Chapter 2

Push, push and push; the world
A marionette with his strings cut; look now
Burnt up in a flash, a taste like ash.

As he walked home from the site, he tightened the scarf around his neck and throat. It was already drying up, and he could feel the hot dust blowing against his face, trying to find a place to seep in. It was rather early for him to get back home, but he owed his luck to his poor wrist. He had been working with the company for about a month now, and had become the in-house expert on cement-mixing. His work had become supervising the cherries and guide them, from a newbie, to someone worth the green. His salary had also increased, and though he still answered to the foreman, he had no problem with that, for he lacked any ambition. He was content with his job, he loved mingling with his co-workers. He would share his lunch with them, and they would give him their lunch in return, and all would make appreciative noises as the food would settle down. As they washed off the dirt together from the water out a solitary plastic pipe at the end of another intense, dusty day, they would swap outlandish and barely possible stories and fortunes and misfortunes that happened to someone they knew.

Today though, the day had come with an unwelcome surprise. While coming back from lunch, he had stepped on a poorly lashed support. Fortunately, it was only a few feet up from the ground, but in trying to break his fall, he had sprained his wrist. The onsite medico had strapped his hand and told him to stop working for the week.

Surprisingly, contrary to all anti-capitalist assumptions, the foreman had been quite understanding and hadn't docked his pay; he had even offered free consultations with the company doctor. So, he had thanked them all, took the offer, and started for home. On the way he stopped by a payphone and set up an appointment with the doctor for Friday. As the town limits ended, the asphalt kissed his shoes goodbye. The sand from thereon was coarse and gritted its teeth whenever he stepped on it. He would try to find hard ground to avoid it from getting in his socks. But ground was scarce to come by, and his walk soon became a sort of pirouette-and-jump from one hard-found patch to another. Perhaps he should have worn his work boots back to home.

As he continued his dance home, he saw the plants as they struggled against the continued onslaught of desolation. This in itself was nothing new, for he chanced upon them every day. But today, perhaps, Apollo was abound and gave him a little glimpse of poetry to soothe the beleaguered green.

'The path that many took,
Is guarded by a few
The enemy's thine, and mine too
Then why are the sentinels forlorn?'

Perhaps, it was a glimpse into his own soul, a side unknown, but it refreshed his thoughts and granted him loft to ride on. He didn't remember how he reached home, immersed in his own thoughts. His wife was at that state funded charity home in the town with Ket. They didn't have the money to send him to grammar school and the state-run school only took children two years older. So, for now, Ket was under his mother's wings, to be minded as she saw fit. The house seemed pressingly silent without them. And they wouldn't be back for another couple of hours.