Thoughts
I am sitting at the table.
The table is a train wreck, as always. There are marks all over the surface. Blots, scratches, chinks, cuts, burns, what have you. There are scratches from scratching, ink stains from pen leaks, and discolorations from chemical spills. There are tiny bumps and ridges from split glue and wax due to nails I have hammered in. Near the front, the splotches have outdone the varnish, you can no longer distinguish the original color. The back fares a little better, primarily because it’s harder to reach.
In front of me is my touch-screen laptop. It is one of the few luxury items I own. It is sleek, black, and shiny. It rotates 360 degrees on its hinges and is riddled with magnets. The stylus is brilliant, the backlight is functional, the design is superb. It is one of my prized possessions. Unfortunately, it looks and feels disturbingly fragile. In terms of pure sturdiness, my old laptop was a hunk (10 years old, tortured mercilessly, and I can still count on it), and this is an infant in comparison. I am terrified I will shatter the screen and ensure it always sits on a piece of foam.
The laptop keyboard is excellent, regardless I am currently typing with an external, mechanical keyboard. The mechanical keyboard is my second luxury purchase, and it is worth every penny. I love it almost as much as the laptop. It has a sturdy and strong design, with elegant black and grey keys and a lovely finish. The raised keys are a treat, the click of the blue switches is invigorating, and the legendary blue backlights have such an aesthetic luster I could stare at them for hours.
The only issue is that it adds to my wire problem. There are simply too many wires. Keyboard wires, mouse wires, charging wires, too many wires. I want to go wireless but I haven’t saved up enough. The wires entangle the entire table, but they are not the only culprits.
In the confusion of wires, there is a small, dark-green packet of Lexus biscuits. It sits on a square of soggy tissue paper that I left out to dry. To the left is my phone and to the right is my stationary bag. Next to that is an open notebook; I had been jotting down notes the night before and I have not closed it since. At the door of the notebook, quite aesthetically placed, is my mechanical pencil. Accompanying the mechanical pencil is a lone paperclip.
At the very back of the table, in a corner is the laptop stylus. I don’t place it on the magnetic holder anymore, it has a heart-stopping tendency to slip and fall when I am flipping the screen over to 360 mode. Dangerously close to the edge of the table, I have another phone charging. I am used to keeping my phones half over the edge of the table; it’s not that dangerous, they’ve only fallen over a handful of times.
Apart from the general litter, there is also a black mouse sitting idle, not plugged into anything; and a 15-inch rod I removed from a fishing pole. It is my reaching rod. I use it to flip switches or slide things closer to me when I don’t feel like getting out of my chair. I even attached a binder clip to one end; it makes it easier to hook onto objects.
Apart from the common litter, there is a one-liter glass bottle and a box of biscuits, for snacking purposes. The water bottle glass is transparent but thick, and the circular curves refract the light just enough to distort the other side into incomprehensibility. The bottle started as a bottle of tomato sauce, but since nothing is ever disposed of in a Bengali household, it has since been repurposed as a cold-water bottle. It generally stays in the fridge, with its two identical counterparts. Consequently, the glass is always wonderfully cold and foggy with condensation. However, that also means the glass drips moisture everywhere, and there is a small puddle beneath it right now.
The box of biscuits, like the bottle of water, was not originally meant for biscuits. It is a transparent, cylindrical plastic box with a green screw-on lid. Near the middle, there is a logo with the word “Taaza” in slanted letters. It was originally a box of tea (or maybe it had been gifted alongside a packet of tea). The tea eventually ran out. Now the box keeps our opened packets of biscuits from going soggy.
Finally, there is the dust, a table load of dust. Living in Dhaka is living with dust. Every dayI wake up and find coarse dust lining my beautiful laptop and in the cracks of my keyboard. I sweep it off, occasionally, but it doesn’t do much.
Once in a blue moon, I might also tidy the table. Dump the trash, remove what’s unnecessary, and straighten up what’s remaining. Needless to say, that doesn’t last either. Not even long enough for it to be worth it. Tomorrow, I will have a different set of litter than I do today, and the day after that, a new set still.
It’s fine, though. I have accepted much of myself, and I think I can find beauty in tomorrow’s litter as well.