the first time she could remember seeing the little squiggly things was on a fever dream of a school bus ride home, one of the thousand she must have taken, jelly jiggling with the other sweaty sticky kids to the rhythm dictated by the undulating surface of the crumbly gravel roads. she rarely napped, like some of the other kids, who would lull themselves in slow motion onto whatever hard (or soft grimy uniformed) surface available, slumbering through the troughiest of troughs, the mirthiest of guffaws.
she perhaps remembers this afternoon, because for whatever reason, she was not interested in participating in whatever shenanigans the backseat was upto, maybe ranjan was being extra annoying today, probably showing off his multi-functional pencil box or some sticker pack, or perhaps, she was in one of her more thoughtful moods after reading something in english class that struck a strange little chord in her, as would happen on occasion. whatever it was, she found herself lulling in slow motion towards the window.
lemon-soaked sunlight engulfs the interiors of the bus, not exactly sparing her face, or the translucent skin of her eyelids. she remembers being surrounded by a soft glowy orange glow, and then suddenly, like a lens manically trying to lock focus, her gaze shifting onto what seems to be a sheer curtain of mushy squiggly floating delights in front of this orange backdrop. had they always been there? she wasn't sure.
bam
the bus came to a halting screech and she jerked awake.
she shut her eyes to check if they were still there. they were.
and so there was a world of little shapes and patterns whenever she closed her eyes. there was the one shaped like a person leaping off a diving board. one that looked like a heart if you squinted. she noticed them morphing sometimes, into little smiley faces or tic tac toes. she began to close her eyes more often, checking in on the little thingamajigs swirling around her, in plain sight. she began to be able to identify them individually, always a little amused at their reliability. when she was tired of keeping her eyes open, she could shut them, maybe rub them a little, and the diver and their friends would re-appear.
she wasn't sure if others saw these little creatures too, much less befriended them.
it didn't occur to her to ask anyone about them, nor try to find out more about them in her science textbooks or her older brother's dictionaries and encyclopaedias she would so often pore over. they were little body oddities that she decided were better off only seeing the light of her own intimate awareness. like the textured little lumps and ridges or smooth little dots scattered around her exteriors and interiors that she would stumble across occasionally.
as she grew older, though, she paid attention to them less and less. she had noticed that some of them begin to drop off, too. some splintered and dissolved and disappeared. some times new ones emerged, though she didn't stay around long enough to become familiar with their shapes. she began to disappear into attic with her thoughts when she closed her eyes instead, hoisting herself up the little latch door to where they lived, rarely hanging around in the foyer to catch the view.
she still was not much of a napper. she envied her friends and lovers who could lull themselves into peaceful afternoon slumbers, while she tossed and turned, waiting for them to awake. whenever she'd close her eyes, she'd catch a glimpse for a moment, of the little translucent creatures, before being engulfed in darkness and uncomfortable static silence.
she found out what floaters were. perhaps there was cause for concern, like all the other little lumps and ridges and dots that had grown up with her, tucked away from the light. she had this filed away in her 'to deal with later' folder. a very full folder. hard to shut. she left this one on the desk.
words still tugged at little chords inside her, rendering her strange, somber, thoughtful.
ranjan was not so much of a show off anymore, as she'd discover, running into him on the road in the town they grew up in, many years later. they were some of the few still in this little quiet town, most everyone having left for cities, some further afield than others. it was almost maybe nice to see him. to have that old familiar annoyance bubble up, reducing to a simmer almost immediately, softened by the years it seemed.
as they spoke, she felt like she was back in that washing machine of a school bus, getting tossed around in a soup of sweat and hormones and feelings that were still being named, placed, discovered, shaped, prodded at. she felt small, even though she had no reason to. she was a reasonably confident adult. not a fumbling little girl. she wanted to close her eyes. she tugged at an imaginary school skirt instead.
they got tea. he smoked a cigarette. she did not.
in the auto on the way back, she looked him up on instagram. her phone died before she could really look at anything. she patted around in her bag for cash, and then snuggled into a corner, settling in for the ride.
it had been a sunny day, giving way to a plum-tinged evening. the encounter had left her mouth sticky and dry, her heart clenched a bit, though she wasn't sure why. she slowly, finally, closed her eyes, drifting off into the rhythm of a much smoother road than it had been in her childhood.
surprisingly, this time, there was no darkness. it was bright and smooth, like being in the inside of a well lit hollowed out peach. she found that she did not want to immediately reach for the attic door.
one by one, they began to appear. floating in from the peripheries of her closed eye vision, the little squiggles, old and new, bouncing around like amorphous screensavers. the curtain is visible for a brief second, an accidental shimmer, but it disappears, drops. the diver is there, but older now, her edges softer and more uneven, more flaked, chipped. two pieces of a broken heart. a petal. the letter s. or w? many new unrecognisable puzzle pieces. they move slow, then fast, accompanied by flashing lights (this is new), fuzzy orange static, and solar flares. it's a swirling mushy dance party with all of her old strange friends, they never left, you see.
so much debris.