Invictus

Artwork - Derek Hess

The sea spray burned his eyes as almighty mists of salty water rose to strike his face, coating his visage as he walked along the abandoned beach. Lifting his hand, he brushed it all away – the waters of the sea that had settled on his face and the tears that had unconsciously mingled them, tears he had barely felt flowing from his tired eyes.  Tired, they were; hours of staring at the memories that cyberspace alone held, days of scrawling in illegible script on every blank surface at hand and days wasted with tears over old things he knew weren’t worth crying over had turned him into something he barely knew. Someone who lived in his body yet someone he hadn’t encountered in his rollercoaster-ride of a life.

He had once found solace on such a desolate beach, the calming waves at his toes and the wind ruffling his hair used to be nature’s way of telling him that he was still alive, and that he needed to keep the fire in his heart burning. Once a believer in all things wonderful – love, magic and the power of dreams – he now stood a hollow vessel, being lapped at by the cold ocean currents and stung by the salt of the waves. It was as if the universe was conspiring against him, the way it had promptly turned everything and everyone he ever loved away from him and left him as lonely as the stretch of land he stood on. People walked out, and the ones who walked in didn’t seem to care for his broken heart that refused to heal. His one friend, the sea, in the past a comforter and healer, was biting back. It seemed as if all hope was lost.

Head in his hands, he sank to the ground, the waves lapping at the edges of his bare feet; soles that were tainted with the dust of the earth and scarred by something far more evil than thorns. The tears he had wiped away a few minutes ago now flowed freely from his eyes – eyes that, if someone were to look into them at that very moment, seemed to say so much yet nothing at all. The skin on his palms screamed with pain as they succumbed to the pressure of his clenched fists. Right then, he didn’t know what to feel; frustration was long past, sadness was overrated and frankly, he was tired of being angry.  This malicious triad had torn his soul apart, wrenching his humanity out of his very grasp and thrusting it down into unknown depths that even he dared not to venture.

For months, he had chased after dreams that seemed only breaths away yet, as he drew closer and slipped his fingers through the threads of hope that trailed behind them, they vanished. Deep down he had pushed them, little demons of thought that ravaged at his sanity if he ever let them be free, creatures that eventually grappled their way to the surface, only to tease and taunt him again. Words, spoken and read, that only served to drown him deeper in the misery that engulfed with every passing moment. He had lost control of himself.

Now, he wanted himself back. Gone was the person who allowed fear and the past hold the reins on his present existence. Dead, the lifeless body that was controlled by an army of evil beings that threatened the very vessel they manipulated. Standing up, he felt a calming numbness envelope him; his mind, body and senses were wakened from their dormant slumber and he came to realize just how much he needed to correct, just how many mistakes never should have been made in the first place. Turning to face the wrath of the water deities, he allowed the spray to splatter all over his body, rejuvenating him with a sense of freedom that was almost alien to him. As if lifting a heavy weight off his shoulders, his head seemed lighter and for once, creatures of the deep weren’t at war in the crevices of his mind. The wounds on the soles of his feet, burned by the intensity of the salt, gave him less pain than they did an hour ago.

He was free.

Lifting the almost-empty bottle to his lips, he tilted it back and felt the liquid spark enliven the inside of his body, completing the electrical circuit and setting his soul ablaze with the fire that the sea once spoke to him about. With his arms outstretched, he turned to face the mighty ocean as the wind breathed life into his body. Bleeding still from his old wounds, he chose to strengthen his soul and not let it fall prey to this terror once again. He cried out, for what, he did not know; because no one ever knows what to say or ask for. Forgiveness, life, happiness and anything he could possibly think of to fill the gaping hole in his being. Let them come, the vagabonds that fed off his soul, parasites that craved for the essence of human happiness to survive. He could no longer be harmed.

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Invincible, he was, and invincible he would remain.

Maybe.

It’s just another one of a human’s many flaws to be most attracted to that which they are deathly afraid of. Stupidity, positivity, courage? No, it’s suicide; taking a leap off the edge of a cliff when you know just how sharp the rocks at the bottom are.

Maybe we’re afraid of something for a good reason – you don’t go playing with fire if you’ve been burned once.

Maybe it’s also because that same fire could be gone in minutes and you’ll regret that you never played with it, even though you knew you’d get burned.

Maybe it’s true that all good things come to an end and you’d be better off they way you are, rather than being taunted by little fragments of joy you know will drift away in no time.

Maybe being afraid seems ridiculous in comparison to how beautiful it could be, if you gave it a chance.

Maybe the glass is half-empty.

Maybe it’s half full.

Maybe, today, you won’t give a damn.

Maybe, in the future, you’ll come back to me.

That’s a lot of maybes.

Then again, maybe for now it’s best that things stay as they are.

I don’t want to waste hours steeped in the misery of things I wish were mine.

I sure as hell don’t want to cry over you the way I did once; worthless, worthless tears.

I want to be speaking the truth when I tell someone that “I’m okay, everything’s fine.”

Reverting back to my pessimistic ways, I’d rather be the way I am than have you do this to me again.

Tonight is one of those nights.

I am craving, literally just wanting, affection.

A cuddle, a squeeze, maybe a cheeky kiss; I just want to be loved. Not wanted sexually, not lusted after, not used, LOVED for ME.

I haven’t felt like this in a while. I just want someone to want me, and to love me. To make me feel happy, just to make my smile bigger than it already is. To love me as I am.

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Stumbled across this on Tumblr yesterday and, well...

It's a tad scary when someone you don't even know can so directly say everything you've hidden in indirect words and secret emotions.

A Parallel Universe

Maybe once, we'd stop and think about everyone who's worse off than we are.

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Seeya flips through the yellowing pages of the age-old tomes that clutter his study. These books, the keepers of knowledge; the wise men who taught him everything he knew, from Hanuman to Hitler. Wisdom he passed onto us, a timeless chronicle. From in between one of the moth-eaten pages falls an old photograph, warped by the heat. An ageless testament of devotion, it is a picture of Seeya and Achchi, young and in love.

Achchi, who now potters about the walauwa, preparing their old abode for the visit of her offspring and grandchildren. Nothing has changed – the house still hasn’t seen the colour of a ceiling fan or electric bulb. Seeing the little ones run through the heavy front doors brings her a joy that not even the worst case of arthritis can keep her from celebrating. To feed her children again is something that comes naturally, her mother’s intuition still as well tuned-in as it was those many years ago.

We now sit to eat at the long wooden table, worn with age and pressure, chatter like a gaggle of village damsels at a clear stream on a beautiful sunny day. Seeya, usually the dispenser of all wisdom, takes the backseat and listens to his little grandson rattle on about every minute detail of his three-year old life. Sunlight streams through the long windows, casting a golden glow on this family portrait.

Golden parippu in a clay pot, the rich hue of the lentil curry a stark contrast to the deep brown of the vessel it sits in. Saffron stains our fingers, running deep into the miniscule folds of the skin on our fingertips, painting our fingertips a radiant gold. Chillie, fire-red and scorching, burns the inside of our mouths, bringing tears to the eyes of the younger ones who can’t take the heat.

Burning, the tears in his dark eyes. Anger? Maybe. Frustration? A considerable amount. Sadness? Like an ocean, drowning him. Clutching  the side of the door, his knuckles almost white, he stares at them – their family, the happiness they’re lucky enough to feel, the love that they are blessed with. He has nothing to dwell on except the family he once had, his family that was now lost and gone forever.

Lost, that was what he had thought had happened when his son hadn’t returned on time that afternoon. The little tyke was a free spirit and refused to be confined by his overprotective father. The child’s mother had passed away – for a person in their social class, illness meant death because medicine was far too expensive for their meager lifestyle – and from that moment, he had sworn to watch over the boy with a fierce passion that only a father can possibly fathom. Naturally, when the boy didn’t run screaming into the house like a minor tornado, it wasn’t long before he was out the door and wildly searching for his precious son.

Precious was that last laugh he heard as his son ran deeper into the planted field, sensing that his father was hot on his trail and decided to lead him on a merry chase. He cherished the memories of the boys screams as he ran faster, for fear of being caught. He spent his son’s last few moments in this life without even seeing his face.

