THE SENSE CALLED LIFE

Eyes closed, mouth wide open
Legs and hands kick
With wild but innocent anger
The child wails on her lap
Her ears and limbs deafened by its pitch

Now a bushy heap, her husband rests
And to her right the eldest son plays
He hums a car's sound his whitish scaly
Body parading the frames of his structure
He takes a look at her and instinctively
Stops pushing the his precious toy - a block of wood
He pays closer attention and follow the thick ball
Flow from her cheek to chin, into the air, to the dust

Time lapses, the child falls asleep
Frail and smelling like an ammonium gas chamber
It breathes a second at a time
Three months have passed, will it make it to four?

She picks a plastic container
Heads for the lake shore
Along the shoreline lie frustrated fishermen
Pollution and population have taken toll

With a bright smile she approaches
A group of them, already whispering about her sway and curves
One takes her aside, two deer sardines jump subtly
At the approach of the slight calm waves swaying the just arrived trawler 

From a distance watches another woman
Eager to see weakness in the bargain
And move in for a strike at luck should she fail
And unconsciously, she prays for her fail

Her prayers were never answered
For she saw her bend to fill
The plastic container to the brim
She watched her stand up, exchanging smiles with him
No cash from her, no change from the fisherman

Two days of peace follow
At sun set he innocently looked at him walk in
A small radio in his massive hands, a piece of wood in his

The man would turn up the volume
In the wee hours of the dark
The boy would float between whispers, sleep,
And a non-stop creaking FM station
The presenter periodically talks of a show
In the Capitol to fundraise for hunger victims

After they were done, he lowered the volume
Crickets' and frogs' dominate the dark
She turns to faced him
He could not see her but felt the silent question

In a frail voice she slowly started her narration
The meet
Talked of her dagger eyes
Witch blended threats and the fear in her heart
Through stepped into his heart and disturbed he was
The presenter announce the time
He stood up, reached for his clothes and left without a word

II

Two days pass and the honorable member's secretary
Walks in, in high heels and quality counterfeit designer suit
On his table she places a thin file and four national dailies

He goes through headlines and kickers
Looking for pics, points and angles taken on him
He smiles and turn over the next leaf with a quarter ad -
The latest CLK - he stops and looks at it
Reads through details then dial the numbers
At the bottom of the slick picture

The honorable member jolts up after the call
He holds the four dailies together, slump them aside
And out he walked for the usual breakfast meeting

III

The secretary walks back into the exceptionally
Expansive office, closing her eyes upon breathing
The trail of a real designer cologne
She clears the table her boss calls
"The drawing board"
She is not in a hurry
The boss takes his time in his breakfast meetings

Her eyes roam the expansive desk
She takes a deep breath at the cologne's trail ones more
And in the boss' cream leather chair she slumps
Pull the dailies and flip through the pages
She sees the CLK ad, she stares hard
Closes her eyes and wonder whether a rich man will ever be hers

Realizing where she is, she breaks the reverie
Looks at the paper again and sees a filler besides the ad
It was only a few words so on she read

Lake Shore District:
A woman and two children suspected to be hers
Were yesterday found burnt beyond recognition
Found with them was a man's body
The incident took place at the Lake shore District
In the wee hours of darkness
Police arrived at the scene after the burial
They are yet to establish the cause of the fire

She hears the phone ring on her desk
Hurriedly, she picks up the untouched thin file and the dailies
Behind her she pulls the heavy wooden door with a gold title riveted on it
THE HONORABLE MEMBER FOR LAKE SHORE DISTRICT