He stood there in solidarity

I was screaming at the top of my voice and not waiting for them to respond.

"What did you just say?"

"Say that again?"

"No, not that. The thing you just said to me?"

"Huh? What? Say it out loud. "

"You had the AUDACITY to call me by that name, with all the shit going on in the world?"

I paused for a breath and then screamed from the top of my lungs.

"IN 20-FUCKING-20!?"

"With all the talks, news debates, social media campaigns, protests, and whatever shit is going on to teach you, fucking ignorant bastards, about racism."

Another Pause.

"You have the balls to call me by that name?'

"Say that again."

"Why can't you say it now?"

"You just said it so why not now?"

"You think you're some martial race. You!!"

I paused one more time and tried to come up with equally offensive word but I could only bring myself to say 

"Fuckin assholes! Calling me Brownie?"

I felt a tap on my shoulder, David was assuring me that he was going to kick them out. David is the owner of the hookah bar where I was sitting in, this Sunday afternoon when this group showed up and someone from them whispered as they crossed the table where I was sitting.

"Get out of my way Brownie!" Followed by giggles from all of them.

"Yes please take them out of here." I said to David. 

My eyes were red, my body was shaking, I felt as hot as the coals in my hookah. I suddenly felt an intense pain in a nerve which I could only see on my bald head when I workout too hard. I couldn't speak for a while. I was crying from inside but there were no tears in my eyes.

And then I saw him, standing there, a tall black man. He was looking at me with his wide eyes and nostrils flaring in anger. His eyes wanted to talk to me but he didn't say anything . He just stood there, in silence. Whole restaurant was silent and he was looking  down at me where I was sitting. His eyes started widening even more and I could see small lines forming in his eyes as blood started rushing in, and in no time his eyes resembled the color of coals in my hookah. I looked at them looking at me in anger. That anger then slowly started melting in his eyes. I saw a glass layer start forming around the blood veins dissolving all the redness in his eyes. They were still wide open but there was no anger in them anymore. I felt my cries from inside were also following through my eyes now. 

He a black man just stood there, tall and strong, in silence, with tears in his eyes and love in his heart.

He was looking at me, a brown man, sitting tired in my chair, face in my hand but salt in our eyes was same.

I guess that's what love for another human feels like.

Deceit

I see him sleeping on a bench

at the train station next to my home

I haven't seen him awake.

Neither the whistles of constant streaming trains

nor the work talks

of working people wake him up

But one day he stood up

and shouted at people

his eyes were red,

maybe because of excessive sleeping.

His words were not clear 

but the pain in his eyes was real.

Everybody was confused around him

his words weren't making any sense

And that agitated him even more.

I went to him and offered him some water

and an old granola bar from my bag. 

He ate the granola bar in 2 bites

and drank all the water from my 32 oz hydro flask bottle.

He smiled at me,

there was no more pain in his eyes,

He was not shouting anymore.

He looked at me and at everybody 

at that train station for 2 minutes,

mumbled few words

and went back to his sleep again.

I now give him food and water everyday

to see the pain in his eyes disappear.

Why do I need a New Year's Eve every year?

I was driving at 12:00 AM on December, 3st 2019 from Mojave Desert to my home (the desert of my own) when the whole world slid into a new decade.

Well, not the whole world but everybody who lives in pacific standard time slid into a new decade.

Well, not everybody who lives in pacific standard time because not all of them follow the Gregorian calendar for religious or other reasons. And not all the living things care about New Year’s Eve either.

So, we don’t celebrate the arrival of new year together at the same time because it’s different for different time zones. And difference religious, cultural groups and “cults” have different dates for New Year’s. And not all the living things celebrate it. You dog doesn’t care about it or your cat, if you are weird and have a cat as a pet. Yeah, cat parents are weird! There! I said it! But, more on that later. The topic in hand is the significance of a New Year’s. Your pets do not care about it and if you observe them closely they don’t care about a lot of things that humans care about.

So why do we need a New Year’s Eve every fucking year? We have many festivals to celebrate every fucking thing under the sky, I am not going into details but there are some crazy festivals out there and even crazier ways of celebrations. The men of southern part of Pentecost Islands in Vantau celebrate the annual Yam Harvest by jumping off wooden towers around 100 ft high, with two tree vines wrapped around their ankles. This is considered to be a precursor of modern Bungee Jumping. Yea, it’s crazy but, we still need a New Year’s Eve, why?

