-struck life
Sheheryar Badar Sheikh

     

I.

          Watch the walk, especially the strut, jingle. Hear the curious tinktink of coins, metallic sound in his pocket like rhythm. He lingers in air, suspended, arced in step suspended still in air suspended like air like substance in air. The god in him set to roast out the truth and go deeper until evaporation, until rain. Broad shoulders, cool expanse swarthy balmy calm sea, his shoulders the morph of a sun's arc. Hear jingle, see arcs, see strut, see rhythm in flesh, the timing. Sunchoked sun split sunblonde, dancer in walks sunkissed. Almost god, mostly sun, younger brother of the murderer.
          From a perch he's watched, accounted for, believed in, worshipped and kept vigil for. You will climb elevators with glass outsides to rise as you see him walk. Ina, hon, how could you, baby why? What's he going to give you except burns? What's his walk got that's not in anyone else's? Put coins in your pocket, my pocket, they'll jingle just like that. He's not the soundgod, Hon. SUN not SOUND. Nor noise. Hon, you know he's in for it if you keep looking right? I warned you: keep looking and you're going to kill him.

"What?" he says, awake. "W-what?" he repeats.
 "Nothing, go back to sleep," I, with a hammer in hand.

          I'll make a list of the reasons then a list of ways. The happiness in you when he makes you laugh, I like that. Keep it when he's gone, 'kay? Y'know what I mean? When there's the probability of murder, the passion usually ends right after, and then it's all about children. But here, there's the promise of more violent, more fervent rapture after him.

          Reasons being excuses to not let live, a rampage of excuses may be needed at once to fling me into fury, Hon. See, I don't really love you. Flipflops and tubetops, you do them justice, but you're just one pretty woman, and there's three billion of your sex growing exponentially each day. Could dump you and move on, and be shifty as my own hero for having given way to jealousy. It's inevitable that we break because when I used to think of you, I used to think to you with a lightness, but now it's in the negative. I think still to you, addressing it over the system of vari-linked nerves arteries spatial immaterial energy bonds. But it's so sad and negative, whatever I think of. It's.. like.. sick! I mean: murder? Y'know what I mean?
          Here's the reasons: because he's so much better.
          Baby, if we lived in a small town, I'd understand, if it were in Africa I'd understand. They do it for food, and a full belly's needed for love.
          Okay another reason: he ate my food once.
          Maybe a list of last requests too.

"I-I'd give anything for mon-ney. Wouldn't you-y-you?" he asks, changing channels.
"Anything?" I, rhetorically; the coins in his pocket make a settling sound.

          Our worlds are so full of maybe's. Maybe I'll buy you this, or that. Maybe you'll come over so my ache for you isn't extinguished. Perhaps there will be an emergency, perhaps not. His isn't like that. The sun will rise and set, move through the day, calling on the ring of weather in his hand to change lives. He will shine, whether you see him or not. If all the people we are with are dead, the day is going to come. He was angry once, and two meters of water gathered.
          Because he's better than me, because it rains when he's angry, I imagine him going through a tunnel and a gush of water come up behind him, and thinking he's invincible, he keeps strutting along. In the dream he doesn't glow, he hasn't the heat to glow. He is not the god of dreams. The water reaches mid-calf and he's fine, sure as a deity of the future. He keeps his airs in my dreams. But the air doesn't help him to breathe. It gives the rush of water a passage to consume him. Without heat he sizzles, like a signal of extreme distress, put out, and parts of him grow naked as the clothes boil off. His perfect, grotesque muscles show next, after skin vaporizes. And his strut's little calf-contraction shows without the veil, what a tiny glint of movement flutters to your sick self, Ina. You hanker after this.
          In another life, he'd be a soaring statue of the sun god, seeing ages pass stoically, blinkless, then with an ear fallen off because he was sick of sound, mostly due to rock concerts and car horns. Before he lost more in that life I'd plan a little at night, take stock of my life as statue-protector, plant a bomb and maybe stay as he blew to bits. In our world there is no air, water, fire, only sun and god. In our world, we are full of sun. He promises day after day, and most listen.
          That's another way I'd do it. With sound, a large blast of noise-I'd tune away the earth's rumbling to a frequency that we could hear, and then his eardrums would burst. Under water, the sound wouldn't reach us. We'd be in a bathtub, all our clothes on, all our inhibitions awake under water as the crack of rock with rock would surge a noise to strike hammer on anvil, and the inner stirrup of his ear would run amok, hurtled into the sun's core, crashing his light out. Then you would clutch me, because of the noise.

