "Hello?"
I take a deep breath and dive off the cliff,
Other sounds of the world drown out in the roar of air,
And hit the water- Interference will give way to liberation slow.

One

I just completed a year in the USA.
Whew.
How time flies when there's no time to stop or take a break from work and weekend/holiday adventures.
Life is not what I expected to be in USA. I live in a suburb and for someone who comes from chaotic cities, this has been the worst aspect of this one year. There are no people to meet, to greet, no shops close by, no cafes, no pubs nothing. Grocery is a (an approximately)weekly pompous affair. If not for the fact that I am just zoned inside the laptop, life would have been difficult. I read less this year too, for reasons I cannot fathom. I have had time, but mostly dedicated to shaping my music which, hasn't headed any fruitful direction whatsoever too.

I think back in India, people have a different idea about the USA for which the main reason is media. USA seemed like that country where you are free to do whatever you want, have fun all the time, rock n roll and coast through your life. It's strangely the opposite here, people don't seem to get along unless they are friends, everyone keeps to themselves, and of course, right now is not the best of times for Indian people and other immigrants, there is a lot of crime, American fast food isn't really the best.

But vacations and weekend trips made it worth the while. A lot of adventures and destinations have been taken care of which always had been part of the traveling dreams. The Big Apple trip is coming up next month and I am really excited about that now. I went tubing, white water rafting, surfing and the biggest of them all, skydiving. The adrenaline was on another level. I am going to do it again. I have been to most of the bigger cities and places on the East Coast now. The West Coast is entirely left now. Chicago has been the most beautiful city I have traveled to yet. USA has wonderful scenery and beautiful landscapes. I have been fortunate enough not to have faced issues at airports and flight schedules yet.

Since landing here, I have also done a lot of concerts- Guns n Roses, Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, A Perfect Circle, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Radiohead, Dream Theater, Regina Spektor, Alterbridge with Metallica(finally!), John Mayer, Gary Clark Jr, Roger Waters still on the cards. The Radiohead concert has changed my life and the way I look at music. Alterbridge was the best concert  I have watched in my life. I missed the Iron Maiden concert recently though due to work. :(

I have not made any American friends in one year, beat that. There are so many Indians here and the world I have here consist mostly of them only. I really don't feel like I am in USA sometimes. But it's been a fun ride with these new people. I have had all the adventures with them which made it way better.

If the visa is not extended , I have just about a year to make the most out of this USA phase. Signing off.

Hollow

Tracks close and separate
the scenery changes.
Time flicks the light switches
we missed our destination.

Now we are somewhere
we've never heard of,
they speak a different language
we'll just wait for another train.

We sit on two ends of an hourglass
knowing there's no escape.
You don't want sand on me
I don't want the sand on you.
But we drown in turns
then breathe in gasps.

I see the train far away
we still have half our plans,
we'll get away
and then go home hollow.

We'll always be on two ends of an hourglass.
You won't want sand on me
I won't want the sand on you.
But we'll drown in turns
then breathe in gasps.

Inspiration

Send for backup
Systems are failing
His work in wiring
All coming undone.

Meanwhile
I will try
my best not to
flail my arms
or swallow saltwater
help will come.
help will come.

His manual
has run out
of troubleshooting methods.
I tried rewiring
the parts,
my fingers burnt.

Meanwhile
I will try
my best not to move and
disturb the balance
of the rock on the mountain edge.
help will come.
help will come.

I don't know.
Nobody knows
what went wrong.
Maybe I was trying
to be too like him,
there cant be two in this world.

FML

Is there actually a reason I keep writing about love?
Songs that speak about futility
And poems that speak of insecurity.
Maybe I am in love
with the idea of love.
A distant dream
never fulfilled,
kept awakened by hope
and a mess of a life
that seeks to find solace
in fiction.
It's what other human beings would term as hopeless
the kind of endearment found in bygone tales.
Yet here I am,
living one of those tales,
seeking closure of some sort
hanging on by the slimmest of threads.
I don't know her anymore.
I don't know myself anymore.
But I know the idea of love exists somewhere,
I'm hooked to its enchanted arms.
It leads nowhere,
It doesn't have any of  the other worldly charms.
It leaves me broken and sorrowful.
That I could never be the man,
who was the right one in her eyes.
I was different.
She was different.
There were no points for similarity.
Not that there was any,
and that was important,
that decided,
if feelings were scarce,
or if feelings clashed somewhere.
Now it's been years
that I am in love
with the idea of love.
No other woman spoke to my soul
about singularities
and unions of people.
All I am good at now is being terrible at life,

Displacement

Displacement of the body
Displacement of the soul
Displacement of feelings
Displacement of the fact
that it takes a few years
to grow old.

