My dark man. (3)

We sat there at a distance, both missing each other. We could’ve just turned to face one another and talk. We could’ve just talked.

It’s that same place again, and that same part of nighttime where everything feels stitched to something deeper and more calm. We are sitting together: he on the log, and I on a rock. Spread wide above us are the skies, innumerable stars glistening on their soft sheets. The air is cool. I can’t describe how it smells or feels, but I know. It’s the kind of moment one wants to seize, literally freeze. It’s not when you want to think about how time is passing. Because time is not passing. It shouldn’t, now, should it?

I tell myself that you won’t leave. But I know it means nothing. And it is with this thought that the weight of our silence starts becoming torturous. It feels as though someone placed a spiky wire on my bare skin, trailing it down. As it touches my chest, I draw in a quick breath: it has a connection with the void within me. I look at you and you are staring ahead somewhere, aloof, in a world that your eyes see and I cannot reach. And then I realize how you have no idea about my world either. We are equally separated.

We: You and I, the stories yet to complete. I think we are ever-living because of what we have in us. Even though we each carry Words from contrasting entities, we are still what we are for us.

“Tell me one last time, will the sun come?”

“It will,” you say. I think I will then stay for a moment. Until the sun arrives, at least. The log is empty at your side now. I will walk to it and sit there. To feel that warmth again and not shiver. I have wrapped my shoulders around myself. Perhaps the wire will forget to hurt, too. Maybe it will turn into a spring of soothing water if it hits my heart enough times.
Voids are colorless but they are vulnerable to scars that birthed them. I can still hear your footsteps from ten minutes ago. Was it ten minutes ago that you left, or has a century passed already? Oh but the sun, yes, it will come.

Our goodbye was wordless. I think we will meet again.

---

2014

“I did not want to be what I have become. But I like it now… It suits me. I feel I am where I belong. It is Real. It is Me.”I was sitting before him on the road and there was no one else around. When he said these words, I looked at him. I wanted more answers, and I was searching for them in his eyes. They are windows to your soul, after all, but somehow his soul was a locked corridor now– the key to which was unknown to even himself, I suppose.  Read more

2015

“You don’t know how it’s like to be what you are not.”

“I sure do. I have known you for so long and never uttered a word about you. That is the same thing in a way, if you see.”

He turned his head. I stood at a distance from his seat: a log placed in the middle of the road. An empty road– our secret place.

“No,” he whispered. “You cannot see the sea in me. You can only see the waves.”

“I can see the sea,” said I. Then taking his name, I continued: “And I can also sense a storm. Please confide in me now, let it crash me down if it so must. Break me because I need you.”  Read more

---

 

(Like the previous two times, this had to be the way it is, too. The first time I wrote it, I was having a problem putting words properly but hoped it would make sense.  It’s of course the same now.)

 

My dark man.

“It is not I who accepted the Dark Life. The Dark Life accepted me.”

He sat on a rock, his head bowed and hands resting on knees. “I did not want to be what I have become. But I like it now… It suits me. I feel I am where I belong. It is Real. It is Me.”

I was sitting before him on the road and there was no one else around. When he said these words, I looked at him. I wanted more answers, and I was searching for them in his eyes. They are windows to your soul, after all, but somehow his soul was a locked corridor now– the key to which was unknown to even himself, I suppose.

“Are you satisfied without having any friends?” I asked.

“You are my friend!” he replied with a smile. I will never forget that smile.

“I know that,” I said his name, “but I am not always there around you, right? I never know where you are, what you are doing, how you’ve been. I worry about you. Who takes care of you when you’re not here? No one. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you don’t give an inch importance to yourself either. Why?”

“I don’t need to. I am happy and more contented with my life than you can imagine. I don’t need these things. Care, look-after, love; these aid other people… People who can’t live without people, who depend on other humans and emotions as a weakling depends on crutches. I have come far from that now. It makes no sense to me.”

How would he know what “weaklings” were truly like, I thought. People need people, they need these “crutches” to walk around this world. Why doesn’t he get it? Or more importantly, how did he overcome this necessity?

He was at ease with his lifestyle, and he meant his words more than any of us could. He could see beyond his time, and yet no future thought worried him. He could look in a glance at his past and go through his early details in a minute– yet he was one whom you’d never find regretting or complaining about his choices (or their causes), or taking pleasure in revisiting his memory lanes for that matter.

He was not normal. Yet he looked more saner than many, some times. That was perhaps because he had given himself to his goal: it could either be absolute good or absolute evil that would complete your life and give meaning to your otherwise worthless existence. He had found ‘It’ in evil.

