Deprived

I was not used to being out of bed early; I stayed up most nights and slept only fitfully if at all, so the rising Sun, which I could not see from the pillow, but which launched its first faint rays reassuringly at the window was the welcome signal I awaited before hitting an indefinite snooze button on the broken alarm clock inside my head that kept rousing me intermittently of its own accord. [...]


I've withdrawn the story while I rewrite it, please email if you'd like to know when it's done. -MAP, July 13

Nature of the Beast

Phillip did not mind waiting for women while they got ready, even if they missed their reservation by a half hour and had to look for an alternative venue, it was alright because he always made reservations at two different restaurants a half hour apart – just in case. 

I've withdrawn the story while I rewrite it, please email if you'd like to know when it's done. -MAP, July 13

Alchemy

The way Rebbecca saw it, the popularity of Starbucks was a no-brainer. Even though she could not tell the difference between most of the flavors offered, and would never in all probability try the Pumpkin Spice Latté – except maybe just once to see what it was all about, she could nonetheless enjoy playing at being a coffee connoisseur for less than four dollars a pop. It was not a bad deal except that the sunny demeanor of the Baristas, or whatever it was they like to call themselves, was sometimes too much to deal with on her way back from work, or during the middle of the night when she could not sleep and did not want to stay in bed. At times such as these she did not want to see a smiley face, and she did not want to have to smile back. It was comforting to not have to pretend that life was anything but rough. Of course, she also preferred the smaller, family-owned coffee shops at the corner of every other street for a reason other than the aged, discourteous women who run such shops almost exclusively in the city: you could smoke there. Even after the several months since she had quit smoking she was still choosing places – perhaps by reflex – that had an ashtray at each table.

Sometimes the ashtray at her table would not be empty and the waitress who took her immutable order of "coffee. Black," would neglect to empty it. At other times there would be no ashtray at her table at all and the waitress, floating across the floor from table to table taking orders, cleaning up after patrons, and refilling drained cups of coffee would sweep one off the counter and place it absentmindedly in the center of her table, and sometimes this ashtray too would not be empty and the waitress would neglect to empty it. Of course, it did not matter to Rebbecca one way or another if there were an ashtray on her table or not, but she would remark its absence automatically as she sat down at the nearest vacant table when she entered and would notice as reflexively when the hole in the center of the table was filled.

Rebbecca liked to inspect the non-empty ashtrays and their contents in some detail. She sifted through the ash and cigarette butts with a toothpick or matchstick to turn them over and see what mark they bore, or separate them from one another and count how many there were, and of how many types. She would guess at how many people there had been, and how long they might have stayed and imagined the animated conversations they might have had over their coffee and cigarettes. She was delighted in particular when she found - somewhat rarely - a cigarette butt that bore the distinctive pair of golden-brown rings around a cigarette butt and she wondered if she shared more with the smoker than just taste in cigarettes; if they had the same taste in music and food and enjoyed the same kind of movies and read the same magazines. She would catch herself on these flights of fancy eventually and chuckle softly, chiding herself for daydreaming like a lovesick schoolgirl when she was neither.

She also liked to picture how the different cigarettes appeared to have been put out: that one was snuffed out half-smoked, like they left in a hurry and could not be bothered taking it along; these other ones had been rubbed out vigorously, perhaps angrily into the ashtray. How many were there? Three, no, five, five of these and only two of the others, but these two were also put out in the same deliberate manner. So this one did all the talking, eh? What had they talked about?

"More coffee?" She was forced out of her reverie by the automaton of a woman that ran the place and now stood looking down at her with dull, disinterested eyes. Rebbecca looked up at her and the steaming pot of coffee she held expectantly and took a few seconds to nod her reply. The old woman filled up her cup and plodded back to her seat behind the counter.

Rebbecca returned her attention to the ashtray. Even though she had already found everything there was of interest and knew it, she held out hope for her most prized catch of them all: a cigarette butt with a lipstick stain on it. She could always tell from the texture and the color and the way it had rubbed off onto the cigarette butt that it was lipstick and not some beverage. She was pleased even more when the lipstick stain was of a shade that she sometimes wore. Oftentimes the color of the stain was indistinguishable because of the ash but she made up the colors anyway. She wondered what they wore and when she imagined bejeweled fingers holding a cigarette between them she was seized with a passionate envy. Rebbecca had given up smoking for good reason, and she stood by her decision, but she could not stop sensing an gnawing emptiness in her hand that she had never felt before; that there was something missing. She was tempted to buy a pack just so she could comfort herself sometimes by holding the cigarette as she had used to but the way she reckoned it, that was just the first step on the slippery slope to starting again and she did not want to take that chance just yet. But try as she might to ignore the the gaping void, she could not help but miss the scrape of paper on the skin of her knuckles and the reassuring pressure between her fore and middle fingers, and feel keenly the loss of the poise and vitality it had lent to her gesticulations.