"Hold on tight p-please," he says, climbing to the roof to unclog the drainpipe after two meters of rain.
"Kay," I, holding a ladder two floors below.

          Your confessions baby, the ones you slipped into: that you were watching him as you rose in that elevator, that while he was walking you timed the tap of your ring and the metal on your purse to his inaudible strut, so you heard the jingle still; Hon, could you be a little more articulate with the other one, because you're not the goddess of night.

"You keep us away from each other, don't you?" your vincible confrontation.
"Did your doctor put you up to this?" I, playing Jack.
Your, sighing, "No." Your pressing a card, "It just feels like you keep us in separate compartments. Like, of your life."
"Maybe you don't like that we're so different. That he's him and I'm me," my not king, my not knowing, low ace.

          So say it Ina, if you can, if it's from you. You can't stop being right, but tenderfooted, you droplet of tinktink, the little banners of your protest go only so far.

II.

"Okay okay. But I'm really not dressed," Like really undressed. Flops jeans and t-shirt so why now?
"Baby if I've ever asked you anything.. this is it," his needing voice switching on. Like.. great.

          Yesterday of all the things and now this. Like right okay I'm the guinea pig like I'm little TinaMinaLinaIna like come here LinaMinaInaTina and I will. Like right sure. If it's an emergency sure why not but.. whatever. Call her baby and she'll come she's a doll y'know. Y'know what I mean? Yesterday that and like then.. this. Covering my heart with a long-sleeved sweater. That should be a country song I'd sing it loudly otherwise my voice cracks. I'd like to introduce MinaTinaLina and Ina. From the first I should have known, and now yesterday that. Remember how good we were? He was silly as a wombat.. a goose of a man. Trust me he was. He taught me to say fukk with meaning. He's so good at that y'know what I mean like best at that.
          He said my name was a broken-off partitioned world where he could choose his own adventure said if I chose I could be any Ina in the world. And after that too. Maybe that's why yesterday the InaMinaTinaLina stopped listening. She talked o yes she talked with everybody who'd listen like everybody who was there. The past is the past he says whenever I bring it and then we won't talk about it. But I've told people.

"Do you talk about us?" he wants me to lie and that's why he's not looking concerned right?
No, should I?" Like does he want me to? "Do you want me to now.. like even though you said you didn't?"

          Maybe keep it as a lyric I'd keep it as not the chorus I'd keep it somewhere hidden maybe a hidden track with no title and then maybe I'd sing it low like a whisper near the fading ending and with a crack that'd be original: covering your heart with a sweater-sleeve covering your heart in a sleeve a heart up your sleeve. Maybe later right now TinaMinaLinaIna has to go go go. Wake me up before you go go. I'd cover it and it'd give me credibility because I'd sing it without instruments like with voice cracking letting the pain show. Real slow I'd sing it and that'd be the other track worth buying the album for. TinaLinaInaMina's cover of the Wham hit ladies and gentlemen and with the surprise hit single about hearts hidden up sweater-sleeves.
          Yesterday I shouldn't have. He'll notice when I slip the sweater off but I won't slip it off. He's a silly goose though he'll know he'll cuddle me. No it's an emergency he won't cuddle maybe if I hug him first. Ina needs a hug and then he'll comment like he does on every fucking thing. Fukk he taught me to say fukk right. Like hey baby are you cold why Hon is everything okay but he won't because it's an emergency.
          When we met remember? How he said all the Ina names things? Remember how he said that I could be any Ina? Not knowing about maa basically not knowing anything at all he said I could be any Ina. Any Ina and it'd start with the one-syllable ones he said. He said Mina or Tina or Lina could be me and knowing nothing about maa. He said that. Like.. fate.. should've known. At when he said I was his choose your own adventure I should've known he wasn't but maybe I knew and then he said that about the other Inas: the Marina the Angelina the Anne-Marie-Regina and then I told him about maa. And about grandmaa and her maa. And then he said faaaaak real slow. Should've known maybe knew until then. Maybe should have shaken free and sung a song and make him leave me alone and go away and make him really go fukk off.

