Sleepless nights are awake
Eyes sore, watching.
Cramming into mind, minute details of lust.
Dreamless eyes are open,
For the subjugated are thoughtless
The underpinned are dreamless
Tomorrow it may be over
Tomorrow it will be better
Awakening is postponed, till tomorrow.
Escape, is leaving.
Freedom is running.
Away
Red dust waves in and out of the bus halt like a flag.
In and out. Like a flag.
The people are tired grey silhouettes of themselves. Impatient to be home, under the protective shading of clay tiled roofs. Impatient for the bus to come. Craning their sweaty-sticky necks in bus-glimpsing hope.
The flag waves yet again.
I look down at my feet. Looking away from the sweaty-sticky faces at my dusty-worn-out slippers. At the dying grass by the side of the road. The road itself seems devoid of breath.
When I was little, I used to imagine that there were people who washed the roads. That was before I saw the road washing man one night. After that I knew that roads were washed. We were in our van; me, nangi, amma and thaththa. There was a man in the middle of the road, and he was scrubbing the black tar with a bar of yellow Sunlight soap. I learned then, that people washed roads. Like cars, they needed to be washed. But the interesting fact is nobody ever mentions that because it’s a secret only known to the government.
But there’s nothing conspicuous about this. Me standing in the bus halt. Or the tired grey people standing in the bus halt. Or the weathered man washing roads every night, knowing that tomorrow he will do it all over again. The conspicuousness lies somewhere deep within the grey matter of our minds. The conspicuousness is our spirit. No one sees that in the middle of the day in bus waiting silence.
Minutes later, a bus arrived. The conductor flew off the bus before it even stopped. The silence was shattered like glass breaking.
The flag waved in a fanatic cacophony of red.
“ambalapitiya-‘allawatta-Dehiwala-Galkissa-Katubedda-Moratuwaaa”
The conductors’ throat gushed out the sequence of towns. An old woman who wobbled up to the metal bus stairs was shoved in by the inpatient hands of the god of the bus. He got in after her and the bus regained flight, leaving my shoes dustier and worn out than before. Leaving my brain a little foggier.
I was supposed to get into that bus.
Red dust waves in and out of the bus halt like a flag.
In and out. Like a flag.
My bag is getting heavier. Someone sneezed behind me. I imagined his spittle racing through empty space at three-hundred-thousand kilometers per second in a destined journey to reach the back of my neck.
Far off in the cluttered black ribbon of Galle Road, a bus was approaching. Tired people shifted from bus waiting into shuffling of getting into the bus. The conductor was strangely quiet, probably subdued by the flag and the red and the tired-sweaty-smells of the universe.
I sat on the corner seat at the back.
He came in without knocking.
The harsh afternoon sun was reflected in his eyes. The shade of ageless Mara trees, cool and dominant, was dancing between his lithe fingers. There was only a moment, a moment of hesitation, when he saw her sitting on the ground of the mud hut, trying to put the baby to sleep. There was always that moment, where uncertainty chewed at its claws, re-thought, re-designed and re-arranged desire.
Uncertainty always lost that battle.
He was stunning, even at a time when everything was supposed to look jaded. Fearless and independent. She was fearful, dependant and faltering; postponing her want and finally giving way. But always, imagining an inevitable knock on the wooden door. Inevitable discovery. Total revelation.
Whispering, of trees to one another.
The river, to the smooth sand.
Smooth sand, to the craggy rocks.
The clothes-line danced provocatively to a rhythm of the wayward breeze. A red sari flapped this way and that, in vain attempt to hold on to the blue nylon rope. A white bed sheet was thrown off the line and was tainted, in a tangle with the red-brown earth.
But all things were still. All things, in place. Or maybe hideously out of place, unnoticed by untrained human eyes. Somehow, everything seemed arranged. Premeditated. By the hands of careless gods, or the eyes of unknown strangers.
…………………
He always came in without knocking.
She knew he would come. Was expecting him, like a frangipani waiting for the rain. Deep-seated mistakes were indulged in; timeless blunders made by man recurring on a stage of maddening illusion. It was unfaithfulness of an otherwise ordinary act.
The mud walls absorbed her guilt and radiated it to the sun-struck verandah. It was evaporated; the guilt. It got blown away by the breeze, only to return at night, when she cooked, fed the baby or blew off the oil lamp.
Faithful everyday activities, of an otherwise unfaithful woman.
