"I tell you all the time, heaven is a place on earth with you."

He only wanted to write. Write about him and her, about them and theirs. About love and loss. About the wet towel lying on the floor, the ivory curtains. About the sheer fucking pride that got in the way, and then there was the stupidity and how they wanted everything. About the kiss on the beach, about the waves that touched their ankles. About the lines that were blurred. And the knowledge of previous lovers, the ones who never were. And now here he lay, dying. Dying by the window. Dying in a room full of forgotten memories. Dying with a smile on his face. But he wanted to stay alive for her. For when she would barge into the house with her trench coat hanging over her shoulders, her fingers curved around a half-read book. And they would smile but without exchanging any words. She would lift the towel from the floor and place it on the bed. He would pick it up and attempt to fold it into a careful square. She would watch him in silence, from a distance, and then from a little closer.

It rained today, so I caught a glimpse of me in every dark puddle in my way. A reflection of a stranger's eyes. I forgot to smile, but I didn't mind. And the maid was angry because she was left without instructions. Without instructions and a decomposing body. And the river that flowed behind the burning house was oblivious to the magnificent blaze. She was like light and dark at the same time. Think black fire, he said, trying to be helpful. So she nodded, listening about a woman from his past, as she herself was wiped from his memory, in spite of sitting there in her pretty little dress. Pretty little dress, dirty little secrets. She wants to throw back her head and laugh at the misery waiting to unfold for her. For her to bend down and pick up the pieces of everything that went wrong. And I am thinking of how I have never read a Jane Austen.

And it all falls down, burning everything to the ground,  the ground. She sways as she sings, her hips, her waist, her shoulders. Her hair, her eyes, her lips. The dress, it has little sequences, which catch everyone's eyes, even yours. The song is something melancholic, but you expected nothing else, nothing less. Plaza Hotel, red carpets, black limos, diamonds and heels. A low swoop of the wind, lifting an elegant dress, forcing her to bend down, her shoulder hunched, her neck sticking out, as she laughs at the cameras. Who knew that would be the end of her marriage. That movement, that moment, beautifully captured to adorn a million white walls. A single strike, no second chances. And this is my idea of fun, she sang, playing your videos games. Because it's all for you, everything I do..

They are white, these flowers, shaped like sprouts. I don't know what they are called, but they are making me happy. They remind me of flowers that were exchanged on a bridge, the accompanying smile, a shy hug, a spontaneous kiss. A painful goodbye, walking away in opposite directions, the gushing wind, taking away a few petals, leaving the bouquet more maudlin than the beating heart, the sad soul.

Why is it so difficult? I am not asking out of spite, or low spirits. I am not accusing, but not accepting either. Why is it so difficult to hold on to that happiness, the hope. Maybe that's why I loved Gatsby so much, for his eternal hope, the green light at the end of her dock. Maybe it's the way he wanted his life to be, never stopping, always on a move. Maybe it was because he wanted everything, and I settled for nothing. Better wasn't good enough, only the best would do. The music, the people, the dance and the drinks. I remember tears, when I reached the end of the book. I was in Bangalore, sitting in an armchair by the porch. My feet propped against the railing, feeling the cold rain wash over my warm bared soles, between my toes.

So I stay in bed and piece my life together, the one which crumbles with every memory, every story, an orphan sentence, an illegitimate thought, a really good book. Maybe I loved Gatsby for the madness in his love. The passion with which he loved and yearned for his Daisy. Wasn't that all I had asked from you, to never leave? To catch me as I fall through. But I hit rock bottom and have bruises to show. It was raining, and I was crying. Crying at the death of Gatsby, the loss, the injustice and anger, but also an understanding. Knowing that I might have done the same, packed up and left. Years ago, I met Gatsby at my front porch and he never left. The blue eyes, the sadness, the music, the cars, the fatal crash. The crazy parties, the mansion, the collection of beautiful shirts, bought from London. Everything remains within my heart, as I mourn his loss.

