One
And once upon a time the alter-I wrote: “You know, that day she died, when I felt the life rush out of her, I screamed. It was a quiet, long, weak scream that disappeared as I fell to my knees aside my bed. I remember my sister begging me to stop between her sharp whimpers. I remember disbelief. I remember sorrow, and pain that lasts to this day. I would wake up in the morning and my very insides would be torn- non present. I was a shell.
“She had breathed like someone was ripping her heart out of her body. He was there. Oh yes, we've met before. He knows me. He'll come soon for me. And when he does his face will not be as pleasant it was for her. It will be a face to which ruddy curls turn white. A beacon from the Seventh Hell.
“I had lain by her bedside on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. It was coming I always knew it was, but no preparation could have braced me quite enough. I spent the next day in a chair, watching my terrified brother sleep. I watched the sun circle the sky. I could not eat.
“I watched as people rested their heads against furniture for support as tears streamed down their faces.
“I had walked to the kitchen and started wailing again. I remember the dim light coming from the balcony of the neighboring house. She's gone, I managed to let out, and she’s gone forever. I felt my father's hand against the back of my neck.
“I cried for months to come. Never admitting the real reason but I did. Then I stopped crying. I became exactly who I was not. Or who I always wanted to be.”
-------------
I looked out the window. The dark clouds suffocated the earth of its light, like a cold blanket. It was still 8:30 in the morning. The sun or at least a few scattered rays had cut their way through the many ominous clouds. Nevertheless a streetlight cast a dim orange light on the deserted courtyard with the naked, wet branches glistening against it. I looked back at my computer screen, reaching for a glass of vodka. Then I caught my florescent reflection in the glass and paused. I am pollution. Doomed, unworthy, fucked up pollution. I took a big gulp and looked back at my screen.
This is wrong, I thought. It’s shit. I don’t buy into self pity. It is truly pathetic and rarely appreciated. Like bad acting. When I realized this before, my life changed and I became successful and wanted. I owe too much to my ego to forfeit it because of a few common and distant experiences. I deleted the file and shut the lid. With my glass in hand, and foot against the wall under the desk, I tipped my chair slightly. Equally distasteful is that sappy emotion crap. How could anyone buy so easily into emotional dependency on another person? How can they forfeit their dignity, pride, and compromise their image for another imperfect person? I knew exactly how. It’s this fucking vodka, always picking my brain.
I got up and crawled under the cold covers again. I could smell winter. I dug the side of my head in the pillow and pulled my knees up. I looked at my arm. Two blue lumps sat still. Their color matched the color of the sky outside. A dark, odorless conspiracy of blue and purple. Two veins ran under them like rivers feeding from viscous lakes. Home flashed through my mind. The bruises started to swirl, like cold jelly. They touched each other and merged, now dancing, nudging themselves right and left. I shut my eyes and opened them again. The lumps behaved themselves.
I looked through my wall, and took a long breath. They say the world is finite, that whatever marvel or atrocity one’s imagination and creativity may muster, it remains in reality as only bits and pieces of the Now and of what our minds may lead us to identify as Before. That is why we cannot imagine heaven, or hell. They remain as two abstractions, identifiable only as the diametrical oppositions of one another. If we were to deny the existence of one, whatever definition we had of the other would blur and eventually fade away. Intangible and mystifying, the notions of heaven and hell remain as the only Stamp, the only Signature of the Creator marking the Creations closest to His heart... We are all born with the idealism of perfection and total annihilation embedded. And those of us with surviving souls continue to understand these as mysteries of the dead, and not topics upon which one revels during life.
I’m still scared of hell though. I shuffled in my bed. God is justice. I could now see a fraction of the large window behind the headboard. I waited for the sun to scream its way through the dark moisture. I was utterly convinced it would any second now, if I channeled enough concentration at the sky. It didn’t work. I rested my eyes now on the pulled back desk chair on the other side of the room. Its firm, geometric, minimalist design gave me a hint of peace. Nothing is more satisfying then looking at right angles. I traced with my eyes the cubic legs and saw them intersect perpendicularly, neatly with the seat. I sighed quietly.
It was a warm Saturday summer night when I first saw him, in the first week of August of this year. I had rung up CY at nine or ten in the evening and told her I needed a drink. I picked her up and we went, we raised toasts, talked about our day, men, and made further plans for the evening. He had walked in with 3 of his friends, one of whom I recognized. The next day we met again in another bar, this time I had gathered a lot of people including a new Australian guy, MK I think it was, whom I’d just met and fucked that afternoon. I had glanced across the tiny dance-floor and saw the same configuration of friends walking to a table. After a few drinks we met on the dance floor. He said something in a very convincing Egyptian accent. I was too surprised and responded in English. MNC, he said his name was. Two days later, we met again.
I turned in my bed, now staring through the ceiling. I dangled my aching arm from the bed.
Only those who have experienced heaven, even if for a fraction of a second, are able to long for it. Only those who have held on to the wings of an Angel know Flight, and fully understand and are in constant Freefall.
I had a lot of work to do. I needed to read and highlight yesterday’s lecture and finish a reflection. Simple, but time consuming. I was always good at my work. As I stared at the ceiling I started building up energy to thrust myself out of the bed and back to my computer screen. I looked at my bookshelf. I looked away.
Re-ligion is ‘reconnection’ in Latin (commitment in Arabic, and a deliberation in German). Our attempts to reconnect, in fact the very reconnection, is constantly disturbed by tradition, whose build-up has been parallel with religion; in some cases, the two have become inseparable. Those who claim absolute clarity (or clairvoyance), who deny the imbalance and human pollution, and who claim to know heaven and hell, one can only feel pity for.
I brought the other end of my pillow up against me face so as to enclose it. I was cold, despite the alcohol. My head throbbed. My arm hurt. Fucking nurse was blind. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again I could tell it was around midday. There still was no sun but the clouds had taken a lighter, greyer tint. They were also moving faster now. Windy. Shit. I couldn’t get up. I just turned nineteen. I thought about my future. I could feel the anger welling up, only to be replaced almost instantly by despair, and then nothing. I crawled out of bed for a shower…
The warm water launched an assault on my senses. My skin almost cracked with the first stream of it. My nose and mouth inhaled the steam that seemed to infiltrate my brain, circulating the blood and cleaning it. The constancy of flowing water and its delicate splashing against my face and the shower floor gave my ears and head an almost spiritual rhythm. The transparency of the water, its simplistic beauty, reinforced our mutual trust. I stood there immobile for minutes on end. I was in ecstasy. I smiled. Then I started laughing. And from water We have made all that is living…
I see him there, everyday,
In between a mind spent
And a quiet soul in bitter decay.
I stepped out of the shower, dripping water. I dried myself up, massaging my head gently with the towel, then working my way throughout the rest of my body. I decided to hop to my room, so I held open the shower-room door and bounced my way into my room…
I made my way east on HyL Road, passing the countless run-down houses with mildew growing in between the bricks. The sky had cleared up, and the temperature dropped. I felt the bottle against my right thigh. Looking both ways before I crossed another road, I reached for it, and, covering up the letters “AZT” with my thumb, swallowed today’s pill in defeat.
I see him there, everyday,
In between a mind spent
And a quiet soul in bitter decay.
I can see him there.
A face to which ruddy curls turn white.
I keep those eyes closed,
With my ears drown His chuckle.
With my blanket I cover my face from his breath.
In your presence,
In your presence my Angel of Death stands in front of me,
I see him now,
In between a Self in repent
And a quiet soul in solemn disarray.
I can see him the clearest
When you lie next to me.
Vulture eyes that show the gates of hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment