June 20, 2008

Coming back home.

The steel key shafted into the doorlock and her fatigued hand turned the levers opening the door of her:their; new flat. It was around four and she fell on the sofa and did not bother to decide o which rack she wold put her shoes, she did not bother that day. The ripe sunshine beamed on her from behind, that gave her golden hair. Her numb eyes stared at the grey television screen; how much longer could she bare?
'Should I break off? What more can I possibly do? Then...'
Questions.
Illogical possibilities that don't come true till you see them, or they stare at you, long enough till you break down. She looked at herself, 'the head is giving me problems, need to do something about it....' Her body lay on the sofa, Sleep was enforced.
Done.
Something is hurting again...the shoulder now...something always has to hurt I guess, she thought, or else you'd lose yourself. But some things she knew are fatal, they cling to you like a shadow; shadow of the midnight's dream. What is more important? What is worth? Is it? she sat on a merry-go-round and then she could never get off, not that she didn't have the ticket but more that she could never make up her mind. But why? Its a perfectly fine marriage, I need to hold on a bit more, Shouldn't I? or....
'Tara!...' Her husband Girish called, he was home. Must be nine, i slept too long, she thought. As she got up blood that flooded her skull came gushing down and the memory of the day's accident buzzed up. He stared at her, she could not stare back. Through the glass anger his, she could see, but that wasn't her fault, was it? What if...?
'Ae Tara! Have you gone blasted deaf? Where's the food? I'm starving.'
Forgot. Daily chores.
She got up hesitantly, with her frozen shoulder; still in her uniform...The grey , the white and the grey. Shirt buttons open...no bother. Somehow she did not bother tonight, although she wanted to...She paced to the kitchen.
There he was, pathetic...in his vest loose and unsuitable for him. Hairy armpits...how she hates them. Couldn't he see I was sleeping, all tired and troubled? came all on me...food!...but he did see me with him...but...she thought she wanted to say this, but then would it be very healthy for the relationship?
'Umm...'
'What are you staring at now? No food...Fuck...I'll have to eat the left overs now...'
'You could...'
'No thanks, why don't you? Oh! wait a minute, you must be full, na? Nice meal you both had. Weren't you a bit close? for 'just an old friend?' and you did seem happier than ever...'
'We're just old friends...please spare me.'
'Never, I will nor spare you nor your bloody friend...'
'He has nothing to do with this...please just let it be...I'm sick of it.'
Her voice almost choked, eyes were about to cry. She was breathing heavily, a lot of things got stirred up, a lot of problems...
Rajesh had nothing to do with this, nor anyone else...why does he have to have such a problem? What is my problem?
'There! Why do you love him? Don't you love me? eh? Answer me! bitch...'
He spat his poison all over her, his face was red and his eyes grew bigger. His face was near her's. She could smell his breath and all the rot that lay inside and as the words fell on her something went off.
Questions? Answers? Me? You? Love?
'I hate you. I do. I love him. Ya...'
Tears swept her face and she ran inside and sat on the bed and cried. Girish could not move for a few moments...his eyes had died away. Like a wounded animal, he backed the kitchen wall and stared at the floor.
Tara took the whiskey bottle out of its rest, poured it in the steel glass, and drank it. Filled it again but the malt was now rocking her head. She could also see her dark image in the glass sway. Everything was falling apart, the more she held it tight the more it slept away...like sand in your hand. Girish came in, fuming; his pupils had dilated and he held his jaw tighter...
'You...whore...get out of my house...out now...I've had enough of your liberal culture.'
Data in...data out...no processing.
Tara's hand slammed the steel glass on the table and pushed Girish to the wall...
'Culture? You...tell me about culture? You bang that bitch what's-her-name everyday and you mister tell me about culture? eh? I just laugh with a friend and I'm a whore?'
'How dare you...I wouldn't ever think of it... '
'Just shut the hell up...I was there with Shama during her abortion...When she aborted YOUR bloody child...and not you...You're just a worm...I feel like puking when I look at you...'
Girish's head blew to a billion pieces. He couldn't look at her anymore, he was no longer the holier one.
'...'
Girish's face melted and he came closer to Tara and held her.
'O Tara, it wa...'
Tara pushed him away.
'Get off me....
You know what? Hell with you and your love. I'm leaving.'
Processor out of order? She doesn't think so. Questions do come back, they never leave. Maybe they even come with to to the after world or your next birth, but they do come back, big. Why did I come back any way? Where? She thought...Worth and worthlessness. Who decides.
Next day Tara stood in front of the same door, the key in the slot.
Home?...Next?... ... ...
Sigh.

June 9, 2008

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The air had been quite unmoved by the darkness of the night, the street light was flocked by those same moths again; they are the same everyday, he tried to count them every night as he gazed into the darkness beyond the florescent Lucifer. He had nothing to do, his labor was to wait, till one day an infant sunray comes screaming to him and takes his misery away. He did not know what he had been suffering from, he did try to overhear the doctors' conversations, their muffled voices through their gas masks.
From the window he returned to his bed : home, still staring out at the world. Moths, blindness, fence, a cot and hardglass window. There was a shed in the compound that the boy could see, the shed with open window...you know the ones with the wooden panes and all...a curtain fell out in the winds. White laced air fluttered over the jet blackness. Well past midnight the sky grew denser, a more solid black. Tears fell, distilled water, tears of the Night God. He saw the rain for the first time in the florescent spotlight.
All illuminated droplets like the tiny eggs of the Glassdragon or a thousand moths that had flocked the sun and fell: only still ashes.
He went to his window, square it was- sealed in the wall meant only for light. He was watching the rain for the first time; mud, frogs, water...adventure. A torrent had started rummaging the glass surface from outside, his pale fingers tried to touch the cool nectar but did feel nothing, his skin was accustomed to only cloth and metal. The thin cloth over his skin and the metal cot, the metal walls which were expensive but he didn't know. A small cell, a world of nothingness compacted in white, like a demon's mind and the window his eye...a white cyclops world.
No complains, no arguments, life and breath...bare and basic necessities- his share of happiness. But he too prayed, not for anything deeper than the flesh; he wanted the pain to cease, he knew no words, few sounds, few touches and fewer feelings. Klick-klok,Klick-klok,Klick-klok....like a surfacing snake which slid across the fragrant mildew over his memory, in the atrium of his chest a needle screamed as if trying to pound its way out. Delicate hands, one trying to see trough the glass and other through the chest. The scene of the window was washed away by the water, a river of colors like a playful sync, the head thudded the glass, the needle was about to come out.
In time...
The middle of the window became a river of flame, slow like flowing lava, moonlight lava. His pupils dilated and in a gasp a thick red liquid spouted out of his mouth. It was rich, red and translucent, it stained the sun red. Wasn't it wondrous? Pain ceased, his head felt like his hair, and his body became his clothes. He breathed a kiss, to his bloodlit sun, his soulless body fell over the window and down to the floor. What a waste! In a room lonely and awfully alone, his mark on this world lay.
His share of love, of ecstasy, of pain and of happiness; lay...there...in this share of his world.