I am writer, hear me write.

I am writer, hear me write.
Thaatchaayini Kananatu

A jumble of words – chaotic, unspoken, unwritten, unforgivable – exist, fester, roam and die in my mind. If you could see, read these words, imprinted in bold, italic, Times New Roman, scribbled in my gray cells, you would agree. I am a writer.

Unlike a novel, short story, poem, essay or encyclopaedia, there is no order in these words. They simply live like unpredictable, disorderly, rebellious teenagers – unsure, uncertain, hesitant, fearful, crazy, unstable and hormonal. They think “?!@#” is a word.

My conscience tells me, I should create some sort of order, regime, plan – and arrange these words systematically so they may make some sense. To who? For starters, to you. You the reader – who are you anyway? Do I know you? Have we met?

The Conscience spanks my hand, tsk tsk, behave and be respectful. Okay, so I will – be orderly and systematic – for the sake of strangers. So they may not trip and fall on these pages, or tear it apart in agony, or spit and scream at the idiot who wrote it. For the sake of clarity, for sanity, and largely because Conscience is such a hard task master, I will attempt to regroup, and recreate.

Be forewarned, it is no easy task. These words, they are in cowboy country. There is no sherriff to keep them in line, keep them legal. Instead, on these desolate lands, arid, barren, scorching hot, the words – ride on wild horses, shoot each other at noon, kidnap thoughts, and hide in mountainous terrain – I cannot find them at times of great need, or when they have done something very very bad.

I find myself unable to discipline them, to restrain them, to teach them – to follow regulations, rules, the law – and they know this. They know I am a wimp. Not a governor or dictator who will throw her iron fist (pen included) with great might and force the recalcitrants into submission. Even as I write this – I can hear them laughing, mocking, teasing, taunting – “Nyeh Nyeh Nyeh…”

I may have to hose them down, there is no choice. Here they are – red, green, orange – stop, go, wait/wait to go. A traffic system for these words – so they may go when told to and stop to give way to those articles and particles that frequently get run down like pedestrians attempting to cross a highway. Roadkill.

Queue up, I shout – a middle aged, bus driver, balding, a little tipsy on last night’s beer, the wife’s screaming still seething – like him – I shout, “Queue up!” These words – they are barbarians, jealous, aggressive, gung ho, even kiasu – evidenced in the number of incidents we have had to suffer. There have been accidents. Proper, good, citizens have been trampled, killed and buried. They return of course – but as zombies, the undead – no match still for the barbarians that run this place.

Who would have thought – this mind – my mind – would become such an unruly place. A charade of Butch Cassidy’s, vampires, “Sundance Kid”, monsters, creatures, politicians, rulers, dictators, and the list is endless. So they tell me.

Come back next time, if you want to, and maybe I would have cracked my whip and taught these crazies a lesson or two on writing.