I put my favourite perfume on and walked the dark streets to meet you. They say that the world was built for two, only worth living if somebody is loving you. But I wish it was easier, to let go of yourself, submit to the words that take over. To not crumble to the floor from the exhaustion of writing. Of failing. Why does it have to be so difficult? I ask again, imploring. No reply. I am thinking of how she died, with stones in her pockets, stepping into the river. I cry because I feel, you laugh because you think. I am thinking of Virginia Woolf. Of Hart Crane. Of Ernest Hemingway. Paul Celan, who threw himself into the Seine, David Foster Wallace, who hanged himself, John Kennedy Toole attached a garden hose to his tailpipe, ran it into the window of his car, and died. And then there was my beloved Sylvia Plath, who sealed herself in the kitchen and put her head in the gas oven. Now how is that for a thought?

"Did you write the book of love and do you have faith in God above?"

A long long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had a chance, I could make those people dance... There must be something wrong, a missing throng, bellowing music, and then an overwhelming desire to shut shop and walk along. To an empty loft, cold and distant. The buzzing of the once silent refrigerator and the scratching of soles against the hardened rug. I was lying in bed, my head propped up against the edge, a fist under my chin, as I blindly tried to grab at something leather at the bottom of my wardrobe. I was looking for an old jacket but found a bag instead. Tan, and warm from the radiator. And can you teach me how to dance real slow? It wasn't a request, nor a command. It wasn't even a question. I used my free hand to pull at the bag, grabbing it by the chest and tugging till the bottom of my wardrobe let go. It went flying over my head and fell to the floor. I heard a clank, the sound of metal on wood. The sound of hurled words through the still silence of a melancholic night. I rolled in bed to reach the other side, peeped over the stray pillow and stared at my little grey iPod.

Hi there, I smiled, leaning forward to grab it. No charge, no problem. I rolled again, to the other end of my double bed and found the charger, plugged it in and waited for it to light up. I couldn't remember the last time I saw this beautiful possession of mine. A month? Two months? Maybe more. It wasn't lost, I always knew where I could find it, where to look. But it was out of sight and hence out of mind. There was no doubt about the song I wanted to listen to first. Because something touched him deep inside the day the music died. And I wonder too, if he cried at the thought of the widowed bride. I imagine her in her wedding dress, her veil pulled back over her head, her dress trailing behind her, dried leaves scattered everywhere. I imagine her running out of her house, into the street, mascara tears rolling down her face. It isn't autumn, but I can't imagine the leaves away, so they stay.

3rd February 1959. Buddy Holly was among those dead. He was 22, just as old as I am now. I remember the date because it's my birthday, only 32 years later. And it feels strange, to be born on the day the music died. I wonder if the widowed bride woke up that day, 32 years later, thousands of miles away from the little town that is my birthplace. I wonder if she cried. If she remembered at all. If she stayed in bed and watched the sun rise and fall. I wonder if she found out about her husband on the radio. Did they have televisions then? Either way the trauma was too much for her and she miscarried the day after. A death after another. And Don McLean knew he was out of luck the day the music died. She married again and had three kids, but did she think of her first unborn child, the day I was born? I ask the ceiling but expect no response. I put the song on repeat and croon along. We all got up to dance but we never got the chance. But do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?

The plane crashed only five miles northwest of the airport. But no one saw or heard the crash. A silent death of the musical legends and all the melodious noise that had been left behind. It was snowing that day. The bodies lay in the blowing snow through the night... "February indeed made us shiver, but it was more than the cold of February that third day of the month in 1959." Words from a newspaper article, thank you Wikipedia.

I am in bed, but I am also at the gym, dancing in a stranger's arms. My dress swaying wildly with each swirl, adding rhythm to the music. And he wore a jacket borrowed from James Dean, his hair coiffed to resemble the heartthrob. The lights went out and on again, catching us off guard. The pink of my dress complementing the beige of his jacket. I am in bed, but I am also floating in the sea, my eyes searching for patterns in the fast moving clouds, blinded by the sharp rays of an unforgiving sun. The smell of salt, the feel of waves, the heat scorching my stomach each time it emerges from under the weight of the sea's many secrets, the people it has killed and those that have clung desperately to its edges, barely surviving.

