That other world out there

They came uninvited.
         The sounds of civilization staring at me from outside the kitchen window.
They pumped the words into my body
         drilling an always-polite-response to the questions of my food habits:
'What-did-you-eat-for-breakfast-today?'

Pressure cooker whistled for the fifth time that moment and I began to scream out loud the elements of my diet in a reversed alphabetical order.
(Munch would have been so proud of me that day)

But...

(And this 'but' is vivid and precise in the curves of its lines)  But...

But...

But there was that other world out there...
But there was that other world out there that we spoke about so often over a glass of cheap wine
(Rs 130 a bottle if I am not mistaken)

It had the blue colour of the sky
and redness of the mother below my bare feet.
It had a tree outside the window
and a cat chasing the squirrel that was climbing up the branches.
It had a long evening walk by the river
and a night with stars engrossed in the music of the piano.
It had vast spaces to walk through
and a clay pot filled with words drunk lazily and without haste.
It had breath.

I breathed with my eyes closed
while a part of me stood up and closed the doors from the other side leaving the walls to shut down on themselves and collapse.

A seed sprouted in my hand.