by Oshadha Perera
100°c tears
period one
on a monday
usually the time when people rush late
because r-rated movies handcuffed them
in front of the ticking clock
or because they fell off their bikes
while trying to prove that flying is baby work
but today
the sun is on a business trip to a faraway galaxy
with a generous microwave as acting manager
and clouds are at the doctor with a runny nose
that blows out snot with buy-one-get-one-free fire
still
when our teacher peels off his threadbare jacket
and the marker scrapes the whiteboards
with free time till 10,
everybody is there
glued to their warm chairs
ready to go
skimming through the p e gear
into the field
the field that had grass
turned yellow
brown
black
every molecule of water
sucked out
by a coup of dryers in ‘strangle’ mode
into two teams
quick!
searching for the try line
that has melted into the grass
tossing balls up, down, left, right
with dried hands looking like a draught whipped by heat
legs bleeding every time it touches the grass
the brain reading the blood loss to the power of ten
when the person next to me asks
hey, are you sweating?
i don’t have to look at my skin
to feel boiling liquid puncturing my skin
with sharp tranquilisers
welling my blood vessels
paralysing them
one by one
but it’s not only me
the whole class
walking
crawling
struggling
tongue out
gulping down air
air that has been through
a thousand-degree oven
burning the windpipe
lungs
heart
spiking through every molecule
pulling and pushing
until is bursts
ambulances rushing
to take in fainted teachers, students
but it will be no use
until the bubbling air
decides to stop testing sewing needles
through the tyres
water
drippling
drop
by
drop
evaporates before
it reaches the worn off tongues
that will melt into a liquid
drier than abandoned play sand
lines, please dumped into a twenty-feet deep hole
thousands stumbling
fainting
dropping dead
around a single tap
that looks like a fleck of dust
in a massacred graveyard
trying
and trying
and trying
to reach the water
life
future
in a world
with no undo buttons