Displacement of anxiety
Displacement of demeanor
Displacement of attachments
Displacement of  fears
that would at one time
make you cower.

Displacement of clothes,
shoes, computers,phones,
TVs, CDs,video games,
books, vehicles and everything material.
Displacement of trees,
sunlight, rain, air, politics,
druglords, religion,
love,notions and everything immaterial.

Displacement leaves gaps
Unfilled and unattended.
Gaping gaps in places
clock hands cannot point to anymore.
I can just visit the edges of the gaps and look into them.
I can make out the faces and gestures swim in its dark pool .
But I can't jump in,
there are mandates surrounding it,
it's not feasible territory anymore.

Displacement is vicious-
Almost primitive in nature.
A deadly predator of sorts
Unbecoming to behold,
Knives hidden under layers
of smooth promise, ageless laughter,
consistent contentment, sobriety
pitted with secrets never to be disclosed.

I was never able to recognize
this dark side that silently plotted
its own curve for my life.     
To me, displacement was freedom,
A new world far from watchful eyes
and ears that fed on the grains of my life;
far from social soreness and known visages,
A mountain that I needed to climb.
                     

Memes and emojis

An Indian man had to die. This is within just a little over a month of Donald Trump's swearing in as the president of the USA. The roots of racism were buried far underneath the ground all these years. It was there, not totally absent, just out of sight. Ever since he has started being around, there have been several incidents of racism being reported all over the country, not just towards  Indians, towards people of all kinds of ethnicities. And the culmination of that along with no restrictions on guns has resulted in the incident at Kansas city. But there will still be no learning and no steps taken.

Why is it that the Americans want everyone out of their country? Do Indian people look like they just came , made and took jobs from Americans and settled in? No, it's not that easy. Relations and immigration between countries is always a highly controlled matter governed by a vast number of government policies and deals between both countries involved. It was a result of these instated policies and opportunities presented by these agreements that people traveled between the countries. Nobody can just wake up one day and decide," hey, I'm gonna go to American and get a job there" like they are going to get a job in their neighborhood. It takes paperwork, scrutiny, background checks, time and most importantly, the fact that the travel would benefit the US government in some way. Which, in the simplest of the ways, means paying taxes to  the US government. Which, is what a lot of Americans don't seem to get. There are people who think we don't pay taxes. I think my eyes rolled to the back of my head when I first heard this. But it's true. There are people who believe we are just earning money and not paying taxes ,all the while taking their jobs. I mean, if you are in high school and make this statement, I am ready to excuse you and explain it. But when an adult, a working, fully grown adult , and sometimes over 30, makes such statements, I wonder what happened to common sense and thinking before speaking. 

What would happen if there had been no H1B workers in the USA? Life as you know it would never have happened. The technology, the comfort of life all exist because countries united and worked together. I understand there has been misuse of the program in some cases but that's a minor percentage of the companies who have done it. The majority of companies using the H1B program have stuck to the rules. It's not entirely impossible to see that. Everyone is trying to make a life out of this crappy world we are right now in and doing the best we can for friends and family. If it does involve working abroad, meeting new people, creating new ideas, how is that bad? We are social beings, less than dolphins and killer whales though, but still, it's important for human beings to fraternize and collaborate and pursue ideas. 

When a nation progresses, its infrastructure develops, in the natural course of ways, a pride should develop along with it. This seems to have taken a turn for the worse with ego coming in to play. The conservative right wing playing police themselves and the wide array of news articles and videos constantly showing how more Americans have been killed by Americans and the "no gun control" policy than by people from other countries is startling. This development happened because of collaborations with other counties, and with the help of people who came in from other countries. And it did not happen overnight. It built up over the years. And it wasn't common people who just decided to come together and do something- everything is controlled in some way or the other by the governments themselves. This seems to be the point least understood by people who cry blame.

