Today is good

Wide open spaces. Summer afternoon haze through rectangular windows. Lying on the ground in the centre of the empty upstairs drawing room, listening to Queen, feeling liberated in the companionship of your own self. Walking on the sweltering streets of Chennai, under the suffocation that is undeniably April in Chennai with an old friend whom you haven't hung out with in ages, talking about 2012 doomsday. Uplifting. Discovering a xerox shop you had passed by a million times and never noticed. Talking about college ending with the relief that everyone doesn't hate everyone else anymore. Corn, corn, boiled corn with chilly powder. Cold water straight from the fridge drunk quickly and desperately. A long bath, the first of many during the long day. Sunlight, unceasing sunlight, pinning you down helpless until you surrender with a smile. All the negotiations you tried in the years before, cast away. All the escape routes you dreamt, abandoned as uncertain applications submitted to the universe. All that remains is you and the summer- depressing, dominating, debilitating. And inevitable. A rite of passage. A feigned love motivated by expectations of surprises...