The Snows of Yesteryear

There is an expression with the misnomer ‘Chinese Curse’ which goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Coined in the West, there is nothing ancient nor Chinese about the expression. Also, one may fail to see how this could be a curse… unless one really thinks about it.

************

He gazed out of the windshield, bored, impatient. He realised that sometimes he just hated this city, its inherent disorder, unruly traffic, jaywalking pedestrians, gaudy signboards, artless shops. The roads looked more brown than black. The hot summer implied profuse sweating and the odious humidity made the sweat stick. He rolled his eyes and gazed without seeing. The stereo played faithfully another song, even though he had stopped listening long time ago, he probably did not even remember turning it on.

The street hawker, selling items which varied from children’s clothes to kitchen utensils raised his voice yet again from his illegal vantage point on the curb, adding to the crass cacophony of passing vehicles. Why does he keep doing that, he wondered, eyebrows furrowed. A man should know when to give up, he thought, surely all his screams were doing was to drive away his already dwindling prospective customers. He rolled his eyes again and looked away and sighed.

He felt the vibration of his cellphone in his pants pocket before it started playing its tone. He took it out with slight difficulty, not wanting to leave the cool interior of the car. The high definition display showed him an email from his office; briefs for his business trip to Austria the day after tomorrow. He skimmed through the contents, dimmed the screen and placed the cellphone on the dashboard. The same time next day, he would be aboard a red-eye flight.

He certainly lived in interesting times, he sighed. He rubbed his tired eyes, wishing for nothing more than a couple of hours sleep that night. Outside, he saw his wife still in queue outside the ATM. As though she felt his eyes on her, she turned around and smiled, slightly pouting her lip. It was her way of looking apologetic; in spite of himself he smiled, shaking his head. She raised two fingers, for two minutes, but he knew it would take more than that. He found himself relieved that her smile still had the same effect on him which it did the first time they met.

Outside the sky was starting to show the stars now. He recognised the three stars in a straight line – Orion’s belt. Orion – the only constellation he could recognise, the sole reason being the belt. Why were people so desperate to attribute meaning to chaos, he wondered, they were just random dots in the sky, for God’s sake. People just had to group them into bears and koalas and guys with axes. People want to see patterns in pandemonium, coherence where there is none, he mused.

He was shaken out of his reverie by emphatic rapping on the car window. A bald haggard man was rapidly knocking the driver’s side window while holding a bunch on lottery tickets flat on it. He waved his hands at the man, the universal sign of disinterest. But the man seemed to not grasp the meaning, or he was feigning misunderstanding. Darting over to the passenger-side window with surprising agility, the lottery-guy thrust the tickets, this time closer to his face. He shook his head once again and looked away until the man took the hint and shuffled on.

He saw his wife was inside the ATM and thanked his stars. She’d be back in a minute. Then he heard a sharp call and looked at the street hawker again, irritated. To his surprise, he saw him beckoning the lottery-guy. The street hawker take the sheaf of lucky-draw coupons from the bald man. An involuntary snort of condescension escaped him as he saw the hawker choose a ticket, obviously after careful perusal of the numbers printed on the coupons. As if the randomness of the numbers would tell him which to choose so he could be an overnight millionaire.

He smiled as he remembered the last time he believed in luck. It was time, he mused, hardly a decade ago when he believed in shooting stars and four-leaf clovers. A time when world was a simpler place.

******************

“Third time is a charm. Maybe she’ll say yes,” scoffed his friend.

He immediately rapped the wooden door thrice and growled, “Don’t jinx it.”

He chose his lucky shirt for the day, he had wished upon a shooting star the day before. But he did not want to tempt fate. He had tried asking her out twice, but she had politely declined both times. But her friendly manner did not let him lose hope. Crossing his fingers, he went and asked. She agreed for a date.

“Just one, then we’ll see,” she was very specific.

********************

“See that one, that is called Orion,” he told her.

“Oh, really!” she said, “My kid cousin knows that one. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Ok, that one is called Mjolnir,” he made a name up from a comics he read. ” See it resembles a hammer? Thor’s hammer, actually.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that one,” she laughed.

She knew. And he knew that she knew.

***********************

“I love this metro,” he said, “This is the happening place.”

“Mhmm,” she murmured.

They had just moved there the day before from their town. He had landed a top corporate job and was sent there. He was given a flat in the sweet spot of the city and a company car as well. The job had been his dream since the time he could come up with rational dreams. He felt as if he had reached where he had always wanted to be.

“You don’t like it here?”

“As long as you’re here, I’m ok with anywhere,” she said.

**********************

He could not believe that it was possible to miss someone the way he missed her. He had hugged her goodbye less than an hour ago at the airport. Now, sitting in the business class, looking outside at the night sky, he wished he could have stayed a day longer. He had been back for only two weeks this time. Next time, it would be even shorter, he knew. He was a globetrotter, his passport filled with myriad stamps. He was meant to be one, he told himself, always wanted to be one.

“Is it all worth it?” he thought. Of course it is, he chided himself. “This was my dream, remember?” he reminded himself. The realisation that he had used “was” bothered him only a little bit.

***********************

Some say there is another part to the Chinese curse and it goes, “May you find what you’re looking for.” One may fail to see how this could be a curse… unless one really thinks about it.

*************************

I complicate myself with all the things I wish I no longer understood. I complicate myself with all the choices that I did not make, all the lives that I did not lead.