What is it that you mean when you say, "get out of MY country"? That country you are talking about has been shaped and built up over the years by hardworking people from all kinds of nationalities. The life that has been structured for every American is the result of years of hard work by people of all kinds of nationalities. Hypothetically, if after this one incident, all these people just stopped working, do you have any idea what would happen to the global economy, let alone the country's? Do you know how you own life would turn upside down? Hypothetically, if all these jobs were suddenly taken away from people of other nationalities and given to Americans, do you know what kind of a slump in stability you are looking at because the next thing you will do is blame your own government for not training and preparing you enough? Human beings always seek to blame and make excuses when things are rough. It's human nature. Do you know how long it will take to get out of that slump? YEARS! And do you want that? No, because at the same time, you still want to be on the top which is more impossible than anything else in the world. If these people had nothing to lose, they would stop. But they do have things to lose just like Americans too, they want to lead fulfilling lives just like Americans too, they want to reach old age and have stories to tell like Americans too. Don't tell me Americans don't want these things. Every person is just trying to make their way through.  These are things to ponder about- human lives, the common people, the government and understand before making one statement like "get out of my country" and firing a gun. There is something seriously wrong here and the government nor the president seems to be doing anything about it. If anything else, the seeming encouragement is frightening. 

If people in a first world country claim to have guns for safety, I shudder to think what would happen if there was no gun control in third world countries.

P.S. Last weekend we were at New Orleans and a bunch of us were walking through the pavements by the parade and one guy trailing behind. Apparently an old man reveling in the festivities stopped when he saw us and yelled "Fuck you you beggars go back to your country". We didn't hear him but the friend trailing behind saw and heard this. What is this sense of false supremacy that has come to exist? Common sense and humanity have become dwarfed in stupidity and ego. 

No Hope

Haul Ass

I am caught in the headlights right now. Like a speeding car and a deer crossing the road in front of it suspended in time. I have three choices- make extra efforts to jump back or jump ahead out of the way or stay where I am. Because the moment this suspension in time ends, time will speed up indefinitely and no normal efforts to move out of the way will matter, it has to be way extra than normal. 

Now the driver has three choices too. He can keep plowing ahead, he can careen left or he can careen right. The brakes would never work in time.

So what do you do?

I don’t know how the driver will react, the driver doesn’t know how the deer will react. I may get saved as soon as the time suspension is up or I may get killed as soon as the time suspension is up. Keeping still, going left or right and putting extra efforts wouldn’t matter- I am fucked either way because I don’t know if the driver cares about deer or not.

That’s the thing with life. Consider each moment, dilemma, situation as suspended in time, the outcome of which can be anything, however much you put in efforts or you don’t. People say no, it’s up to you, how you make your life. Sure, it is. But it’s just till taking a decision, just till the point where you decide if you are going forward or backward or staying still. This is where most people’s advice stop: “You should move forward in your life, or keep doing what you are doing and you will succeed one day etc.” The advice doesn’t take into account realities of outcomes of the decisions.

After the decision, you are not in control because you don’t have control over what’s coming toward you. And what’s coming toward you has its own decision to make and take its own course of action- which may leave your ass alive or leave your ass to die.

The only thing you can keep doing in life is keep trying to save your ass and haul ass at the right moments. You are really not in control. The moment you take a new road, you are a part of the people, the cars, the weather, the dogs and everything on that road. Either way, you are fucked somewhere, somehow.

Stage Fright

I don't know why,
I am another version
of myself with you.
The hand got dealt,
and even though 
I have been in a position
to call the bluff several times,
I didn't.

This version of me 
is in love with you.
Even though I am unfamiliar
with this version of myself,
I can feel it's thoughts inside me.
And the feeling of familiarity 
it seems to have with you
is unmatched 
in terms of love explained
in society's stories, movies, music and songs.

