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| Edvard Munch, The Scream |
What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.
What shall we do tomorrow?
What shall we ever do?
— Wasteland, T.S. Eliot
I found me sitting on a box covered with a dusty and torn carpet still staring at the crystal jar, not seeing anything in particular, as if I was coming back from a nightmare. Or maybe I was waking up into the nightmare. I tried guessing how long I have been lost in thoughts, not a bad place to get lost in. Difficult. Shafts of light that poured in were still burning with the warmth of the sun, dust particles fleeting in a gray mist. The next door cat whined like it always did, a very irritating cat that one. Some heavy vehicle roared down the street that was invisible from here, I judged it to be a truck.
And, then it moved. Oh my bloody sisterlicking brotherblowing motherfucking GOD! It moved.
Unnoticeably, softly, slowly… the head opened its eyes, and stared back at me in a hollow and blank uncomprehending meaningless stare. I knew severed heads were not supposed to open eyes that suddenly, I never heard of that kind of rigor mortis in my life. Mesmerized I kept staring at it. It was a stalemate. I did nothing. The head did nothing. Every motion frozen in time, like so much refrigerated lobsters, two heads, one attached to a body and the other without any such commitment, stayed unblinking with eyes locked. Meeeow – it was that nagging stupid cat that broke the spell. I shifted my gaze to my hands, yes, as I felt there was something I held very tight in a double handed grip. Must have been something I picked up when I sat on the box. It was a girl’s bag in tatters – red and black, leather and hemp, with a braided strap and a bell metal buckle… instantly recognizable.
One thing always unfailingly and invariably leads to another. This time the bag led me to a great crossing. The train of memories passed through the great barrier, and, I remembered her face. Ash’s face. That face was a curious concoction that I would never dare to understand – austere like a tava-baked plain flatbread, handed out off a roadside eatery for truckers, or festive like a bowl of Kachi Akhni, the biriyani coming right of the Nizam’s kitchen sporting 50 varieties of meat – changing shades in an instant, and always inexplicably. Tired eyes that sparkled like the night sky whenever she flashed a smile, full lips that always looked a bit chaffed but never felt so when she kissed, cheeks that never could decide between sinking and blushing – the wonders never ceased. And, she lived in a perpetual twilight of fear. She believed no one. Not even me. Not that she had any reason to believe me in any damn way. It was almost like she lived in my shadow, a shadow that only stunk of death and debauchery. Sweet and sad, she still clung on to me.
It was Ash’s face that was looking back at me from inside the jar.
I felt like I was hit by the train that just made the crossing straight in the face, full blast, wheels cranking, rails screeching, winds hissing past. Boom. I started to scream, a completely involuntary and desperate wail of terror and anguish. I screamed on until blood spurted out of my mouth and my nose. Damn! I surely had ruptured some stuff inside. Blood trickled down the side of my neck. Warm and sticky. I toppled off the box headfirst into the dust. And, I lay there. No strength left in me to stir an inch. Then the head chuckled. No, really, Ash chuckled. She never laughed once in all the years she was with me like she did now. Eerie and sarcastic, not an aorta of humor there.
I lay stiff on the floor waiting for Ash to stop chuckling.