“Would you come back to meet me again?” one asked.

“Yes. But it will take longer this time.” other replied.

We both smiled as he got up and held out his hand to me, which I gave without a moment’s pause. Standing face-to-face I tried yet again to search him in his eyes, as if their color would light my way too and I’d be able to find a clue. He stepped closer and put his hand softly on mine, slowly whispering a “no”. Maybe he thought I could really do that if I tried?

He turned around then, and started to move away. There was the famous S-shaped scar at the back of his neck which always looked fresh and red, and was so deeply cut a wound that it pained me to only look at it. I followed him with my gaze, thinking of what he was and what he could never be, until tears blocked my vision and I smiled to let go.

[Okay, hellooo. I was having a real hard time connecting words but I also badly wanted to write a story-sort so here goes. Let me know what you think of it!]

Diva-

“Yours

I was
still am
always will be.”

His eyes were red. They emitted fire. His hair was all messed up. Like his life. He would pull his hair, kick his bed, his door, and cry. Tears wouldn’t stop for even a minute – nor would he make any effort of that kind. He was too weak, so helpless, that any effort to push back the inevitable seemed useless.

He kept pacing around the small room with a mind too full or blank. I am not sure he knew what he was doing or what he could, because he didn’t seem to show that in his ways.

Between his wails a name unknowingly escaped his lips. Her name. His secret. He sat down suddenly on the floor and began staring his palms. Her name was his object, and how he worshiped it. It was his everything. She was his everything!

But nothing was same anymore. His secret was the talk of the town then. Everybody was curious about her; how she had died. How she had been killed. How anyone like her— so young, pretty, free—could be killed?!

She was free, as they knew, but there are always things which you think you know though you don’t, no? She was enslaved too. He was her master. Like she was his mistress, his diva.

He got up weakly and went towards the small table on his bedside. A crumpled ball of yellow sheet laid there on the floor;  rejected, thrown. He picked it up and unfolded the creases carefully to not bring any more damage. It was his last hope. He began reading…

“Yours

I was
still am
always will be.”

It were just those four lines, those few words that brought him to tears again. He started to scream violently, repeating her name again and again as if it were his medicine. As if she would return if he would call her now. But some things just don’t return to normal once you hurt them, do they?

He had killed her. He was his master, and his murderer. And he thought he loved her…

–

Startled by a bell, he looked at the door. A man in uniform stood there. He asked him a few unnecessary questions, stole a quick inspective glance at his room, and patted his shoulder. Told him he understood his pain, his own wife had died not too long ago. Asked him to please hold on, to not give up. To God we belong and to Him shall we return.

–

He sat down on his bed, alone again, and rubbed his eyes. A sudden throbbing pain in his head started all of a sudden, forcing him to shriek. He clenched his fist and hit his forehead multiple times— the pain didn’t leave, of course.

“Yours – I was”
yes, she was his.
Since ever. She had always lived for him. He was her first prayer. Her first and only sawaal, minnat, dua. And last.

“Yours – I still am”
“Are you? Are you still?” he asked. “Come back! Will you come back?” he cried. The memories of her falling on his feet flashed back that instant, and he could see again how he had done it. How he had killed a begging diva...

Shouts. Cries. Clarifications. Slowly his mind began to lose its power to comprehend each voice and with each next note added a different melody. He touched her side of the bed rather helplessly as tears rolled down his eyes when he shut them close. It was then that a silver figure walked gracefully to his side and placed her hand gently on his head, to put him to sleep.

Yours I always will be, she whispered.

Maria Imran.

dəˈzī(ə)r/

DESIRE
like flames burning
Petals withering
Stormy silence
Wind gusting

Desire; like insatiable thirst, a traveler lost in a desert, clueless clues. Desire; like incomplete puzzle pieces, locked doors, rusting hinges, rotten fruits. Rotten fruits?
Desire; like uncomfortable ambiance, waves struggling to reach shore. Desire; like heated situations, discordant harmony, unsettling wonders. Desire! Like haunting memories, hanging questions, unachievable glances. Desire like tears on verge, riddles unanswered, complications unheard.

.
Are you real?
Because if you are
I will make you mine!

If you are not
Well then,
I will paint you mine!
.

The Kaleem of Tur Sina witnessed but one Effulgence
For the discerning eye you are an embodiment of Effulgence

Desire: La shae’e mislak. Desire: Lam ya’ati Nazeeruk.

Desire: like a toy out of reach.
What is it for you?

– Maria I.