This other version,
came out the moment I first met you.
At the party, everyone noticed you, I did too.
But it wasn't even taken aback as I was
by the smile that suddenly lit up the entire room,
It just kind of said, "There you are!" 
and walked over to you with utmost confidence.
And you seemed to know it too.
"How strange" I thought.
I was more baffled by the ease of conversation
and the way you two took each other in,
like it was a necessity to life-
an un-breathed gulp of air or an extra heartbeat
to compensate for a gush of adrenaline,
than the fact that you took me to your place
and I complied.
I was never this sure when meeting strangers.

It wasn't that dark and I could see the other version of myself
kiss you suddenly.
To my surprise, you kissed it back too.
And then, like jigsaw puzzles of childhood,
the spaces between your slender fingers
and the curves of your body seemed to fit
perfectly into the spaces between my fingers
and the curves on my own body.

Sometimes I wonder if there is actually a bluff to be called.

Image Source: Google Images

Thank You

It was hardly a year that I had met Oliver and we decided to get married. I was twenty six then. Oliver was twenty eight. Even though we had known each other for almost a year, a new found closeness developed, fueled by the happiness that comes with a wedding, new people, new friends, and new experiences.

Within a month of getting married we got a kitten, a ginger tabby, with bright yellow eyes and a tail bushier than bottle brushes. To nobody's surprise (even though the cat was a female) we called her Garfield. Oliver and I were both big fans of the comic strip and collected books, movies and anything we could find related to it.

Garfield was the best cat one could ever hope to have. She had the usual habits cats generally have- rubbing her face into objects around the house, hissing at insects, catching small prey and bringing it to us at times to say thank you, randomly purring and stretching out all over the house, jumping at new unknown artifacts and furniture, wanting to get scratched etc. But unlike most cats, she never hid or slunk away when there were strangers around, she never had problems with us leaving her with our friends when we took trips, even learnt tricks Oliver taught her and turned out to be quite the star at any party we hosted at our place. Two years flew by in infinite happiness as we worked, traveled, laughed and spent time doing everything possible together. Two years before I missed my period for the first time in my life.  

In the third week of March 2014, I realized that the familiar squirming pain that usually accompanied the periods was not there. I gave it a week's time and then another to be sure before I let Oliver know. My husband's joy knew no bounds at the news. Over the next few months, Oliver took care of me as best as he could and Garfield never left my side the whole time, perhaps sensing the new adventure about to start. 

Lily was born on twentieth November, 2014. The two years that had seemed indescribably happy and the most peaceful stood no chance against the happiness that gushed through my body that day making me quiver. Lily had the tiniest nose, hands, ears, feet; her eyes were shut tightly as her eyeballs moved under the pale thin eyelids, dreaming of worlds we would never know about.

When we got home with Lily, we weren't sure how Garfield would react to this new member of the family. I watched as Oliver brought Garfield over to Lily's cot. Garfield's eyes widened and she looked back and forth between Lily, me and Oliver a couple of times. Finally, realization seemed to dawn as she finally looked at the sleeping baby. She stopped twitching and reached out a paw to touch Lily and let out a low purring noise. The family was complete now. Oliver and I smiled at each other. 

Lily was a weak child. She needed constant attention and seemed to be ill all the time. I had to quit my job to stay with her. Oliver got a new job but even though the money was good, he didn't like the work much. He would come back home in a sour mood most of the days and we had an increasing number of fights over the most trivial of issues.

As Lily grew up we understood that there was something wrong with her. Apart from being sick most of the time, she had trouble recognizing and responding to us, her speech abilities did not seem prominent yet her motor senses seemed fine. After prolific tests and checkups, the doctors pegged Lily's condition on autism.

The future looked a bit darker than before.

Oliver and I sat down that night to discuss how we would work things out. I couldn't go back to my job. Oliver was okay with the new job and agreed to make it work. We sat at the dinner table, talking into the night. Around midnight, Garfield came in from somewhere outside and dropped a small mouse at my feet and looked at me and purred. Now I would have to smile, pet her and say thank you and then throw out the mouse myself later. Once she was satisfied with my response, she went sauntering towards Lily's room.

