Amor E Morte Chapter One: Love

YOU see, it's hard to explain matters of life and death, of creation, and that is putting too fine a point on it; 'hard to explain' is too pretentious a statement, but I fail to find any more befitting a phrase, in regard to the feelings running through my mind. After I spend too long a time debating certain issues, I find myself rounding up on the final self-doubt. “Who am I?” It's not a question of identity. It's merely a speculation as to what manner of a superior mind I think I have to assume I can ever come upon one single conclusion for such a thing as death. And I scream within for cleanliness from such pretension.

This is when my mind performs a volte face. Calling to question the urge to answers, I wonder if I don't, if everyone doesn't just want answers for the sake of upholding their own perception of order, an order that is nothing but a fancy version of what and how they want things to be. Philosophy is unclean, and even finding myself trying to think of just one answer to a single thing is unforgivable. The world in its entirety is incomplete. And whatever we find to be the truth is also incomplete. I sit on my favourite chair, behind closed windows, my head resting by the chin on my right hand, watching the day slowly dying out, giving way to night. In a few hours, I would be found dead.

She was still in the house, probably in the bedroom, and we both knew I could not go there just yet. The silence of seclusion grew to an ominous state by the time the windows were unlocked and opened at eventide. Her ever present laughter, the idiosyncrasy of her dialect and the velvetiness of her breathing were all oppressively absent.

The barely awakening moon drenched the evening air with its silver flower fumes, faintly lighting the world with its chaste virgin glow. The air in most open spaces tasted crisp, and even felt sharp, as high winter time beckoned; but there were the corners, the dark niches the moonlight barely touched, that seemed to be slowly dissolving, and the air with it gradually moistening, giving way as if to a grander scheme. Grander scheme was too grandiose a choice of words, too flagrant, to describe such a night as this, quieter even than usual, but I always had the shameful habit of presenting things with grandness; and this story has been presented to you thus.

But by the break of dawn, I was found dead, without answers, truth or grandeur.

Stray words swam around in my mind, while half-formed phrases drowned. Thoughts of us stuck out in my mind like a bone out of mud. We had met at a time when meeting someone new still meant something, when it still held any relevancy what that new someone thought about me. And I quickly decided that I had discovered enough of the world.

Insomniac nights I had spent, slowly reliving every moment spent with her, recreating every detail anew, writhing somewhere in between agony and pleasure until I began to cherish the nights. Thick locks of jet-black gleaming straight hair, as black as one can be painted, reflected light in ways that rendered its true colour indefinite. Sharp feline features and large woodland eyes, always blackened to perfection crept out of the dark. At a time when everywhere around me eyes were? closing in the shadows, hers shone with a prominence we worship the stars for.

We used to find similarities between us for fun, even though we knew how different we were. But that would only serve to fuel new surprises, and they were certainly not scarce. A month ago I was shocked to find out how good she was at scrabble; she had even beaten me at it. A week ago she let me know that despite our arrangement, she preferred sleeping on the right side of the bed. And until today, I wouldn't have thought she would really have decided to leave me.

Every little thing deepened the bond we had begun to share; I counted myself lucky to one day wake up beside her. We never could decide on when we stopped being friends and became lovers, so we celebrated our anniversary on the day we met instead. It was a surprise to almost everyone when one day around her left wrist a silver watch glistened; she was known for her notorious mismanagement of time and she never wore watches. It was more than a watch though, between the two of us; I remember the promise that watch had meant.

My friends had decided to help me pick out a ring. We created quite a ruckus at all the stores. A washed up poet only made enough to go by, not nearly enough to be spending on engagement rings. That narrowed our search down considerably; I looked at it as a blessing, there would be lesser decisions to make. However, by lunchtime when I was supposed to meet her, we had not found a single ring worth her finger. We disbanded, and I would have left right then had my eye not caught that one watch. It was everything I admired in her; small, unassuming, unpretentious and the very name of simplicity. And I knew I had found something, getting it without a thought about anything else.

Much later that day, thoroughly worn and spent, we lay beside each other. These were the most open, most honest moments we spent in each other's company. Life flashed by in these moments; a sweet medley of the past, present and future. Like an old, broken radio, I was unable to pick up any particular memory... what-ifs and had-beens... adrenaline surges and the thrill of victory... they all fought each other for the briefest of footing, like a spasm out of control. She had told me she would marry me.

I sat at the furthest corner of the restaurant we frequented. Playing with the utensils, I smartened myself up somewhat from the reflection on the spoon. She would be here any moment now. I knew enough to know not to expect her on time. It never bothered me; time was something I had more of than an adult male should, and I was no one to reprimand her for being late. And just as expected, she rushed in, hair askew, coat crumpled, wearing my favourite smile. I silenced her apologies with a kiss and found that all the hype, all the stories I had heard about how hard this would be, were all true. I broke off the kiss sooner than I usually would; fearing that my heart, now beating somewhere near my throat, would give me away.