Rebbecca considered the women who smoked these cigarettes; wondered what they had worn when they sat here smoking them. So many people changed buses on the way to and from everywhere around this corner of the street that it could have been anyone. It might have been someone quite like herself; but was there any woman quite like herself who came to this coffee shop? Yes, she imagined there were several dozen who grabbed a cup of coffee while passing through here waiting for the bus, or who stopped here after work as she sometimes did, except that they were usually with friends and chatted and laughed loudly and she was always alone. Alone under her pale blue umbrella at the stand waiting for the bus, alone in the basement where she worked; ironing and folding sheets of linen, alone walking up or down the street to or from some place of no great importance, alone when she stopped at the hawker for dinner, alone when she ducked into the bar for a quick drink, alone when she left after an hour of toting a half-pint of lager idly and trying not to drink any because it was not good for the baby and she did not want to get fat, alone when she headed to the payphone to call her mother, and alone when no-one answered. But these other women whose cigarette butts she sought out desperately were not as alone. And if they had been faced with the same decision Rebbecca had made for herself three months ago, would they have chosen differently? Maybe they would have, they certainly had every conceivable reason to choose differently but they might have decided to keep it. Why shouldn't she have kept it? She wasn't asking for anyone to help or understand. She was alone and then she would not be alone anymore and that was that.

Summer 2010

The Motor-Scooter

He walked down the street in no great hurry but with definite purpose. The boy went from storefront to storefront, asking shopkeepers if they had what he wanted. He passed by groups of similar teenage boys standing huddled in the shadows, sharing cigarettes, telling jokes, and laughing desperately. There were women standing at the narrow entrances to their houses that opened on the narrow street, they spoke in hushed voices and this combined with their long headscarves - draped around their shoulders, over their hair and across much of their faces  - to lend them on that night a decidedly sinister aspect: co-conspirators deciding what to do with the body of the assassinated King in that moment before they realize there is no further need for discretion. There were children playing games of tag or hide and seek and being generally noisy unless someone barked at them and then they would shut up for a few seconds, only to start again a few feet farther up or down the street. Girls on shadowy balconies overlooking the street, or behind dark windows, played sappy love songs on their cellphones, and it was under these overhangs on the street that older, quieter boys stood conspicuously, heads angled to the side and heedless of the noise of vehicles trudging through the tangle of heat and dust and darkness and perspiration and badly-kept secrets that was this street and countless other streets all over this city and in other cities across the country.

An old man riding what appeared to be a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle put-put-putted past the boy; so close that he would have jumped had not his foot been caught under the front wheel of that contraption. The scooter-cycle moved on and the boy looked at the back of the old man, stopping himself from swearing loudly at his receding tufts of hair; he was sure he was an old man because of the white prayer-cap he wore at a time that was far gone for prayer, the white dress he wore and the walking cane he had stowed on the side of the scooter-cycle. The scooter-cycle slowed down and coasted to a stop a few feet farther down from where the boy had stood transfixed since it had passed over his foot. The put-put-putting noise of its engine died, and the tail light went out suddenly so the boy lost equally suddenly his object of focus and his gaze drifted in the darkness, readjusting and coming to rest on the old man, who was fidgeting with his scooter-cycle, attempting to restart it. The old man leaned to one side and lifted his leg to strike the pedal, he brought it down hard and the motor-scooter sput-sput-sputtered back into life. 

Even as the boy watched, the old man lay on the street and the still sput-sput-sputtering machine lay on top of him. The engine was stoked and was proceeding into a progressively sharper and painful whine, spurred by some torturous mechanism. The old man waved his arms, his cries for help - if there were any - were swallowed by the rapacious din of the motor-scooter. The boy rushed to his side and attempted to lift the old man out from underneath the scooter-cycle. He grabbed the man under the arms, but the dampness there made him uncomfortable so he let go and wiped his palms on his pants while the old man stared into space, his face an amorphous mask of confusion and helplessness. He next tried to lift the still sput-sput-sputtering scooter-cycle, and in this was partially successful. The old man stayed flat on his back as the boy righted the bike and found the landing gear after much probing with his foot. He reached down to help the old man up, grabbing him around the waist this time and raising him slowly. The old man held out a hand and pointed at the ground where the boy struggled to spot the walking cane that had tumbled loose. He bent down to pick it up while the noise from the motor-scooter was cut off: the old man had switched off the ignition. The boy handed him his walking cane, the old man started hobbling towards his house - a few feet away on the other side of the street. His wife - or daughter, or daughter-in-law, the boy could not tell which - stood in the darkened doorway. She stood aside as a young man appeared in the doorway from inside the house. He walked past his father and took the motor-scooter and guided it across the street and into their home. 