Lily and Garfield were the best of friends. Whatever Garfield did, wherever Garfield went, Lily tried to imitate her. If Garfield was sleeping under the bed, Lily would curl up under the bed beside her. If Garfield was out in the backyard running around, Lily would be out there with her. They even slept in the same room on matching pillows. We were thankful we had Garfield to keep Lily company. The doctors always stressed on the fact that having pets around for companionship is good for autistic children and sometimes for even grown-ups.

When Lily was four years old, Oliver and I decided to have another baby following the advice of my mother and the doctors. A new baby, a sibling, always helped. Garfield was getting on in terms of age too. She was eight years old already. I could still remember that excited little ginger kitten we had brought home almost like yesterday.

Lily was almost five when Samuel was born. She and Garfield had almost the same reactions when Oliver and I brought home Samuel. As Garfield had done earlier with Lily, both of them looked at me and Oliver a couple of times before Garfield purred and Lily squealed. I picked up Lily and kissed her on the cheek telling her that the baby was her new brother, Samuel. She repeated the name slowly and smiled. Garfield went out of the room and Lily followed her out. I looked at Oliver with a hopeful smile- maybe things would get better here onward.

Lily's speech was slow and hesitant, her eyes seemed to focus late, she needed time to respond when talked to, she did not understand everything at the first time and kept making the same mistakes a few times before she understood that she was wrong. But she was immaculately perfect with her motor senses, if anything a little slow, but none that would hint in any way at her mental condition. We had put her in a different school that addressed students with special needs and she seemed to be doing good there. Oliver's new job left him tired and irritable most days and most nights, he would fall asleep on the couch in the living room itself, drink in hand. I never had the heart to wake him and covered him with a blanket as he slept.

A year later, on the day before Samuel's first birthday, Oliver had to work late in office. "Who works late on a Friday night?" I thought to myself but couldn't say anything. Instead, I called up the bakery and asked them if they could deliver the birthday cake we had ordered for Samuel. They did not have a delivery service. So I locked the doors and windows in the house, put Samuel to sleep and left Lily and Garfield playing in the house for half an hour to get the cake. They had done a really wonderful job on the racetrack decoration on the cake. I came home and started setting up decorations for the next day. There would be twelve children and their parents for the party next day. It was almost ten p.m. when Oliver pulled up in the driveway; by which time I was nearly done with the decorations. As Oliver came in, Lily and Garfield went running up to him, both prancing about, Lily shouting excitedly about the party next day, Garfield silently leaping about. Oliver  had got presents for all of them- A drag around musical duck for Samuel, a Birthday Barbie for Lily and a rubber toy duck for Garfield that bounced away as soon she jumped on it, making her chase after it everywhere.

I laughed.

We finished dinner and sat at the table talking about the next day. Lily sat on my lap and said that she wanted to dress up like birthday Barbie and Daddy had to dress up like Ken. Oliver smiled and agreed to do so. As we were getting up to go to bed, Garfield came in to the room with another dead mouse that he dropped at Oliver's feet. Great, so much for the present Oliver got her. The gesture of gratitude needed to be thrown outside. I looked at Oliver and said, "Hey, you got the cat a present, now you deal with her thank you!" Oliver patted Garfield in exasperation while Lily and I giggled.

The next morning, Oliver and I were both up early at six thirty a.m. to start getting things ready for the party. Samuel generally woke up crying around ten a.m. and Lily was usually up at nine on Saturday mornings before coming down for breakfast. We had ample time to finish off everything before the day started with all the kids. As we set up tables and chairs in the backyard, Garfield came out and watched us from the porch. After a few minutes, she got bored, climbed up and slept off on the porch swing. By eight thirty a.m. we were finished with setting up everything for the party. The guests would start trickling in at eleven a.m. Oliver settled at the kitchen table with the newspaper and I started putting together a breakfast of pancakes and fruit. 

Around nine, we heard shuffling upstairs- Lily was up. As she came down the stairs into the kitchen, I turned around to tell her she needed to get ready by eleven a.m. and paused. She was carrying Samuel in her arms. That was weird, I hadn't heard a sound from Samuel and it was an hour before he generally woke up so if he was awoken, he would have cried. Lily came up to Oliver and in her usual slow and hesitant manner, said "Daddy, I also wanted to thank you for the present you got me yesterday" and placed the tiny, puffy, red, lifeless body on his lap.