And the answer is a five letter word - “Reset”. Human brain is a complex mash of emotions, ideas and intellect. It can do complex calculations to figure out the distance between the moon and earth without computers and without even leaving the ground. It is capable of experiencing an array of emotions like love, hate, sadness, joy, anger, anxiety. It is also capable of thinking of its existence in an abstract way which no other living thing can do. Your dog doesn’t judge itself by looking at the mirror and say - Damn! my eye sockets look a little puffy today. Maybe, your cat can but that’s not the point. The point is Human brain is an incredible piece of engineering done by the power of evolution. Time carved out our brain to become what we know today - a living computer. And as any computer would require from time to time, our brain also needs a reset button.

Our collective intelligence as human beings has engineered this Reset Button in the name of New Year’s Eve. We leave all the pain or misery or whatever is shitty in our lives right before it and start afresh without them right after. Just like all the big corporations do every quarter, we evaluate our performance of the year, the good things that had happened, the bad things that could have been avoided. Remember those decisions you regret right after making it, you swear to not repeat them in New year. You adjust your last year’s goals by painting them in a new light and with new inspiration. You draw new boundaries or sometimes relax some boundaries you set last year for yourself. Sure, you were tough on yourself last year and set unrealistic goals and boundaries so you relax them this year.

Then you remind yourself of one thing which was most important to you this year, which you kind of missed or lost or snatched away from you. You make plans to get it back. This could be your health, your peace of mind, your fitness. You make plans for the new year, and that’s what keeps you going.

How all that could be possible without this clear time boundary we have created for us every year? We need time periods to focus on the job in hand. And what's the job in hand? You - “You” are the most important job in your hand.

That’s why you need a New Year’s Eve every year. That’s why I need a New Year’s Eve year. Because without that we will go insane.

Friendly Beer

Being single is exhausting. And when you are in your mid 30s it’s even more tiring because you lack that famous 20 something energy for life’s special kick in the kister moments. 

I was feeling the same damn kick this Sunday morning at 3AM. So, as any 20-something would do, I decided to drive to nowhere. Though I am not 20 something, I wanted to feel like 20-something again, so I balanced out. I decided to drive, not to nowhere, but to LA. Yes, that was a good plan. At least it felt like a nice plan at that time.

A couple of hours later, I found myself in my car, half way through to LA. It had been a good morning drive so far, but now I was feeling a little hungry. I haven’t had anything so far, except for a coffee at a gas stop, where I found out that driving in the wee hours, with no sleep at all the night before, is not fun. 

I saw the sign for Lost Hills’ exit in 5 miles and decided to grab a sandwich or taco or anything with lots of carbs. 

“Fuck intermittent fasting and Keto diet. I don’t want to wait for 3 months to feel good. A good sandwich will have the exact amount of carbs and fat to heal the burns of kicks I have been feeling since morning.” I started making plans about what kind of bread, cheese, meat and toppings I was going to get on my sandwich. 

Lost Hills was still a few miles away, 94.5 had been playing Bryan Adams’ songs all morning. I wondered why? 

“Is it his birthday? Or Is he dead?” 

“This can’t be a coincidence”. I was praying for them to not play “Summer of 69”.

I started drifting to a couple of nights before. I was sitting at The Hub, a neighborhood bar, in downtown San Jose. A beautiful woman at the bar was checking me out. She had a very colorful dress on. Maybe in her 40s, little old for me, but she was cute. I decided to go and talk to her but I was still not sure what was I going to say. I had been coming up with terrible first lines for the past few days.  

Alanis was singing “Hand in my pocket” on the TV above where that girl was sitting. She must be a teenager in the 90s and girls were crazy back then for Alanis. I could work something out on Alanis, she was one of my favorites too. So, I walked up to her with my famous smile and made up but adorable forehead lines. 

“Hi! I am A. J. May I join you?” She smiled back and signaled me to empty bar stool next to her. 

“What are you drinking?”

