Does your conscience bother you

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,

nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship;

it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when

he discovers that someone else believes in him and is

willing to trust him.

Glory of Friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson

or, in other words

If a dog will not come to you after having looked in your face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

- Woodrow Wilson

Fee, fie, fo, fum

Aparna says you are hilarious.
Gwen says you are hard to understand.
Lakshmi says you think you are a subconscious genius.
Ainara says you cheered me up.
Barbara says you are a good memory for me.
Ingur says you were always special.
Namrita says you are like jam on otherwise boring bread and butter days.

And I say,
I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everyone’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s the same as talking to you.

Actually that’s what Dylan, the other Dylan, Bob Dylan says.

Feeling lonely?

They often compare loneliness to the stranglehold of a multi-tentacled beast. But all the while all around me I see companionship in it's various avatars bringing it down one tentacle at a time.

With friends like these

Four were imbecile, two dogmatic and one had yet to see the light. These were my friends. The imbecile were the easiest to get along with. You could be a child among them and they would never judge you. With the dogmatic you had to just stand on their side of the fence and then the grass always seemed green. Albeit on the other side. It was the one who had yet to see the light that posed the biggest challenge.

For she was evidently sightless, but as yet unaware. So, she contently skimmed the surface of darkness and yielded more dark. She ran her fingers through it. Anointed her forehead with it. Immersed her whole being in it. Till darkness oozed from the pores of her skin. Brandishing the resulting shroud of darkness as an embellishment she’d argue through the night against light. You’d gently say that she had yet to see the light but the darkness would swallow your words.

She could have been an imbecile but her heightened sense of self would not let her be a complete child. Abandoned, carefree, impulsive. She could have been dogmatic but she wanted both ways to be her way. No, she simply had to see the light.

So one particularly dark night I stole her pet parrot and trained him to repeat, “I say there is no darkness only ignorance”. And patiently waited for dawn to melt the night away.