He found him lying face-down on the ground. The boy’s right leg, a mangled mess of flesh and bone. The grass around him was as still as his body, lifeless and immobile in death. Deaf to his own screams after the thunderous blast, he cradled his angel in his arms and wept. Tears fell on the child’s face, on his bleeding limb and flowed down to settle near the remains of the demon that had extinguished the boy’s spirit. The metal and gunpowder lay strewn across the little clearing, scattered around the two people whose lives it had destroyed – one physically, the other, emotionally.

His emotions fluctuated between raging anger and bitter sadness. Looking at the table one last time, he turned his back to the image that tormented his lonely mind with thoughts of what could have been, a family he could have had. Photographs were alien to people like him so the only memories he had were those that played like a reel in his head, the film always ending with an almighty sound that he couldn’t differentiate – the explosion in the field or the last beat of his child’s heart. Maybe doing his chores will help but his hands shake far too much so he sits in a cold corner of the kitchen and stares into darkness. The sunrays don’t touch his quiet hideaway, no light to illuminate the tears that fall down his dirty face. Forget it all, he thinks, but he’ll never forget that sound.  

Linger

NOTE : I heard this line seated at the hostel breakfast table one morning. Except for the tragedy apparent in the opening line, all events are fictional. However, I have no doubt that these emotions, intensified, were felt by the real-life counterparts of these characters.
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“This is the only picture I have of my thaththi” said the little girl, pulling out a frayed photograph out from one of the pages of her only schoolbook. A strapping gentleman decked in army fatigues squints as the rays of the Northern sun sting his eyes. With the picture had come what would be his last letter to his only daughter, penned in a hasty script that now proved illegible, the ink having being smudged by many hands on its way to its recipient. He was in the army, she said to herself, but now he’s not with us anymore. Ammi hasn’t smiled in so long. Her hands shake when I ask about him.

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Hands shaking, she swept the cold floor of the little nook they called home. She couldn’t bear her daughter’s questions, the many inquiries as to where thaththi was now, and requests for retellings of events that had occurred in his presence. A tear trickled down her cheek. Remembering the feel of his blistered fingers wiping the tears from her eyes the day he left, she bent over and sobbed. She placed a trembling hand over her belly, praying for this child who would have to grow up never knowing what his father looked like. She would give him his name. They had reported him missing in action. With every bomb and claymore mine, the prospect of ever seeing him alive dimmed like a dying candle.

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The candle died, growing shorter and eventually melting into a pool of wax in front of him. The words in the page all ran into one another, making the lesson one long venomous snake that seemed to want to lash right off the book and strike him. In the dark, he heard his mother cry. She thought he didn’t hear her but he heard every word, every plea made to the gods for her husband, his father.  The candle had sizzled into oblivion and he strained to make sense of the equation before him, eyes smarting after studying for long hours by the flickering light of the kuppi laampuwa. His father had wanted him to study, be an engineer. But now, he wanted to avenge his father’s death. He wanted to fight back.

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Fighting for his country, protecting his motherland. That’s what his son had been doing. What he had died doing.  His once staunch respect for the Armed Forces was lost the moment the words had reached his ears. Had he been younger, he would have walked right into the killing fields and lifted his son out of agony, back into life.  He had brought him up with the integrity of a noble, righteous citizen. Not to ruthlessly murder innocent civilians or to slaughter, be they terrorist or bomber, human beings. The plans of a tranquil, happy life he had for his son and for his grandchildren slipped from between his fingers and drifted away with the wind.

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Drifting into the humid air were the tendrils of smoke that rose from the joss sticks that she lit for her son. Her one and only putha, whose smile had brought happiness to her heart and whose childish hands once held hers, fingers entwined in love and trust. Fingers that were now stained with the blood of humans, terrorist and civilian alike. That was what she didn’t understand, a concept she never seemed able to comprehend. In life, they lived to highlight their difference and superiority over the other, using a gun of exploding shell to make their opinion known. But in death, their blood mingling together on the palm of his hand, no one could tell the difference. And so she cried, for the life of her son, in ancient sorrow that only a mother’s heart can bear to withstand, her spirit breaking.

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His spirit tore right in half as he remembered that once frozen picture, that fateful day on the battlefield. A month ahead, disguised in civilian attire, his eyes had swept the streets of a quiet, rural village. He watched in silence, the young man holding the hand of a little boy and girl, followed by his beautiful wife who seemed to be bearing another child. He noticed the happiness in his face, the lightness in his step, perpetuated by the constant presence of warmth that can only come from the closest-knit of families; that twinkle of pride in his eyes for the wonderful citizens his children were becoming. That same twinkle he had extinguished himself a week later in battle when the bullet from  his gun sliced through the air and into that once proud father’s heart. All he could do, as he watched the body fall, was think that there was nothing he could change about it now.

