The lack of imagination keeps the existence of reality

Time is catching up, she realised, maybe even overtaking her. It was like any other summer day, the sun taking its time to find his usual seat in the sky. She was woken up by birds chirping, trams gliding by and the scratching sound of the broom by the roadsweeper. Seasons have changed, trees now bear a full crown of leaves that will start falling in a month or two. It has been a year since school ended, a year since the wedding. Life changed since then, from a flurry of activities to a crawling state. Like the slug that moves a fraction of an inch forward with every muscular contraction. Her breaths are deep, silent and undetectable, almost hibernating but awake enough to hear the feather drift to the ground. Time is moving, but is she?

These days she sits, thinks and dreams. The only bustle occurs in her head. The world outside of her four walls and the one she is in are in separate universes. When the two worlds do collide, it is when she travels by the portal underground to that world. Always an alien and alone, wandering through the streets of that world, occasionally curious enough to look at all the colours and swirling gadgets and the Others but usually she got her business done and hurried back to her own world via the same tunnel. Is either universe real? She never knows except for the cold railings she hold on to in the portal and for the Others to whom she utters a customary formality when making a transaction. ‘Do you want a bag for it?’ ‘Yes, please.’ Never anything more. Sometimes she takes the chance of not saying anything, but apparently it is no crime to not observe the formality. In and out of the shops she went, almost like the shadow or just the draft that is light and gentle as well as invisible. Back in her world again. Closing the door behind her the bustle started. The more hectic the bustle, the less clear if both worlds are real.