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'You have deserted my world, but one day you'll return to these deserts - numb, and cold'.

From the turn I took at National Highway - 1

I was drenched in sweat – walking through a street that I took after I realized that I was only a piece of meat for the lorries that took the National Highway – 1 towards Delhi with their stomachs packed with apples and walnuts. I was repeating the same track over and over again, listening to the outcries of Eminem as if it was an expression of my frustration – my earlobes gaining temperature by the high volume. I came escaping my loneliness at home to make peace with – with what!

The parasite of over-thinking was emptying my veins. I was disgusted, no I wasn’t! I was tired, of walking! Yes. And I was tired, of this life! Yes, I was. I was tired of trying every optimum technique to make my living – or, give myself some mental space and relaxation.

Every time I tried something, I had to try something else.

I was dragging my skeleton, I was fuelling my soul – ‘financial, social, psychological, emotional’, I was re-reading some mental notes as if they’re written on the darkness that blanketed the millions of herbs that made its living on the open barren land that lay un-walled from a distance of two arms towards my left, ‘love, State, politics, occupation, status. A man takes so much to live. Or survive.’

The certain street lamps, the certain darkness it engulfed, and the long shadows of my body suddenly caught my senses and made me realize my existence. I unplugged the earphones.

And now, there was this certain phenomenon that influenced my mind whenever there was this sudden silence.

‘Food, shelter, clothing’, I kept contemplating over the concept of making life possible. Life wasn’t easy. Man takes so much to survive.

I saw him the first time on a staircase, a mad man, when I was too tired to take a step forward or backward. My feet were aching in the dusty boots that now felt like a piece of leather gummed to my skin. It was midnight and not so safe to sit on the front stair of the case that was occupied by someone else on the top - particularly, when the person was drunk or blabbering.

I didn’t trespass on his abode. I never liked meeting new people at my own home, and thought nobody else does too. I took a shop-front that had a lamp hanging from the ceiling like an ember. I didn’t want to think about anything anymore. ‘Society’ I thought.

He was drunk, maybe not in his senses – he was blabbering, but maybe he could have been speaking something logical, he looked filthy but maybe someone could have just beaten him in the dust, his clothes were torn but maybe someone just tore them today, maybe he was drinking because he was sad – maybe because he couldn’t meet his social needs, or financial demands, or maybe he is abused and misappropriated by his family. ‘Family’ I thought.

‘Man takes so much to live’, I said to myself and frowned at my shadow.

I was repeatedly chewing my lips, looking towards everywhere as if I were Osama caught in the States, speaking to my inner thoughts like I had a crowd in myself, and just so visibly frustrated.

‘Are you mad!’ someone mocked, when I pulled the fourth Four Square out of the box – in a tune of mediocrity, insensitivity, and sarcasm!

I didn’t respond until his laughter was too loud, for the street and the cold. ‘He is a mad man. No one tore his clothes today. Nobody beat him in the dust. He is not sad, and he is not drinking for the fucking sake of his sadness or anything. He is a mad douchebag!’ I screamed in the castle of my mind that was so solitary that every word that I spoke resonated for longer than minutes and hours.

I was about to leave as it was getting colder and difficult to find any peace with this mad man around when he said, ‘only three type of people roam such alleys at night – drunk, mad, and thieves. Since you didn’t look like an asshole who would steal cereals and pulses, and you’re not even drunk – you must be mad.’

He was blabbering, yet making some sense. He was reasoning. And I liked that. ‘I could have well-reasoned. He wasn’t just blabbering. Everybody in this world talks sense. Even if he is a drunk mice in a street, at the midnight! And even if he is a frustrated kid, who thinks life is all about love and politics’ I thought.

I was, stupidly, interested in him. Because, yes – maybe because I had no one to talk to, since last 3 days. ‘I am voluntarily lonely’ I told myself as I saw some guys racing the machines on the highway and screaming as their adrenaline bladder could no more satisfy their psychological demands – of feeling alive.

‘And you look like a mad, and you’re drunk – you must be a thief as well, because, perhaps, you are actually describing your own purpose of being here at this godforsaken place and hour of night.’ I was giving him bitter responses, reasoning in my mind, since he looked like a bitter man who would prefer Urushi over curd.

‘No. I am actually a criminal. I just murdered my brother since he looked like a potential threat to the security of my wife’s gold. And my wife, since she looked like a potential threat to the security of my wife’s gold.’ he was frightening the soul out off my body. I felt like a hard strike on a Pepsi bottle – about to explode.

‘And what did you get!’ I exclaimed, trying to not look nervous, shocked or afraid. Since, he could have killed me for being a potential threat to his wife’s gold.

‘My wife’s gold’ he said, expressing an alien emotion that could have been a different form of sadistic pleasure, or wicked materialistic pleasure that stretched the wrinkles on his forehead.

I was stoned. I knew that man needs so much to survive. ‘He’d have become a goblin to fulfill his financial demands, and of his family. But now he had no family. And now he might be drinking to fulfill his psychological need. He could have been lamenting over the loss. He could have been sad, and lonely; and without a family’.  

‘But that was twenty-five years ago’, his voice soured.

If he was to believe, there was a man in front of me who has murdered his brother and wife for some gold twenty-five years ago and is drinking his ass out in some congested alley of my city without a bee’s sting on his butt.

‘So you’re a sinister soul vacuumed by greed, drinking to find some comfort in this flesh’, I ridiculed as I began to see a cynical greedy animal lying on the stairs, at a distance of thirty feet - across the street.  

‘No I was that twenty-five years ago’ he said, dismounting the staircase and coming towards me. ‘I was a criminal, a murderer. When I looked in the mirror I saw some blood stains. I kept washing my face again and again. But whenever I looked in the mirror I saw some blood stains. I remembered how I cut my brother’s throat – blood sprouting out, as I sliced his neck and broke the bone like he was only flesh and bones under my feet until I was in a pond of blood with a corpse that I had to chop. All the blood that sprinkled over my face stayed there – forever. I couldn’t wash it. I remembered how I chopped my wife after. I didn’t disfigure her face. I loved her, but not more than her gold.’ He spoke without a pause; the drink was now taking his senses, as a criminal was confessing his crime. I was scared and wanted to leave the place as soon as I could have made the escape without him noticing. But now he was standing at a distance of some ten-twelve feet from my shiverin’ feet - speaking like a lunatic who didn't want to stop.

*to be continued.

- Syed Rehan