ALMOST A GOOD DAY

The boy on the other side of the road stared at his mobile phone. He was waiting to cross the road. First, I thought he was being careless then I saw the red light that signals pedestrians was on 98, descending. So, I didn’t mind. 

My eyes turned to the man I see on the top of the staircase on the side of the convenient store. Through my window screen of the passenger seat of the car, I see him painting the stairs blue, He’s doing the railing now. The bright blue was a perfect accommodation to the heaty air. It was early evening, and late afternoon, in the middle of fifteen hours in the post meridian, a time still too sunny, but the after-lunch notion made people take a break. To nap, to eat, to indulge in afternoon pleasures. Apparently, those include crossing the street and painting these days. The blue is lighter than the dark blue in Nike track bottoms. But darker than the mid-day sky. To me they resemble the mobile telecommunication signature color and I look around the store, wondering if the staircase belongs to an office branch of it. But no, no significant name was visible so I assumed it was done to either for the fancy of the landlord or as a recreational past time of the painter who might live in the building. Since the later was a silly notion to have, let us stick to the former explanation. Or not. You can go on about your day. 

I see the boy approaching our car, he had crossed the road. When he walks in front the park car, straight down the road. I see he has a minor hunch; I am immediately able to recognize it as a hunch that comes from carrying a school backpack for far too long. I know it well, since I have remains of it. That is the path the education ministry is taking, I guess. We weren’t allowed to keep books at the school, but at the same time, those same teachers wanted us to bring all books every single day to school, they were also the same ones who would be aggressive at us for carrying too heavy backpacks as if we woke up in the morning, with the sheer object to carry the backpack that was too heavy for us. As if that was our biggest concern in the morning rush of going to school, contemplating whether sitting down for breakfast will make us miss the bus or will helping the old lady cross the road will lead to the tragedy of missing the bus and then ending up in the morning line of late comers who had to not only listen to the speeches of teachers who pass the regret of not screaming to the slow pedestrians that stalled their car on the road. 

Without realizing I am already home and far away from the painter at the junction. Lost in my thoughts after lessons at driving school, I didn’t realize the turns we made to get home. Last Friday, I failed my first driving test. Now we pay extra for more lessons to pass the newly scheduled one that’s due next week. These days when I am driving, the instructor specifically points out my mistakes in the test. Then I see my whole life stretch into the void of my future until he screams to keep the car to the left. It seems as if I may fail my test in the future too. Because this has been my life as long as I can remember. It was always an ‘almost’. Almost head girl in the school, almost one of the three highest achieving students, almost the hand-picked for an answer of a question that I am hundred percent confident in. Almost the reason why people stay, the almost friend who made you stay- but never enough, never the right chosen one. 

It frustrates me you know. Because before every high point in my life, I’ve fallen. Never on purpose. But sometimes, to pick another up or being pushed by the person in front, not afraid of losing their place on the pedestal but because they didn’t want to share it. Perhaps my tarot cards aren’t doing well these days, or maybe it is because of that mirror that broke. I blame it on the superstitions or the non-science of things. I guess it is easier that way. Their power to never be falsified saves me an answer, of a reason to why I am a failure. 

To cheer myself at these small encounters, I try to think of merrier moments in my life, and almost at all those moments, they seem to be playing hide and seek with my consciousness. So, I am afraid I won’t be able to share one of those moments with you. 

I wrote this poem when I met this person who I thought then to be one of the greatest I’ve ever known. But I was wrong, obviously. That certain someone found better company. But when I read what I wrote on an old journal page, for a split second they become that flawless person again. The betrayal, their cynical remarks, the unattractive personality; they are nonexistent. But like that friendship, that feeling dies, a few minutes after the poem ends. I have self-diagnosed myself to be a maladaptive day dreamer because I often live-in other worlds with people I long to have as companions. Sometimes too much I realize, because I forget the truth of events in in life. I’d like to paint my visions away like the painter on the staircase, but I am no van Gogh. I am more of a Lautrec, because he too had people who almost loved him, who almost picked him first. People see Moulin rouge and do not realize of its master. The artist of the art, the Pygmalion of Galatia; who’s sour life troubles in the end gave life to the art that makes us breathe. How beautiful life would be if each of us were acknowledging of the way we create each other? 

In the center of the background of the fading blue sky, a branch of the Macaranga peltata in our backyard brushes against the TV antenna. If the long PVC covered pole of the antenna ever falls down, it will hit the balcony door of my room. Then, the shattered glass will fall on the inside of the blue tiled room, creating a sun shelf effect on the floor like the way sunlight does on the swimming pool in school. The glass shards won’t kill you, when you step on them and the door would be more open without the glass panes. Perhaps for a couple of days, I’d be able to see the stars at night to which I could read my soppy poems to.

By Uvini Weerasinghe