Stitch on the needle
Anna International Airport - India
A peculiar air shrouded the six-footer at the window seat. He wore white shirt, gray pants and pointed black shoes. Dense brows shaded his indecipherable eagle eyes. Wiry black hair roofed wide forehead. Bearded chin heightened perfect broad jaw. Firm mouth looked like cannon’s muzzle. He was Lemu.
“Twenty one? Twenty one?” a short man in busily buckled corduroy overalls came banging into everything on his way, parked next to Lemu, grabbed liberally from a tray of sweets offered by a airhostess and nibbled noisily... As the plane took off, he saw Lemu looking up at the sky and asked “What makes that bland blue so interesting to you?”
Lemu turned. The thunderstruck fellow fought hard to blank his flunking head...
The plane touched Los Angeles. The nosey fellow in the overalls trotted behind Lemu to try his luck again. Recollecting the electric jolt, he rushed ahead sticking a thumb into his loose mouth. A baby unplugged thumb from mouth and gaped at the childish adult.
The van drove through Brentwood Glen and stopped before Woodrose apartments at Wilshire Boulevard. Children stopped playing and stared at the tall mesmeric man entering their block. Three men followed him carrying junkie antiques and took the lift. Lemu took the stairs and reached the seventh floor in a wink. Furnished flat unlocked. Curtains parted. Windows opened. Dust flew out. Lift stopped. Startled loaders gawked at Lemu, blinked down at dizzying stairway, dumped things in the drawing room and fled from the freak. A small pot bellied lean man peeped out of the opposite flat. His wrinkled bald head boasted toasted wisdom. Owlish eyes rotated complimenting agile brain’s brilliant moves. He pecked the heads of fleeing men and walked into the open flat “Hello sir. I’m Boward, a retired lecturer in archeology.”
Lemu bowed and gazed up from the window. Boward observed Lemu’s things with a familiar air. Suddenly everything appeared double. He struck up a thumb before each eye and brought them together merging the two images.
“I’ll see you later.” he blurted and left.
The door closed after him. He turned. It opened revealing a neatly arranged room. Focused on the sky, Lemu had not moved from the window. An old telescope idled on the table beside him. Charred brass tub topped a small gold-rimmed teak box before the northern wall. A primordial tree stump which had turned to stone took up a corner. A faded painting on the eastern wall portrayed yellow triangles superimposed on hazy brown background. A straw mat was spread below it. Boward’s mind twisted. Blaming it on liquor, he rushed home and stretched out on bed. Key turned. Door opened. Daughter Marge charged in “You met him?”
His mind hovered over Lemu “Yes...”
“Then what’s this doing here?” Marge picked an envelope “You were drunk.”
“Can’t you permit a little memory loss on an aging father’s brain?” he chuckled “A granddaughter could pep up…”
“You want a killer?”
“It’s a sin to accuse God’s gift.”
“Is it a blessing to die like mother?”
Boward was saddened to dead end “You wouldn’t be here if your mother had thought like that.”
Evening darkened. Lemu’s eyes scrutinized a couple of stars in the moonless sky...
On the dark windy mountain peak, attentive barefooted young men in saffron robes surrounded their old teacher who looked up at the sky thinking out ‘Those two stars…’
Two young boys ran down the steps and stopped at seventh floor feeling a sudden fluctuation in their pace. Averting a fall, one hit the bell. Door swung open. Lemu stood looking out of the window, twenty feet away.
“He tricked us.” the rational boy explained Lemu’s implausible feat to his nervous friend and went in to check the telescope “Not a fake stick. Then, why is he bumming that black sky with bare eyes?”
Reversing from the sky, Lemu shook him up in a shocking fit “We named the stars before you invented lenses.”
Telescope vanished. Scared chaps apologized and scooted fast.
The car dealer felt his showroom shrink as the irksome old customer cursed every modern innovation in the latest cars.
The bullied fellow bellowed “Go back to your days and catch a jolly jalopy!”
Blasting him and his likes for destroying the world, flabbergasted senior stormed out.
“That’s an excellent choice!” the dealer commended the foreigner studying a red car. He dipped into a drawer and looked up circling the car keys on his forefinger “Whaaaa?”
The red car zoomed out and zipped in making a smooth stop.
Seeing the keys gone from his finger, the jellied seller eyed the ignition slot “Did I give you those keys?”
“I’ll take it.” Lemu paid the exact amount in cash which appeared from his bare hands.
The frightened man mechanically conducted the sale, vowing to never think or speak about it.
Two cars speeding beside the red car
turned into horses trotting along rugged rocky path in the hilly region clothed in thick green foliage and reached a waterfall. Five young men dived into the river and swam into a wide mouthed cave where meditating men and women levitated up in the air. A teacher stared at a pot cracking it into bits and invited his little pupils to try. An old man passed his thoughts to white robed men and women standing waist deep in water. Behind him, an image of yellow triangles superimposed on hazy brown background glowed on a screen of pure light. Two cars whizzed past the red car. Three homing pigeons followed it and flew up experiencing a fleeting recollection of their previous births.
Misty night hampered visibility. Playing soft ancient music, the red car on the highway took a small forking road climbing up a hillock and stopped on its massive flat head. Music stopped. Lemu’s eyes speared twin stars from the sparkling sky. A fish leaped up dissipating the enchanting reflection on the lake’s surface. Ripples settled.
A wrinkled lean man rose from the water and walked on it to the bank where practicing children kept falling in after taking few steps on water. They bowed before the master as he moved on ignoring them. The children now walked easily on the water. A fish leaped again ending the vision. Lemu’s gaze left the lake. Dateless music charged air. The red car seeped a thick wall of mist and entered the parking garage at Woodrose apartments.