Nupur Chaturvedi

Explosion

In one of those moments that now seems prescient,
You said, it’s all going to end badly
I didn’t know what you were talking about then
It was a simple conversation between us friends
A, B, C, you and me, after a couple of drinks
Around the time when ribbing each other on love life
Gives way to discussing politics.
We were always the peacemakers, you and I,
Probably because we were usually more sober than the rest
Or maybe because we had seen it, first-hand
How lifelong kinships are ripped apart by a few words of discord
How amiable neighbours turn indifferent at best and abettors at worst
When the monkeys come to roost
(You see what I did there? Monkeys don’t roost!)
So in that moment, when spirits were flowing and spirits were rising
B said, oh, you are all paranoid
You don’t believe a good thing when you see it
You are so used to looking for monsters under the bed
That you invent them when they’re not there
No, no—said A—it really is getting suffocating
You can’t see it because your life is secure in your plush condominium
C—usually a fence-sitter—rose up in indignation
You think I haven’t seen the world? Haven’t seen death, rot and misery?
I have seen it all, but I’ve made the life I live now
With bare hands and dirt beneath my nails
So—B interrupted—you see how things have changed?
From misery to mansions, your life has transformed.
And how did that happen?
And on and on they went, running circles around each other
While you and I watched like we weren’t there
Like it was a football match on TV.
Tempers rose, as was inevitable
Wives and relatives were pulled in and defended
By this time, I was asking for the bill
So we could leave
And then, you spoke:
This. This life. Circumstantial or deliberate,
It’s preciousssss.
The ‘S’ went on as your last breath escaped
And your eyes froze in a permanent stare.
While I looked at the debris of civilization
Scattered around me after the explosion.
It did end badly. For all of us.