And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken

I wish I was the girl he met, the one who sang the blues. The one he asked for some happy news. I would look up from the book I was reading and smile, but I wouldn't turn away. I would rack my brain till I found some happy news. And I would follow him down to the sacred store where he had heard the music years ago. And I would watch from a decent distance, as he breaks down at the memories he carries in his heavy heart. And the book in my hand would be a. m. homes' may we be forgiven. Because it is the most compelling book I have read in recent times. The words prance about in your imagination, making you wish that the world would come to an abrupt halt, giving you more time to spend with this book. With George and Harry. With the dead wife and the divorced one. With the strange children and the loving pets. With an empty house, a greedy sister, a buried father and a crawling mother.

I wake up to find that Eddie Vedder has taken over. Singing about how he once built an ivory tower, so he could worship from above. And Johnny Cash, telling me about the time he hurt himself just to see if he still felt and how he focused on the pain, the only thing that's real. Death Cab, confessing to a love that was never felt. She was beautiful, but she didn't mean a thing to me, they said. I want to go back to sleep, with the open window and rain whispering into my ears, the wind and stars causing the curtains to seem ablaze. And Coldplay tries to lull me back into my dreams, assuring me that those who are dead are not dead, they are just living in my head... But I open the book and turn another page, reading my way towards another dawn, another day.

Fiction is an improvement on life, said Bukowski, so I weaved this fantasy for you.

The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under there, I liked being under there. The opening words gripped me and never let go. Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. There is no going back, and all we can do is brace ourselves for the inevitable impact. Because something that starts with such promises, will never end well. Maybe more promises, mostly broken, few kept. Lies, unravelling secrets of past sins and future transgressions. Words, spoken from between bruised lips. Every thought merges, the black eye, the caked blood, the muddied knuckles, the silent tears. A single one at first, and then a flood. The sobbing, the pain, the betrayal. It broke my heart, made me choke back tears, when I chanced upon the dedication while closing the book. For all the fathers, it said.

It was a table. I can't remember the first thing I remember. Yes, I see it too. I don't remember being under any table, but I do remember a tablecloth, a pale pink one. I remember it in its entirety, this colour, splashed across the wooden surface, under my knotted hands. And I remember your piercing gaze, trying to catch my eye, making me blush on the sly. I remember trying to hide a smile, as the conversation continued without us, of families we had left behind, of people that connected us, of dreams and hopes waiting to be realised. Of love that I was eluding, without much success. So I looked at my hands again, trying to escape the majestic grips of your charms. And every time I see a shade close to that pink, I catch myself wishing that I could take that day back, place it tenderly in a velvet lined box, to hold it safe against my chest, to be resurrected at will.

And I would tell you that it is okay to have hope, because sometimes that's the only thing that keeps us going. But you want to talk, pick up where you abandoned. Like a rug that is lifted off and shaken, the dust falling in patterns over the floor, patterns that we can no longer decipher. And how then do you hide from the devil when you don't know what he looks like? You ask and I don't have an answer. But you are used to this, this shaking of my head and looking away, this lack of answers. And in a moment of deluded clarity, I say yes. Yes, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the mistakes we made, the hearts we broke, but never each others. Let's talk about the love we lost, the bridges we burned. The frantic urge to jump into the water and swim against the current, trying to gather the dreams we crushed, rescue the lives we ruined.

Let's talk about it. About the lack of trust, the insatiable desire for power. Let's talk about the accusations we never hurtled at each other, scared to break the fragile fort we had built around us, keeping the well wishers away. And then let's talk about how I died a little every time you looked me in the eye and confessed to the love you never felt. The accompanist pulls his fingers away from the piano, allowing the soprano to take over the music, sending mystic shivers of awe through the crowd. And then she stopped too. Silence. And a sudden applause, catching us off-guard. Because we are not the only players in the field, and we are definitely not the only ones in pain, hurting, crushing others in our whimsical desire to live. Let's talk about how we made dirty streets look new. The rainwater that escaped from our outstretched fingers, the laugh we never laughed.

