To Fetch A Crystal Ball!

She was running; hiding her face behind raindrops

It was like a glass shield but stranger.
It was cold and her eyes ached for trying so hard to see
To see into the night
To see over the shadows
To see the next step

Her breath could not match her heartbeat;
She had lost something while running in the rain
But it was hard to think of it now, so she ran faster
She felt her heart stopped,
Stopped for a second.

She ran to the room hiding,
From everyone and everything although there was no one there
She still felt threatened by things,
Their presence and their shadows

She hid herself in the small room,
Empty!

She had lost something while running in the rain
But she couldn’t think of it

She was covered by the cold tears of sky
And later on by a towel and a cold sheet,

Her hair started to suck up the raindrops
But there were enough of them left to make her a halo
Glowing under the thin line of light
Coming in from nowhere

She hid her face in the towel,
She hid her body under the sheets,
And went to sleep thinking
The walls will do the job; hiding her cold body from the world

While trying to move her thoughts far, faraway from the room
She remembered what she had lost in the rain;
A crystal ball she bought in the Friday market!

The crystal ball that showed her shining face that morning
Distorted, vacant but still shiny

She had bought it
Thinking it was a good deal
She remembered the vendor; a young girl
But she couldn’t make a face for her
The only thing she could see then was the crystal ball

She lost it while running in the rain
She had bought it for now, for this moment
Just to hold it in her hands
She wanted it for now
And for the time she is forgotten

She had lost the crystal ball
And that was the last thing she thought of, before going to sleep
Waiting there for someone to find her,
Like the crystal ball waiting for a hand to be fetched.

The Crystal Ball that I never bought, NYC, May 2008