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What if the sky is just a large blanket with holes?
And there is endless light beyond it. Shining through the holes, We think of them as stars. I have a blanket with holes. I have a blanket with holes. I wriggle my big toe through it. My other toes have made other holes. I think of them as vents. I am a blanket with holes. I am a blanket with holes. I am home inside it. Deep within these holes, I think I hear a song. A song about the endless light beyond the sky. by Aruna Manjunath
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Rika dreams in stillness. By this, I mean that she is very still when she sleeps. The next morning, she will inevitably tell me that she dreamt again of running. She tells me this every morning over breakfast. The toast is always slightly burnt and she traces patterns of butter on it idly as she tells me she had the same dream again. The dreams have been coming fast and heavy, and by morning she looks tired. I walk with her to the bus stop, I have been doing this for a week now. A few days ago, she called me only a few minutes after she left home to tell me she woke up on the side of the road. She had fallen asleep while walking to the bus stop.I carry a small flask of very strong coffee and she carries the burnt end of the toast. She forgets to finish it, so it stays in her hand for a good part of the morning. I wait till she gets onto the bus. I know she will fall asleep soon. I walk back to feed the cat. The cat that we haven't seen in a few days now. Rika thinks she runs in her dreams to search for the cat. But she had been running long before the cat ran away. I decide to do what I always do to keep my mornings occupied, I read about dreams and insomnia and sleep and running. Today, I find a video of cats explaining the REM cycle. It does not look like the cat that ran away.I get a call from Rika. She had woken up in a different part of the city, there were different people in the bus. I leave to pick her up. Sleeping in the bus always makes her tired, she will not go in to work today. She sleeps in the car on our way back.Early evening to night, we have perfected a new routine. We try one new thing every night that will induce sleep. The new thing adds to the list of old things. Today it is an hour of Fitness Blender, a small meal, a warm bath, sleepytime tea and a few drops of lavender essential oil on the pillow. She sleeps soundly. I watch her lay still and picture her running. A brief glimpse of changing costumes as she runs. The same trees every night. The same couple behind a tree. The same puddle of water she jumps across.The same car whizzing past.The next morning she will tell me that she has been running all night,as she forgets to eat her toast
by Shruthi Menon |
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