The boy took the old man by the elbow: "Are you alright, sir?" The old man said nothing and waved his hand dismissively. "But you're limping, sir," the boy insisted. "Old injury. I'm fine" came the curt reply, and he shrugged off the boy's hand from his elbow. Hobbling, slow and pathetic, behind his son who had now disappeared with the front-half of the motorcycle into the dark doorway. The woman still stood outside, silhouetted against the light-colored paint of the front wall. The old man stopped a few feet from the entrance and said something the boy could not hear. The woman stepped inside and the old man followed his wife or daughter or daughter-in-law, hobbling over the raised doorstep and slamming the door shut.

The Prettier Sister

There was a lady who lived on my street, and every afternoon one winter, after a polite game of cricket, I would visit with her for a cup of tea I did not drink, and the chance to play with the many kittens she had in her apartment.

My mother frowned upon our liaison, for this lady was well past what is considered the marriageable age, lived all by herself, and had a great number of male friends who visited frequently and were the subject of much gossip amongst the ladies of the street. But the awkwardness of the subject prevented Mother from emphatically expressing her dislike, aided perhaps by the realization that I was in it for the cats – no pun – and we could not, for reasons unknown, have our own.

This lady, whose name I no longer care to remember, occupied a two bedroom apartment on the first floor of a house on our street (or, the upper portion as it is called here). There was an aquarium in the parlor adjoining the bedrooms and the kitchen; the water in it was always filthy; my older friend perhaps found it easier to replace the fish instead of the murky liquid she expected them to live in. Her other pets, of course, were the kittens, all of whom were full of vivacious energy and covered in soft fur for good luck.

- “When they say a cat has nine lives, is it because they have so many kittens and only a few need survive to continue the species?” I asked her one afternoon, ever fascinated by the newly discussed subject of dinosaur extinction at school, and grappling with the concept of death.

 - “I think not,” she casually replied, “have another biscuit.”

So I did, I was such a good little boy.

Presently she found me staring at the half-full ashtray on the coffee table.

 - “Those are a friend’s.” She lied hastily, probably thinking of what my mother would say about it if she knew.

 - “I won’t tell.” My earnestness was written on my forehead. “I never tell.”

 - “There is nothing to tell.” We agreed on that.

One of the kittens scurried headlong, for reasons known only to little animals, into her bedroom. A sanctuary I had hitherto stayed out of. Eager to prove my loyalty and the value I attached to our friendship, I chased the animal into the forbidding chamber.

It was a messy room, smelled of stale tobacco smoke and the air felt damp to the skin. The curtains were parted, and the winter sun cast its feeble vehemence only unevenly about the chamber.

The kitten had by this time, taken the characteristics of a mole-rat and was burrowing intently into a heap of clothing of questionable cleanliness that lay on the floor. I dared not intervene.

 - “What’s it doing?” She called from her indolent repose on the divan in the parlor.

 - “I don’t know!” I replied, and walked closer to the pile: attempting the pretense of a proactive attempt to retrieve the renegade mole-rat.

 - “Well?” She now leaned in the doorway, expectantly.

I did not answer. My eyes were riveted upon a large jar that lay atop her dresser; filled with a liquid murkier than that in the aquarium. The faint sunlight, further weakened by the wire mesh in front of it, danced through the jar’s unfathomable contents – giving it an apparent life of its own from my vantage point, which was just below the jar itself (I was always short).

I heard the rustling of fabric as my friend finally attacked the treasure-hunting kitten.  But I could not turn to watch the commotion. She uttered a soft oath in Urdu, which I found distinctly unladylike but atrociously charming, as the kitten darted from wherever it was to someplace less accessible. I heard all this, but saw and felt only the life force pulsating in the jar. Everything else was insignificant in its presence, outshone by the invisible, mysterious beauty of whatever it contained.

 - “What are you staring at?” She asked with more annoyance than I felt warranted.

 - “What is this?”

 - “It’s none of your business.” Her tone stung me.

