Original Sin

We fall.

From those tiny cracks in time between our spoken words, between the borders of our skins, the spaces we do not cross, from the moments that are fleeting for we dare not dwell upon them - we fall.
...

I wish for rain. It does not show. Not a blot on the sky today. The cleansing must be postponed. A few more days with the sin.

Not a bad thing entirely, living with the blazing metal lodged deep within. Now cooling, coagulating with my blood, my very being, it releases an alchemy of its own.

I try to ignore it, turn to stone. To not feel, to be. To only be. And to feel only what is impressed, to not desire action or reaction. To not be mortal, or even immortal? To only be.

The mind wanders free. And then, a tug at the tissues. Or is it the other way around? Reality has lost its structure. Mouth dry, palms wet with anticipation, I struggle to breath. The bullet makes its way up to my head.

Soon, the poison will spread. I am helpless, I realise. I plunge a blade into the evil, I seek to root it out. No such luck. It stays within, the original sin. Time kills all, I hope. Another day of torment, another year at most.

Sins passed on, from host to host. The sins of the fathers visited by the sons.

To not have time before me, just this once? Too much to demand. The vile knowledge inside me has built a wall.

And, for our wretched loss of innocence, we fall.

Death before Resurrection

I am mortal.

It is the heat ablaze in my chest that tells me so. It is the warmth that coats my naked body, the sweat that envelops it. It is the cling film embrace of humidity that buries me alive. Alive. It is the pointed feel of cold steel lodged between my eyes that tells me I am alive. And mortal.

I reach for my piece but I know I’m not packing any. Instinct. Never fails you. It’s the other part of thinking that trips you up and leaves you without a gun when you need one. The Rational Approach. And it’s all the weapon I have on me. I close my eyes and consult The Rational Approach. What should I do now?

A blow to the jaw and my world takes a tumble. The nuts in my head roulette around. It takes a while for the noodle to unscramble and The Rational Approach flashes like a cheap neon sign. Concentrate and ask again, it says. No fucking magic 8-ball, this.

I should have stayed off the wagon. When you’re drinking, you’re not thinking. You operate from the base, the core, the gut. All fat of perception and learning skimmed off the nerve. You are animal, poised for fight or flight. Fight.

I need a drink and I have a gun pasted to my head. Don’t we all? Mortality. It’s a fucking joke, a prank, a gag we can’t see the point to. It’s a grand piano falling on somebody’s head. It’s a bus, a train, a taxicab. It’s the curler that slips into the bath tub. The elevator floor that gives way. There’s always a gun somewhere. Always. Why should now be any different?

I am mortal. But I’m not dead. Not just yet

Shortlived

He puts the barrel in his mouth and cocks the gun.

A million images flash. They end with only one thought.

He pulls the trigger.

He will not be missed.

summer nights...

Remember the time when you woke up from a horrible dream and realised you hadn't been sleeping?

The summer night offers respite to many. The working men go home and take off their work clothes. Some have a shower, some don't. They eat their dinner without too much meat because meat gets them hot. But they do enjoy a good strong drink with some ice. They watch TV for a while and then they fuck their wives. Or they do it during, if a sleazy movie is on. Usually, the summer gets them too tired so they pass out on their wives the moment they are done.

She will look at the ceiling in the moonlight for a while and wonder why she is crying. Then she will wriggle out from under her husband and curl up into a ball on her side. She will not sleep just yet. His sweat will be lathered on her body and the stench will suffocate her. She must wash herself if she wants to get some rest, she knows. The warmth on her and inside her clouds over and boils. It will be the next day before she is clean again. There is no water in the tank.

Outside, on the road, many men are putting themselves to sleep amidst needles and charred spoons. They smile when they feel their bodies awash in summer flames. They are happy people. They have blackened teeth and dirty hair. The boys they sleep with were afraid at first but they learned the ways of the road quite well. December was a good time for training. The cold made the men ready to go all the time. It is not easy living on the street when it is cold. Men will want to do it just to feel the energy coursing through them. It hurt and bled at first and it hurt a lot more because of the cold but they had the medicine to make the pain go away. And the pain goes away every day now. Only, it is better in the summer. They don't last as long because it is too hot to do it. They only do it out of habit now.