Only the merciless sun knew her secret. The unpredictable monsoons, they discerned nothing. Her existence between the two seasons, struggle of co-existence, and pain of non-existence were endowment of being born woman. It was recklessness of nature, thoughtlessness of the creator.
………….
He came in without knocking.
The trees were already whispering.
The clothes-line danced provocatively to a rhythm of the wayward breeze. A yellow sari flapped this way and that, finally gaining grip on the blue nylon rope. The white bed sheet was washed. It lay on the mud hut ground, creaseless.
All things were still. In place.
She was in place.
The secret is laid carefully, over the Formica topped, tea stained canteen table; like dew drops laid early morning on the sleeping grass. It’s spoken softly, delicately, even lovingly. The secret; it’s brutal. Traverses the tunnels of the ear, reverberating on the hard white bones and melting into soft pink flesh. Its sweet brutality soaks into the crumbs of bread on his plate, making it toxic. Contaminated. Useless, like wilted flowers on a hot day in June.
The secret giver and the secret taker. Bound by words spoken. Seated face to face on hard wooden chairs, with the world dissolving into a murky shade of red around them. Red, of love and blood; result of the mistakes of love. Words unspoken hang in the air, to be spoken later. Or not; because to never speak again is a bliss people understand only when they are faced with utter wordlessness. Utter callousness.
She looks into his eyes. Straight. There’s no regret. No remorse. The unspeakable said. It’s the moment before everything crashes onto the ground; and the moment before the moment before. All those moments before that moment, merged into one silent eternity. And looming ahead is a future of cold nights.
A fly sits on the crumb of bread, sucking on its stale uselessness. Oblivious to the secret and its dangers. Oblivious to the silent struggle of people; to the smells and garbage of the universe. He swats the fly away. The fly flies away, flying away with the poisons of the secret in its intestines. Still oblivious.
Then he gets up to leave. She gets up because he gets up. Two people united, only in the act of standing up. Only for two seconds of purpose. Time stands still. Lives stand still. Around the secret, everything revolves at breakneck speed. Ignoring this, he turns to go home; her face is passive.
The fly settles on a fresh piece of bread.
I walk through a blur; a paintbox full of colours.
The smell of people, stuffed with thoughts, dreams & memories.
The smell of garbage, of ciggarettes & of blood.
Induces me into a stupor, of wonder. Of joyousness. Addics me to that electrifying pleassure of love.
Addict. Addicting. Addicted.
Are you dreaming again? Playing with people’s lives, in your head. Imagining in ethereal jargon, a life without war. Life without hate.
You think, of thoughts you can’t speak. Thoughts you can only whisper of, very softly, to the dying embers of twilight. Thoughts that could consume you, if you thought just a fraction too much.
Are you the daydreamer? Are you the gold spark I see in the sunset, a second before darkness blinds the world? The wind that blasts through my room scattering paper, all over the floor; Scattering my feelings and good sense, into nothingness. The fire that ravages through the woods, leaving nothing, but more fire. The ability to invoke dreams in people; the best part of god everyone left behind…
“Orfe raised her face and, just for a second, I could see in her eyes a catch-me-if-you-can expression. I’d seen it before, in games of red rover. It was there for just a second before she had it hidden behind a hand that brushed hair out of her eyes. When she lowered her hand, her eyes were full of resolution and good sense. If you looked at her, if the glance of her eyes fell over you, you would know that she resolved on sensible action, which was what we’ve advised.
I knew better.
I knew better and I didn’t blame her: If there is someone like Yuri in your life, the only sensible line of action is to do everything you can to keep him or get him back. Anything else is nonsense. Is cowardice or failure of love. If you can climb Annapurna, then there is no other mountain you want to set your feet on, no matter how much good sense people talk to you, about how high and hurtful Annapurna is. The only thing that made sense was for Orfe to go to the house and find Yuri. I didn’t think Yuri would ever come back on his own, not now that he has failed. When you have failed once, you know you can fail again; until then you can hope you won’t. Having failed her once, Yuri would refuse to leave her in a position where she could be failed by him again. Yuri knew how to love.”
The whirring of a ceiling fan; stirring humidity into sticky shreds.
Click-click of mouse buttons; single click to select, double click to enter.
A crow, black as night, shrieks throatily. Sharp as day.
Earthworms dig. Softly but surely, they dig secrets out of the universe.
Their incessant noise wakes elephants from deep sleep.