Sometimes I just want to crawl into my bed and never get out, never face the choices we are now left with, you and I. That's when I am distracted by the turquoise of my bedsheets, which is the same shade as the turquoise of my leather journal, causing my words to disappear within the expanse of my dreams and create a plethora of run away images asking to be chased into the night. A tragic epic for you, a comedy of errors for me. Refusing to be defeated by your silent pleas to make amends, to recreate a world in which you didn't leave me hanging from the cliff of uncertainity. And what weary time those years were, wrote Bukowski, to have the desire to and the need to live but not the ability.

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." - Narrator

Have you seen the world through the curve of a glass? But everything is blurred, so you only see the actual curve, bending through the transparency of delicateness, smudging the edges of space, giving you a distorted view of reality. And then there is that silence which you can hear, the one which reverberates through the stillness. A silence, if it was to be projected into the dimensions of visibility, it would form a single thin line of almost black, stretching just out of your reach, absent from your consciousness until you trip over it. You land on your face, break your nose. Watch as thick crimson forms an elegant puddle near your left eye and the strong metallic scent takes over your senses. There is a sound of shattering glass, and shards that reflect the sun, refracting the light.

So you take a moment to lie there, as the puddle starts engulfing the shards, burying them in a colour so rich, it could only be imagined. And what then is reality, if even the blood pouring out of your face can't push you over the brink of a self-destructive abyss? You are thinking of Nietzsche and in your concentration, you swallow some blood instead. The pungentness of it distracts you from thoughts of this abyss and how long before it will start staring back at you. You laugh, and splutter. You cough, you spit, you feel the stickiness in your hair and you sigh. You think of what a brilliant sight you must make, in your white shirt and no trousers, flat against the white tiles. Long hair, sprawling the floor, the sun pouring through the blinds and the shining of shards, worthy of an art installation.

There are two postcards, with words scribbled in a hurry, or a strange nervousness. The kind you feel when you write to a person who meant something to you, once, a life time ago. And you know that what you have done is wrong, and the only words that can fix this brokenness are no words at all. And lying there on the floor, watching as a wave of pain takes over your senses, you remember something you read on the Internet, in curvy text mounted on a filtered image of a suspension bridge. Something about always wearing nice underwear because you never know when you might get murdered. But you can't remember what you are wearing underneath that over sized white shirt and you frown. You frown because you are thinking of your mother. But your phone it too far away. You want to cry, but you can't do it without an audience. You can't remember your father's voice, your brother's laugh. You couldn't tell your sister apart in a crowd. But you still can't cry.

The pain has shifted to somewhere near your abdomen. You can feel your fingers pressing against your ribs, but you are not able to count either. Five. Five fingers, you say to yourself and then utter your name. But you don't know how many ribs you have. You make a mental note to Google it. There is a giggle but you can't remember how to giggle. You try again, contracting your face, but there is just a weak cough. Laundry. You were supposed to be doing your laundry. And finish that short story which makes you hate your guts. You want a happy ending but it doesn't fit the context. You want to work without deadlines but the bills keep piling up. There is a blank canvas leaning against the window and you smile your wry smile. You imagine getting up, pushing your palms into the swelling puddle and stamping it on the ivory canvas, creating dystopian images of beauty. You try crying again. Dismal. Times are a' changin'. And if your time to you is worth savin', then you better start swimmin'. You settle to tapping your feet and whispering Bob Dylan lyrics instead. Marilyn Monroe smiles at you from the wall, you smile back.

I am Jack's open wound. I am Jack's broken nose. I am Jack's weak pulse. I am Jack's dying body, his dying heart. You try to imitate the narrator. And then you think of Tyler Durden, because you don't need a reason to think of Tyler Durden. You think of all the car companies that won't recall their faulty products. You think of human fat, stored in plastic bags. You think of film reels, flashing at a thunderous speed. You think of the lady who resembles a witch. You wonder if you could take the world down, if you so wished. You think of how it must feel, to have a gun in your mouth, and if you would also speak in vowels, if you did.

