Chilling at a Pool in Goa

Satya Dash

Eyes float around in the dreamless water of the pool like water lilies guilty
of their beauty. You could mistake them as drops of sky so keen to immerse
in the zeal of water that they came off from the plaster overhead. I see
mollusks of skin splashing conversations and smiling congenially, the water
sent into utopic convulsions every time they laugh. As a default
characteristic of beings, our utopias are not compatible with each other. I
wish to be both fickle and absent minded. Being one at a time is a recipe for
heartache. What does it take to let reality persist, to stay in the present? Like
great batsmen in cricket. Suppressing the ego. Playing the ball on merit.
Unfortunately my mind is a schizophrenic pendulum. Hypnotized
consistently by false dawns. Magnetically inclined to mining. Mostly the
ores of the past. I’m sure it would pose an interesting puzzle for teen
prodigies at a Physics Olympiad. My wet fingers weave through the pages
of Anna Karenina leaving marks of hubris on its yellowing moss. This feels
like a good time to shed skin. A good time for reincarnation. I call out to the
waiter nearby. One Sangria and One Jameson on the rocks please. You see,
this is the flexibility, the immensity of the fickleness I love.