Some can't sleep yet. Some, like the bartender, will be awake all night. This is the time. This is the wave they must ride. Summer is good for business. The crowd is heavy on summer nights and they mostly want beer. Soon they will start feeling good about themselves and they will sing. Noise scares the bartender. When people start getting loud, they start getting rowdy. He wishes he was at an upscale place. Girls going to those places go out with the bartenders, he has heard. A nice place in town with some music, he reckons. There are no girls in this bar. Not in summer, for sure, unless somebody walks in with a paid for woman. He hopes nobody does. It always invites trouble. As the singing gets louder, he knows he is not done hoping for things. He hopes nobody in the house has brought a gun or a knife. Men are always ready to spill blood in the summer.

...

I hide behind a smoke screen and sing to the ceiling fan. It tells me many stories when I close my eyes and really listen. There is a favourite of its concerning a man who hanged himself from it once. I do not know if it is true. Summer is a time of delirium. I am never quite sure of what I feel in the summertime. I supposed it is because of the icy whiskey my heart has been pumping all night. I close my eyes. The fan sings me a lullaby in its broken voice. I dread the sense of security that is enveloping me like many shadows of the past. I keep my eyes closed nonetheless - my finger remains on the trigger.

Remember the time when you woke up from a horrible dream and realised you hadn't been sleeping? Every summer night.

Summer must be art

The heat pours down my back all day. Time melts.

The city burns in the setting sun like a giraffe.

I find myself dreaming to the hum of a bumblebee.

And I am but a ghost of myself

as my thoughts take elephantine strides out of temptation.

But the memories persist.

And are reduced to mental masturbation on digital paper.

folded faces to the floor...

Yesterday the news came in a 40cc column - four rapes under four headlines. Everything else is toilet paper. The great tabloid in the sky promises quite a large roll of it too - more than 100 pages, as advertised.

Today, the front page carries sports. The last page carries 3 quarter-page advertisements.

The Vikram Poddar murder emerges as the new flavour of the season. Jessica Lal is so passe. Meanwhile, three brothers drown in Mandvi. I realise to my morbid amusement that three fingers more than adequately cover the entire article.

No news of the Kasliwal case today. Housewives turn back to their TV soaps in despair.

The Navi Mumbai curfew has been ceased.

Switch on the telly. Maybe you will catch a fresh rape or two. Or another murder, if you're lucky. Just a little bit of violence will do to keep the food going down the gullet. A spatter of blood. A battered woman. Anything.

***

I cocked my gun and waited for eventuality. But nobody came. I wouldn't have noticed if they did. Once you've laughed at your own monsters, everything else is Donald Duck.

I still waited for the feel of cool steel against my temples, for the earth to give way under me. I waited for the familiar smell of gunpowder and of battle. I waited for the fiends that lurk around the corner.

In the distance, someone died quite suddenly.

And I thought I had problems.

***

Yesterday the news came in a 40cc column - 4 rapes under 4 headlines. There might have been survivors but the newspaper saw to their burial in their innermost pages. Today they are forgotten.

the woods are lovely...

Most of us breathe to stay alive.

The dead calm following the premature rain should have warned me. Complacence is no excuse for getting shot at. Not that I'd mind a few more scars. I just wish I didn't have to fire back.

You don't step on her turf if you don't want to get bitten. She lurks in the difference between a fruitcake and clinical insanity. What the world failed to do with her brain, the pills will finish. Eventually. But till then, you don't step on her turf if you don't want to get bitten.

I didn't. I'm a non-violent kinda guy.

Which is why, when I walked into her firing squad, I was more sitting duck than myself. But I was a sitting duck with a gun. Feathers flew. Some were mine. But by the time we were done dancing, I was the only one with two feet left.

I looked at the mayhem. It was like a butchered nursery rhyme.

Gone to the birds, I said. Mother Goose was just plain old cuckoo. To the birds.

I couldn't kill her. I was once part of her squad. The crazy old bird had kept me warm when I couldn't spread my wings. Things were different back then - even in the hell I was born to suffer. But time had broken many things - her mind and my conscience.

I left her wounded. I knew she would come back for me. And this time she would bring him along for the ride. A world of pain awaited me. Something told me I should be watching my back. But who has the time?

Most of us breathe to stay alive.

Some of us stay alive to breathe.