 - “I should go.” I threatened.

 - “You should.” My bluff called, I left dejectedly.

I did not visit again for five or six days. When I caught her peeping from a window as I strolled back from the nearby playing field each afternoon, I faked indifference. My boyish pride, even then standing taller than myself or my imagined accomplishments, would not permit a hasty thaw.

Eventually, I found myself back in her parlor with its faint air of misuse and untidiness; wondering only how best to ask her about the jar which had been on my mind all week since I had seen it.

 - “You want to know more about the jar, don’t you?” Her divination of my thoughts was unsettling, but I was relieved I did not have to bring it up myself.

 - “Yes,” I replied timidly, suddenly fascinated by a newfound and inescapable interest in the biscuit tray of old silver.

 - “Well, ask then.” She had a faint glimmer of a sly smile appearing at the corners of her mouth. I was all at once surprised to find her quite attractive to look at, but only did so out of the corner of my eyes. It is impolite to gaze at women, mother said, it made them self-conscious.

 - “What’s in it?” I finally mustered.

 - “A snake.”

I was terrified; I had never seen a snake before except in movies.

 - “And if you look into its eyes you cannot move as it slowly eats you whole.” She continued.

 - “No, please don’t lie.” What I meant, of course, was please don’t let it be a snake. This whole fear-thing was extremely unpleasant.

My friend threw back her head in a sensuous motion and laughed. I got the impression her good humor was chemically induced, I was scared; but lacked the strength to leave.

She got up and teetered into her bedroom, returning presently with the jar clutched to her breast like some prized infant. Why are infants so prized anyway? I pondered that question.

The lady placed the jar atop the coffee table, and lay back on the divan she loved so much. It was as if she had disappeared from view; once more, the Jar was all that mattered. Although this room was better-lit than the circumstances of my first viewing of the jar, its contents had been jostled by unaccustomed motion; and were clouded in a suspension opaque and mysterious.

We sat in silence. She smoked; I’d always known the cigarettes were hers. I stared at the jar, willing the shroud to dissipate so that I might sate my curiosity. The sun continued its descent, and the windows darkened. In annoyance, I flicked all the switches along the walls, and then turned them off one by one until whatever amorphous criterion I had for illumination was met. The first faint halo of the jar’s contents now appeared, and I stared into it. Cigarette smoke made my eyes itch, but not that day. So we sat, insignificant companions to the mystery of the jar. We stared; I at the jar, she at the ceiling.

When it seemed that I could wait no more, for the ezzan-i-maghrib sounded, and that was my cue to return home, a face crystallized within the jar, and not just a face: complete with perfectly formed ears, an endless forehead stretching to reveal a shaven, hairless scalp atop a dome-like skull, a bit of neck trailed below the chin.

There was nothing horrific about the severed-head-in-a-jar; quite on the contrary, it appealed so strongly to my nascent aesthetic sense, and found me so unprepared, that I was overcome with emotion. I felt my body heat up as if on fire, the blood flow speeded up until all I could hear was the pounding of my heart – louder and faster than an express train. It appeared to my eleven-year-old mind that the head had existed in that jar of its own accord for all eternity, and would continue to so exist until the end of time.

The eyes were closed in blissful repose, the nose angled downward gently and ending in a raised tip right above the cleft of the upper lip. The bit of cheekbone visible below the left eye seemed to belong there – prettier than any dimple I had ever seen, failing to detract from and perhaps even amplifying the sense of serenity that permeated the face. What I beheld perfect beyond the ability of the most masterful sculptors.

 - “Isn’t she pretty?” I found her question both untimely and stupid, I did not know how long I had been enraptured, bewitched even, by the sight, but my companion’s relative ugliness should have enforced her silence.

 - “It is obvious.” I attempted to sneer.

 - “Is it now? I think she looks a lot like me.”

I stared at my lady-friend in disbelief. In what twisted, malformed way could she possibly hope to reflect the same beauty that radiated from the jar? The head was Aphrodite to her Medusa, and yet far more capable of transfixing the gaze of the onlooker than Medusa’s ever was.

 - “So do you like my sister?” That playful, sly smile of hers crept across her face.

 - “Very much, but why does she live in a jar?” My knowledge of death, disfigurement and dismemberment was extremely vague.

 - “Because she’s better this way, and everyone’s happier.”

 - “How so?”

 - “Because this way, I get to be the prettier sister.”

I was suddenly too frightened to dissent.

 - “Yes, quite.” I lied.

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Lahore

February 18, 2010