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It wasn’t his fault. Repeating this mantra in his head, he stepped over the threshold of the little village hut and was greeted by the scared stares of a young girl, fear causing her body to tremble. An older boy, accusation oozing from his eyes as their gazes met, huddled her off into the far corner of the small living room. Her breathing laboured, the man’s wife emerged from the back of the hut, her eyes red after long hours of weeping. As he spoke the dreaded words, there seemed to be no sound around him. The girl screamed out in terror, and the boy, who now seemed more like a man, did nothing to silence her. He stared back at him, malice radiating from every part of him, his eyes like plunging daggers. Their mother sank into a chair, held her face in her hands and her body began to rack in bitter sobs.

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“Ammi’s so sad” she though quietly. Looking down at the picture in her hands, droplets of transparent sadness fell onto her father’s face and it looked as if he were crying too. In her mind, with the most sincere of devotion and the strongest love, she prayed. “Thaththi, I love you. Come back”

July

This is a true story based on the telling of another true story.

“Your father saved my life” the man had said.

When my father refused to explain to me what he meant, my mother provided me with an answer that, although very brief, instantly set my already-inquiring mind positively ablaze with curiosity.

“Eighty-three”

It was a good three days before my father finally came about. Calling me to sit next to him at the table, he found a ratty piece of scrap paper and began to draw, the streets of old Colombo bursting forth from the tip of his pen.

July was a warm month and no one expected – much less, wanted – the fire to get any hotter. But it had and now the days burned with flames of heat, anger and bitter sadness. My father watched all this from his verandah, silently observing the murder of khaki-clad crows who circled the top of his lane. One could almost call them scavengers, the way they hunted for their prey and made do with them in a matter of minutes. My father shuddered and turned to walk inside when he heard the puttering of a motorcycle engine. He froze.

Approaching on the motorcycle he knew were his neighbours. They were honest and good people, pure in mind and unblemished in soul - exactly the kind of innocent humans that the scavengers hunted and devoured. The crows could sense their presence and the puttering of the engine quietly died down as the vehicle was ordered to stop. The man and his sister who sat on it were petrified, the young girl’s hands shivering as she attempted to mask the telltale red dot she bore on her forehead with the soft material of her sari.

My father slowly turned around. One word and he change the entire picture being painted in front of him. One word and he could make it uglier than it already was. One word and he could be dead. It seemed best to say nothing.

My father was never one to remain silent.

“Sir, let them through – they’re friends of mine” my father called, in a language the crows understood. Recognizing the familiar words, the bicycle was allowed to proceed – albeit with a few suspicious, murderous glances from the crows - and my father motioned for it to enter their front garden. Hurriedly, he led the man and his sister into a room deep within the house and there they stayed.

Four days and three nights the flames raged outside, setting on fire not only metal structures and concrete edifices but also the very emotions of the people who were licked by its flames. The fire drove them to kill, torture and plunder. It made devils out of the best people and those who couldn’t stand the blaze fell victim to the heat were destroyed.

They survived, the man and his sister, and returned to their home when the flames finally receded. The city was almost a stranger now, transformed so much by the chaos that they almost had trouble finding their way back. Tears streaming down her face, the young girl thanked my father in a language that was alien to him yet they understood each other by something beyond vocabulary – trust.

My father has come to the end of his story. Nervous scratches and scribbles mar the face of the map he had drawn to illustrate it. His eyes were clouded over, a maelstrom of emotions that I couldn’t decipher. Now, he was silent.

I thought about every word he had said, those two lives he had touched and changed. How it had broken him to talk about what happened, even though he had in fact saved someone’s life. He was a hero, and he didn’t even know it. 

One Liners

There are those little things people say that probably made no sense when you first heard it but, a few minutes later, they really get you thinking.

These next two posts are inspired by two such lines.
It's not the usual kind of stuff - these are more like stories, assumptions of people's feelings and the outcome of situations.

The line in bold is the focal point.