Yes, I have descended to filching from weird quotes of indeterminate, ambivalent origin and intent. True, I have faltered, faded, fumbled and stumbled into that eternal bin. The crispy tang of the green fruit before ripening into succulence has mellowed into bilious patches. The neural lattice that once crackled with sparks lies buried under its own ashes.
They say there are over 500 million blogs out there as the planet encircles its yellow sun, even as average life of a blog is about one hundred days. The statistics qualifies me as the great grand gaunt ghost of a blogger wandering the world wide web with unfinished business.
How ill this blogger burns! Ha! who comes here?
Interestingly again, average span of attention bestowed upon a blogpost is less than a limb of a minute. Need I be worried then by the inevitable fugacity of this frayed corner of the Internet? The answer to that dilemma is yet another question, expanding upon the state of matter my blog has come upon: should a ghoul be worried of the impact its momentary sighting will have on fleshed beings? You would agree the hair-raising drama, and the subsequent trauma, is inherent in the briefness of appearance of such otherworldly elements. The longer staying ghosts gather no moss.
This is the point though where I begin having doubts and snap out of the daydream. The selfie-drunk generations, Millennials and Generation Z and the Ho Hum, fused with smartphones on genetic-molecular, integrated-circuit, multi-cam level, would die for a group photo with a ghost rather than run of life. Going viral is a matter of life and death, which makes me wonder,
Have you ever Instagrammed with the devil in the pale moonlight? I ask that of all my prey. I just like the sound of it.
Incidentally, the existential question was the signature of a computer virus at the fag-end of 1980s (except for the Instagram part, of course).
The muddle of midlife in the middle of civilisational outback I am moulding in has meddled with my mind in no mild a manner. I don’t recollect the passphrases to the zillion portal anymore. Sometimes, I can’t bring up the number my car bears on its backplate. There are days I try to check into an airport a day prior to or later than my booking. And whenever I am there at the appointed day, it’s not unusual for me to leave behind the luggage. Time was when I could warble the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock like an early morning bird, and here I am, not sure of the middle name of T. S. Eliot.
In the room the bloggers come and go. Talking of Michelangelo.
The gong has struck once more as I add one more ring to my girth today. The ring doesn’t ring of Muse. It has no lilt of letters or wings of words. It is a maze that doesn’t yield bits of information easily. It is a reptile that has swallowed my brood. It is a python that has swallowed my brooding. I am a Milton without my Paradise, lost or regained. I am Shakespeare without my tragedies.
Call it what you may, this felicity of oblivion is not without its bonuses however. You may drag me to a polygraph machine but might never be able to extract the status of the permafrost that shrouds my bank account. Even if one manages to crack the conundrum, anything less than zero is a place where I stand to lose nothing. The lone flip side of the condition is that my mind appears sworn to imitate my personal economics like a conjoined twin. Whatever happened to the phenomenon of harsh summers producing the truest mangoes?
One Grain Amongst the Storm 
This “inevitable fugacity of this frayed corner” as always has “the lilt of letters and the wings of words”. It’s just that the little tree doesn’t realize it. It wondered why it wasn’t producing mangoes – but maybe it was something like an oak, and acorns take their time.
Let me sleep over your words of wisdom. Perhaps I am the oak, after all. Thank you ever, my friend.
A fabulous linguistic frolic with a most insightful image in the last line – and I am happy that it extended my attention span.
Many thanks for the delicious compliment, Derrick. I am glad the last line had that effect on you.
“The neural lattice that once crackled with sparks lies buried under its own ashes”…I can relate.
Love the alliteration and the play on phrases.
The burnout maybe a fait accompli but is bitterly premature. I appreciate that you can relate.
I’m with Bruce, perhaps your fruit will be something much more enduring than a mango. In any case, I’m happy to spend my attention on this lyrical, insightful corner of the internet.
You are a perennial source of inspiration, Andrea. Thanks for the encouragement.
Those mid-life birthdays are a muddy trail, to be sure. But you are here and writing again, and to that I cry, ‘Huzzah!”
As you tread this next year, I wish you well untangling all the conundrums.
And for the record, you have kept my attention up and to and beyond the last word.
My dear friend, you are the one who figured what ails me! Of late, coming upon birthdays tends to trigger whirlwinds of remorse on years wasted and whiled away. But it did give me enough impetus to ink my blog yet again, which is fine as it brought you here.
I am indebted by those kind words and blessings. And I wish the very best to you too in the forthcoming years!
Ah yes, those pesky birthdays can take on a life of their own. I know a little about remorse and how long to let it stay in my house.
I have another coming soon, and I suspect I am much older than you are, so take heart! 🙂
Remorse is like an alarm that keeps going day after day, prodding, reminding of something done or not done. Taming the creature may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I appreciate how you deal with it. I was 43 when the profile image you see was taken, and that was nine years ago. There is a reason I am fixated with that photo of mine but then that is another story, and there a bit of remorse about it yet again! 🙂
I don’t know of anyone else who has the command of language that you do! And perhaps the muse has taken a brief vacation, but that doesn’t mean it is gone forever. Sometimes all it means is that you are changing, and it’s time for a new direction in your creative life. That is one of the joys of blogging: we can reinvent them whenever we want. All I know is that the blogging world is a better place with you in it, so I would sincerely urge you to stay. Whatever you choose to write, I will happily read!
That is a generous compliment —I am merely a snowflake in the enduring snowfall. I love what you say about the joys of blogging. It is one of better reasons to exist! Thank you.
It is always a linguistic and literary pleasure to go through your compositions as you weave words over a tapestry of thoughts and emotions. Viral-ity has become the trademark of notice-ability in any kind of social media platform with worldwide billions of content producers. Nevertheless, social media un-influencers like us too can have our own little corners to bask in the glory of our non-existential like existence. Of course any kind of creative activity is an award in itself. And who knows- a grain may be a storm in the making.
I agree wholeheartedly with you. It is the paradox of our non-existential existence that fuels the little sparks in our hearts. May you be blessed for the blessing you have sent my way.
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes and indeed there will be time to wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Trust me, the bald spot in the middle of my hair is real.
I love the way you reference literary works in this piece of writing! I think time’s pendulum will swing back and people will once again have a longer attention span than 30 seconds!
Hopefully, I will be forgiven for the uncalled for artwork upon those quotes! Thank you so much for the attention.
Hello Umashankar, What a festive feast of feisty alliteration for your reader! Thank you.
This is my favourite line: the inevitable fugacity of this frayed corner of the Internet?
Have a great week.. Keep safe and wise and socially distant!
Thank you ever so much, Selina. Those kind words will me keep me perked up for a while, and safe and watchful. Please take care of yourself too.
Some people say that in writing simple language should be used. I would like to present Uma to these people. Can that simple language ever create images like this post has. I think we will be the poorer if language was to comprise of only the simple and simplistic words and phrases.
Sir, you humble me.