"There's one thing you can give me, before you hate me for life as a stranger who said things without knowing you. And they were terrible things to say to someone, especially you; but I said them only because I was enchanted by something all of a sudden. You can let me say that you make me want to let go of inhibitions, and let myself be hurt, and two hours with you even.. It sounds right in my head though it's emotional and I'm a logical man. You can give me a chance to say something nice, you can let me teach you how to say what you want.. to me for what I said," his eyes hands back soul shoulders slouched.
"Yes," my saying that beyond that nothing that and then nothing.

          His knowing then to say what I felt his teaching me how to say fukk with meaning. And his body warm quickly like heat pulling me from feet in distance him and me pulling like current like he said fukk and I said fuck then fukc and then finally fukk like he could teach me anything and then us in love and going to bed in a public bathroom a clean bathroom we thought and we didn't say. Should've known that something like that is bad because it starts bad and mixes good and bad ingredients like bad lyrics and good tune. That day that and now this. Like yesterday that and now this.
          He'll cuddle and the hospital's clean like that bathroom was like nobody dies here like it's clean and he's here and now what and the nurse says there in that hall and then down and he's waiting in the waiting room outside. Yesterday that and now this. The sweater yeah it's covering the heart and the heart's the sun and sunheart's one song I'll never make because it'll sound too big for an Ina or even an Anne-Marie-Regina. Sunheart by the Ina's come one come all no ladies and gentlemen no just no. This one room here and he's not here o that's him he's so silly like a goose. Ladies and gentlemen no folks yeah folks that's him in the waiting room and here's the Ina's Tina Mina Lina and Ina they'll sing for you and cuddle with him.

"Baby tell me you'll listen to everything I say. Tell me you'll stay, I don't care. There's.. there's a reason why this happened, and you have to stay," him being someone broken like someone I don't know.. a beggar with all the things he's said and now this.

          Maybe stay tonight but not now I can't not after he hasn't seen the heart and doesn't know and want to know not now not like this. Maybe today tell him no but not not like this maybe not today but tomorrow when eyes dry up and sobriety and there's sense. Yesterday that today that and now this. And then tomorrow when he's ready and look he's looking forward there see his eyes. Yes he knows.

III.

          After collision it's a rushback; something jolts. See splash like water, see fire like hotblood, parched face and hands too far, in awkward play, even ready as if to clap, that's the rough edge of the spliced thought after waking. See opened up suncore bleeding from blackholes. Watching coins peeking silver glint from pockets, some flown all the way back. Turn twisted around the neck muscle to watch blood; silly mortal soak splashed. Suntwist sunjarred sun asunder for miles.
          There's two cars Ina, and they're making noises, they're groaning complaints after crashing, silence elsewise, someone's injured, baby. It's him Ina, younger and murdered, baby we need blankets because this wasn't it.

"Stop. S-stop the c-car," he says, thumbing open the lock.
"What?" I, "what?"

          We walk, navigating roughly, and if I'd known he was opening the door without waiting, baby, if I'd known. We walk and you say things and they collide like puzzlepieces of metal, faster and then could have knocked me. But tinktink, and you say life is such a towel. There was a lake and a push possible, in dreaming the lake would be so much deeper, more ferocious. Rapids would form and in the dream it wouldn't hurt in a flood from lip to toe if I said your name.

//   Advance   //