Today I wander. There is always a fixed route when I wander. so is it even wandering if one follows the same path?
The lake is where I usually start. Well everything must start at the lake anyway, it is a rule around here. The lake is noisy today with a fair. I pay very little attention to the people around me. Lasy year this time I was dancing in one of these makeshift dancefloors by the lake; this time i don't feel like going in. Instead I walk away and towards the hotel. I stop in front of the non-descript building where a missing woman's poster still lingers. Her body was discovered buried in her own backyard months ago. But the poster still hangs. On the door a polite warning reminds the reader that the building is under video surveillance.
The side windows of the bar display newer paintings; nudes of African women done by a female swiss artist. They are tasteful and competent but not captivating. On the other end of the street, I sit on a street bench under a tree. I count to ten.
On the courtyard in front of the Kabab place, silence lingers. There is no sign of life. A fallen yet forgotten rain has left a little wetness on the ground. I stand there lost and look at the door of Edelweiss. This is a central point for meetings and running-ins. The Turkish restaurant that no one ever went to is now Bollywood cafe. They seemed to be having better luck than the Turks.
The video parlour is open. I cannot see inside. If I walk past it through the narrow roads, I will get to my old apartment. There on the balcony, if I leaned back with a lit cigarette I would see the lake.
Black and purple. That is now imagine this world. Sometimes, after you walk long enough on a path, you forget to notice. may be because you know those things are there, even when you don't look. I know where the youth hostel is, where the best breakfast is even though my seat is invariably always damn near the toilet, I know how the monuments look even when I don't see it.
Wandering along, I forgot why I was wandering in the first place.
Because summer is almost over. And the words are still dead within me.