But the sun is down now and the cold is forming intricate veins across the floor as it comes to greet you from under the closed doors. You get up and almost fall back down. You check the time and nudge the mouse, the computer has lit up the darkened room and Good Will Hunting starts playing where it was paused. You sit down and lean towards the tissues box, pull a couple and slap them onto your bleeding mouth. And you snort with unexpected laughter when Sean confesses that his wife used to fart in her sleep. Because life is tough. But you are tougher.

"You fail only if you stop writing." - Ray Bradbury

A connubial backdrop in ruminating colours of incandescence, decorating the stage for those who are now strangers. Leaving a trail of faltered misgivings, broken thoughts and silent apologies, they walk away from each other. The hem of her dress wiping away her light footprints on the sand, taking with her the last relic that might have caused him to reminiscence in vain. There is music, adding a rhythm to their uncertain steps, raising the hopes of those who are watching in awe, only to crush them to the floor with a single stroke echoed by seventy nine invisible violins. Someone pulls the string, a heavy crimson curtain falls from heaven, intent on saving the last dregs of their dignity behind the illusion of privacy. Someone else thinks to clap, slowly at first and then gathering momentum, ultimately deafening.

It's a small space, a heavy maroon rug sprawling the floor. There are books stacked from floor up, threatening in their slanted state, warning curious hands to stay away. The only light is from the laptop screen, an eerie glow casting itself on the unsuspected but imagined throes. The throes of battle. The agony of death. Pains of childbirth. Inflicted violence. Throes. Anguish, turmoil, spasm. A mutinous upheaval. And then there is the pain in humiliation, as she tried to run away from him, but wasn't able to. A failed attempt to take her own life and an audience of one ex-lover and a gawky admirer. Because Milan Kundera can create characters that could be your neighbours. Your friends, your lovers, or yourself.

The sigh is heavy, ending with an involuntary shudder. And the cold is embraced with the love you feel for someone you love immensely but also dislike. An aversion of thoughts, a continuous disagreement, an engulfing hug and a piercing pain. Felt all at once, once for all. The averted gazes at first and then the howling of hellos from shores apart, as though only the impossibility of a meeting would make one yearn to meet the other. And we laugh because we know, know the trails that lead us through our trodden past. Hold tight he whispers, she ignores. They are pushed over, their bodies forming a majestic arc, before meeting their end, aghast. And now we all sit back and try not to think of the white teeth that scattered over the mud, glimmering in their cushioned enclaves of earth.

The last month has been a flurry of activities, applications, deadlines and lack of sleep. A burst of ambition that needs to be cajoled into control, before it grasps the reign from my clenched fists. But he always had to fight the undercurrent of disdain and mockery. The stifled giggles and snorted retorts. And Coldplay walks up to the stage, smiling their reassuring smiles, crooning the familiar lyrics, something about a girl who expected the world. But it flew from her reach, so she ran away in her sleep. And before you knew it, you are thinking of stuffed elephants riding unicycles, crossing through farms and into deserts, making their way through the hills and slopes. I smile, because you smile. You smile, because I wouldn't. But you never minded the stubbornness, only the unnecessary harshness. The unexpected unleashing of unpleasantness. I want to apologise, fall to the floor and cry. But I don't do the unwarranted, the unnecessary, so I text instead.

As part of my busy day at HarperCollins today, I was asked to write letters to authors and enclose copies of the foreign editions of their books. I can only imagine how exciting it must be to receive such a package. And I wonder how it feels, to flip through your book and not recognise your own words. To not be reminded of that beach where you thought up that particular plot twist, or the cafe where you finished the first chapter or that stain on the couch where you spilled your tea in your excitement to reach a notepad, before you forgot the beautiful character flaw you just thought up for your protagonist's brother. And in another world, another time, all Richard Powers really wants is to learn how to build sentences that are equal to mental states.