“OLD FASHIONED!!” She screamed and clapped as Alanis stopped singing and Bryan Adams started his “Summer of 69”

“Oh! Are you from the summer of 69?” I shut my eyes in disappointment and self-pity. 

Bryan Adams stopped singing “The best of me” and started “Summer of 69” on 94.5 as I took exit for Lost hills. My reaction was exactly the same as that night at The Hub. 

I was sitting on a bench outside Subway and eating my meatball Sub, still disappointed, still wallowing in self-pity about what had happened and with my choice of food that morning. 

It’s then that I saw her with her dog. She passed by me and whispered to her dog to go ahead first because there was not much space between me and the table next to me. I thought she gave me a casual glance. Or it could have been my imagination. I had lost all my instincts and confidence. 

I was with her for some time, but then I got my back to my meatball Sub and my self-pity.

She came back but I saw her dog first. He was wagging his tail. He came to me and started licking my face, I called him up on my lap. He liked the taste of meatball sub on my heavily stubbled face.  

She apologized for her dog's behavior. I said "That's okay" ignorantly. I was still playing with the dog. But then I realized how beautiful she was in one glance but there was no way I was going to look back at her right away. I pretended to guess the name of the dog. 

"It's Lee...." She couldn't complete the name.

"NO !!" I said, still not looking at her, signaling my hand towards to stop and pretended to guess the name still.

I looked at the dog, he was still wagging his tail and licking me all over. Then I looked at her as if I am trying to read her face. She was really beautiful, maybe in her early 30s and I then looked back at the dog.

 "You must be Leebo" the dog nodded with a smile from east to west, still wagging his tail.

She was shocked.

"How do you know his name?" She was still trying to wrap her head around it. 

"I can guess the name of beautiful people's pets. That's my superpower." I was very proud of myself. All the self-pity and self-doubts were gone. I was not disappointed any more. My instincts and confidence, everything was back in an instant. 

"What's yours?" I added.

"I don’t know, I can carry a large rock on my wedding finger." She was smiling. There was a giant solitaire shining on her ring finger. 

“Damn it!! That's a waste of inspiration.” I thought, I was mad at myself for not looking at her hand first. 

"I am sorry", is all I could say. It felt harder than the kicks I had been feeling all morning. She was still smiling. But Leebo had stopped licking me, even his tail was not moving. 

I felt so sorry for myself for pissing off a dog, the most forgiving creature on this planet. 

"That's okay, it feels good to be noticed." She said, still smiling.

I smiled back as she walked towards her car.

I was still ashamed of the whole situation and pretended to look at my phone. It's then that I heard her shouting something at me.

"Wanna grab a beer?" She had crossed the restaurant's sitting area and the road between the gas station parking and where I was sitting.

I yelled back - "I thought you were married."

"Or engaged? What's the difference between a wedding ring and an engagement ring? Yeah right, now is the time to think about that. Moron!!!" I thought to myself. 

People were looking at us and I thought for a second that I was being judged by the whole gas station. She also felt a little embarrassed at first but then laughed at me.

"Yes, married people also have beer." She said, still trying to control her sheepish laughter.

"Friendly beer." I whispered as I started my walk towards her.

Darkness

If there is
a scent of black
It's in this room
The night crawls
through the windows
engulfs the belongings
as light fades away
The way it waits
to creep into
my tiny space
I just face
its raze
with fear
and my slightly
dented grace

In search of an end.

Because we divide
Our lives
into good and bad times
Maybe it's this process
which fuels our minds
to take us beyond
the imagination
of the world
to a place
of numbness
where every thought
comes to rest
and peace makes
its shelter
and you let go
of yourself
in search of a
beautiful end

Memory Lane

On the road

To find my way
Back to myself
I saw faded memories

Few looked like rusty ship

Abandoned in a desert

Anchored in the middle of nowhere

The captain lost the direction

Ran her into the ground

And now she is stuck

And no one to rescue

Dying everyday

Every inch to ground

Few looked like tip of mountains

Treacherous to reach

Covered in snow

Shrouded in clouds

I could see green top

From tiny cloud windows

That was an added mystery
To already faded memories

One had a face with a smile
Of younger me
Breaking up all the shackles
Uprooting all the anchors
Blowing off all the clouds
Looking at me with closed eyes
A faint smile
And a glow
Of assurance