Halfway through lunch, the lump in my throat, and the bulge in my coat pocket proved too much to bear. “I have something for you,” I said, and presented the watch somewhat clumsily. Her surprise was evident, as was how pleased she was, but I had been completely unable to bring up what the occasion was. “You didn't have to... and so sudden, what's this for?” She always made it so easy for me...

“Will you marry me?”

A pause. “Would you have asked me if you didn't already know I was definitely going to say yes?”

And the rest was a blur to me. She had admired how original an idea it was to get something other than a ring. “It's because you're always late.” I said, not thinking. She apologized again, making me feel somewhat guilty. “It has a lifetime warranty.”

“Then I promise I won't ever be late to meet you again, at least till the warranty runs out.”

Earlier today she had told me she was leaving me tomorrow, at least for a little while. “I need this,” she had said. And I needed her. But I would not say it.

('Chapter Two: Death' continues next week)

By Ahsan Sajid

Split

SHE wakes up, her eyes opening with a sudden brute force which propels her instantly awake, perspiring, upright, and she gasps for breaths as she does so. During the first few instants she does not know where she is, what time it is, or who she is, experiencing a temporary state of amnesia which seems to knock her breath out. She clutches on to the rumpled bedsheets for dear life, as if she fears that she will be yanked out of place and thrown into another realm unknown.

She breathes in. She breathes out. Breathes in. Breathes out. In. Out. In. Out.

Her memory returns, paced and steady, as her eyes focus in on the room that encompasses her, and she realizes with a vague certainty, that she is in her room, and those are familiar walls, which suffocate her. Her breaths become shallower and she closes her eyes for a moment, willing herself to calm down, and eventually, she does.

The last thing she remembers is meeting her father in the dining room; a conversation which was unpleasant to say the least. She remembers as she stared at her feet, her father, voice raised and demeaning, looking at her, looking down at her, and her rage, which had seemed to build up inside her, a constant set of implosions which craved to be let out, but couldn't. She remembers wanting to do things she shouldn't have been wanting to, enacting revenge; imagining things done to her father, things which humiliated him, hurt him. And it fills her up with a deep sense of shame.

And after that? Darkness. That is all she remembers: two feet-hugging sandals, intense fury, and, then, nothing. She does not know how she ended up back here, and the curtained windows don't help her in telling how much time has passed since then.

She decides to get out of bed, and as she does, her nose picks up an oddly familiar odour, and subsequently, her eyes stray over to the bedside table where lies a cigarette butt balanced over what seems to be the cap of her body spray. She peers, only to see it teetering with ash. Her perturbed hands reach out for the stub and picks it up, searching, and her vision strays over to the magenta at the end. The colour is familiar to her and she observes it further, she realizes that it's her lipstick which stains the paper tube.

Had she smoked? She wonders. Impossible. She loathes it; it disgusts her, the fumes which tarnish the lungs, and the stereotype, which tarnishes the image. How could she have? She racks her brains 'til it hurts, traversing to its deepest corners for an answer which leaves her confused, and worse, frightened. It proves useless; she remembers nothing.

She notices her hands, and she brings them up for a closer look. They somehow seem yellow in the lightlessness of the room. She turns on the bedside lamp and finds her nicotine stained fingers staring back at her, unfamiliar hands which spread out in the light. Could she have, and merely forgotten? Questions riddle her mind, unanswered, and leave her wanting more, unsatisfied.

“Why not?”

Her heart, at that moment, simply explodes against her ribcage, shattering into the bones. Her mouth goes dry, her throat clamps shut. And for what seems like eternity to her, she cannot move nor speak; she is as lifeless as the unmoving air which surrounds her, the same air which squeezes her in now, and doesn't let her breathe.

“Who was that?” she cries out. The voice had been a very familiar one, almost like it had been her own, a woman's voice, sweet and playful, but somehow menacing in the way it was said. She is rigid in the dull glow of the lamp, and she is as scared as she can be. Her eyes jerk to every corner of the room, and every shape that they spy, deludes her into thinking there's some sort of energy being emitted from them, some life they hide, and everything forms a face in her frightened eyes.

“Tsk-tsk. We see each other every day, dear. How can you not know me?”

Her body is a statue in the gloom, a momentary apparition that has forgotten to fade. Her fear does not let her move, and before she can react, the voice returns: “We had so much fun together, don't you remember?” Mocking, it surreptitiously pierces the silence which encircles her rigidity; her eyes still search for this sourceless voice. “Just look down, dear.” It laughs.

And before the darkness again? Before unconsciousness? She sees a trail of crimson fluid, a familiar of tuft of hair, and a flash of her father's startled, disbelieving face as it spins, bleeding, into the air.

By S. N. Rasul