A woman's muted laugh, a male voice, drunken, loud, uncaring of the time of night. "Shhh, shhhhhh!" "What, it's early yet, not sleeping time." Away in the distance a dog barks, a lone bike roars, a truck rumbles, a window pulls shut. The dog on the couch sighs in its sleep, on the bedside table tick tick tick tock. Day unravels, dissolves quietly in the dark.
Reminded me of this:
ReplyDeletesonder:
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
I can see that - the last five words. The picture isn't mine though. I picked it up off flickr. Btw, that's a seriously great definition of an unusual word.
Deletesparse, minimal,yet so much said or perhaps imagined by the reader. love it.
ReplyDeleteAww thank you, it was partly inspired, partly imagined :)
DeleteAnd then some nights its two guys negotiating over a fight, saying, "Min ngam chuan lo kal la" "Rawn kal zawk la", and it goes on for about 10 minutes till there is silence, and you disappointedly move away from your window,with the empty promise of a drunken brawl echoing silently in the night air...
ReplyDeleteHaha I can't recall ever overhearing guy-fighting words, at least not in my winding down moments. But married-couple fighting words a few times, yes, also parent-children harangues. Not pleasant things to overhear late at night.
DeleteWow! Really good - the pic and the 'caption?'
ReplyDeleteThank you - belatedly!
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