Things were getting beyond control now.

All sorts of nocturnal cacophony were assaulting my ears, and the demons in my mind, lounging in diurnal sloth, had all jumped out of the claustrophobic confines of the mind, to make it a night of entertainment. Their guffaws, giggles and grins rent the air. Were they notes of laughter? No way. More like shards and shrapnel clashing and clanging against each other, trying to hone the serrated edges of a threnody. The trees seemed to be lamenting something – perhaps the loss of their leaves?

The mind is a runaway lover. A philanderer. My mind kept running in the direction of the kitchen, where a newly bought toaster stood gleaming in its fresh, virginal splendour. It stood rooted to the spot – the mind, I mean. My heart stealthily crept out and joined it there. Both stood looking at the toaster.

‘Oh, for a freshly toasted slice of white bread, slathered with lots of butter.’
“Have you seen your girth?” 

​

Now, that Inner voice, perennially talkative, had taken over. Yakkity- yak it went. How come it is so intuitive?  I had not even given voice to that yearning, but it read my lips, prematurely. I looked at my girth from the corner of my eye. The corner twitched an ugly twitch. I turned away, beating a hasty retreat.

 
Was someone drooling over the thought of having buttered toast, at midnight?
No, not me!

Through open eyes, I saw myself running a race – stumbling-tumbling, falling-getting up, grumbling, plodding forth relentlessly. A rodent running the rodent derby, sometimes with an ataxic gait, sometimes with diffident steps, sometimes reluctant, sometimes willing – but running nonetheless.  I was still running when a sunbeam peeped through a chink in the curtain. The sun appeared to be on the verge of breaking into a symphony. Looking at the sky, I wondered at the games the mind plays. What tricks and what pranks it is up to!

On the wall in front of me hung a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Canna [1919]. The early morning sunrays fell directly on it, and before I could exclaim at the beauty of it, I saw the Red Canna detaching itself from the painting, cruising towards me, standing before me, and offering itself to me with a HAPPY NEW YEAR greeting.

Clasping the canna to my chest, face sheathed in a broad smile, smacking my lips, I headed towards the kitchen to have that buttered bread slice, toasted in the brand-new toaster-the mind-games forgotten in the anticipatory gluttony of the moment.