2.

...The next day I left the studio and got into the last bus for the wharf. The driver was drunk. Music was playing. I got a seat. They rarely play music in these things. Sweet soft saxophone sang a lullaby. Cars honked outside. People got in. People got out. Fished for seats. Fished for change. Quarreled. The driver swore. It was beautiful. I sat there, listening, thinking, isn’t this fucking beautiful? A Konkani crooner overtook the sax now. Someone hummed with. Behind me a mother told her kid to stay up for just a bit more. The bus will stop now. Then home, dinner and then sleep! The little boy looked out of the window.  

The ferry was late again. I sat at the edge of the water, waiting. The river was dark, speckled with ships. The bridge was dim, distant, wet. Huge ships renovated into casinos stood docked in front of me. Shiny multicoloured lights, moving, shimmering, hypnotizing. One of them had a big electronic billboard. Casino Pride, it advertised. Then the C in Casino turned into a roulette wheel and went round and round. Round and round until it vanished and there was a dealer wearing a red vest doing card tricks. He vanished and there was a busty woman at the table screaming with joy. Now a fat man with a goatee kissing a card before he played it. Now another fat man ordering a drink. Now a bunch of cakes. Now a brunette in a bikini, winking, pouting. Now a smiling bartender. Now two blondes clinking glasses. Now a roulette wheel going round and round and round again until it turned into the huge C of Casino Pride. Now the busty woman again. And everyone was so motherfucking happy. The fat hairy men were happy. The women were happy. The dealers were grinning like the end of the world. The doorman was fucking ecstatic. The waiter gave you an impression that he would lay his life for a twenty percent tip. The tourists behaved as if the whole world was trying to sell them something. I kept on looking at the bizarre hypnotic show, smoking. Waiting for the brunette. All the lights were there but there was no sound. Just smoke. Just a constant hum of some distant yacht. The fat man ordered another drink. Someone spat at my feet. Everyone was waiting for the brunette now. More lights. Flickering lights, shimmering lights, mad wondrous dancing lights. And no sound. The water lapped softly at my feet. The fat man won his hand. And then, as the brunette finally winked again, the tired dark rusty blue ferry came to take me and my tired rusted people home.