My Santiago

*Kavi in Upper Fourth (* Kavi- A Singhalese word meaning traditional verse or poetry immersed in myth)

Wednesday’s were the worst, As we sat, upright at our metal-connected ink - welled table and seat, Two to a plank - from bygone times,

And waited the impending death by a thousand cuts; Yes, literally cuts, But no, Only metaphorical death, But in some ways, Worse than the ‘sleep that ends all sleeps’; This ‘death’ had no end of memory, No final release,

Just the weekly lull, Then anticipation of dread, of pain, Hurt, the Loss of face.

Talk would nervous - focus on how much we - each knew, The verses, the right ones, The accent, the rhythm and rhyme; the “Kavi”, As we compared notes with the ‘poor bugger’ Who simply could not grasp it; And, felt so much better.

His pain, our respite.

Joy sprouts in unlikely places.

All too human; we were.

False hope played a part too, As we imagined that he was absent today, (He never was / a fat man with a Spartan constitution / go figure that / just our luck) And allowed a glimmer of hope.

But, doom and pain came, As he always did, Signalling his advent from some distance,

From the direction

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