It was 3 am. “I can’t believe we’ve been here this long. Time has flown by.” Her eyes sparkled in the light. He grabbed her hair pulled it down. Kissed her open neck. Fuck. Her phone began to buzz. It was the others. “Where are you,” he could hear the warbled voice from the phone to where he sat. It was that quiet outside. On each other again. Car passing by. He put his head down on her neck and rested it there. It felt nice. Then he licked it. She moaned. Holy fuck. Somehow her jacket brushed against him, the lights of her car next to them blinked. It unlocked. He laughed. They separated. He went back to the driver’s seat. Deep breaths. Otherwise, silence. The glow of the streetlights towering above still the same as it had been a few hours ago. She had her elbows on the space in between, her chin on her hands. She was looking at him, he looked in the rearview mirror, a rickshaw standing by the road. A man walking towards them. Clean face, kind of stocky, shalwaar kameez. It was 3.27am. He knocked on the wind

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The night was bleeding into darkness. Getting older. Demons were crawling out of the woodwork. This place however, was immune to the outside world. It was far away from the men in the caps of the religious who sat and stroked their beards with one hand while guiding the hands of those they were entrusted with to their otherwise untouched members. It was far away from the bloodthirsty lynchings and the beating of the religious. It was far away from the conservative society that still propagated child marriages and acid sprayings and stonings. It was immune. It was free. Wildly, caustically free.

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They drank. He needed to pee. They drank. He needed to pee. The room was dim, and people were laughing. He was buzzed. He laughed louder. The girl who had invited him was drunk. She got up, and changed the music, she started dancing loudly. Sadiq invited him away. He got up and followed him out. One of his friends, the one with the huge collection of guns that his host was scared of, the collection, not the man. Probably the man too. That person was crushing white powder and making lines of it in a small steel tray with a credit card. They offered him some, and they offered him a lit blunt that was being passed around, “Maybe next week, not now.” They were insistent. He turned them down again laughing. He had to drive back home. He didn’t tell them that. He was sure they would make some excuse or the other. They asked again, he turned them down politely. Firmly. They stopped. Then Sadiq began talking to him about how they knew the same people, and because of that, they were brothers, they shared a bond. He just laughed and nodded. They began snorting, and one of them mentioned how they did it every week. He just wondered. The night was beautiful. The stars above were twinkling with delight. The dark sky was blanketing this place. Not too loud, not too obnoxious. “We should invite the girls out, let’s have them try some,” and then Sadiq winked at him. Inside him, something rebelled. Outside, he was silent. He was hoping they would not. He would stop them if it got to that point, right?

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”We’re here with Daniyal.” Ok, the panel slid closed, then opened again, “Who?” “Daniyal, she said a little bit louder.” Voices came from inside as the door opened. “It’s okay, they’re with us. Two adults, one with a mug filled with a golden liquid, the other with something darker. All of them exchanged greetings. He motioned for the two girls to enter, and followed after them, looking around.

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Dude, I’m going to get murdered, he clicked send on the text and looked up. Light was still red. His car was warm. The windows were clear. Soon, they would be foggy. Opened a different app, and started writing out the same message. Midway, he looked up, it was his light, he pressed the accelerator, one hand on the wheel, with the other, he switched apps, leaving his message midway. The phone spoke out the directions, always calm. He laughed, maniacally. I might die. TURN LEFT. This one or the next? Oh shit, I missed it. Service lane. He looked at the phone, it said another nine minutes instead of the two it had been showing earlier. Oh well. Maybe this was a sign. I might die. He looked at the dark street it was supposed to be at as he passed by it, unable to turn in. He laughed out loud, all alone in his car. The rest of the drive was silent, the humdrum was in his thoughts. I’m going to die. Holy shit, this will be fun. He finally finished the text he had been sending out. Dude, I’m going to get murdered. Are you going to do it? This is sketch as fuck. Sorry, i’m now seven minutes away.

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The man was stocky, his belly making a bump under his shalwaar kameez. His mustache perfectly coiffed in true gunda fashion. It seemed he would pull out an old rusty gun any minute now. His hair was sparse but shiny. His eyes were sparkling with glee. He was talking to my colleague and I. I was a little hesitant, my training in this profession, in the world of business encompassing one all-important truth: everybody lies. Default-to-lies. I defaulted, or am trying to, in the interest of making my boss proud to a default-to-lies worldview. He mocks me incessantly for asking him why he didn’t trust people. It hurts. For my boss is also my father. He is not here. But I am a little hesitant about the man. For one thing, he already looks like a gunda. For another, what does he want? He’s talking about his dog. He has a beautiful big dog, that is covered with scabs. The dog looks happy though. Behind us the barks and yelps and whines of dogs, and an MC speaking over the sounds, announcing the class, category, and winners.

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“So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one. But just the one. Don’t either of you ask me for more.”

I fear though, Shahrez already knows this story. 

You don’t know me. I barely know you. Your boyfriend has been going behind your back since the spring of 2012. His cowardly cousins were going to tell you by the way. Just the day before you got married to him.

Why am I telling you this?

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Kissed by fire, touched by lightning. Eyes like the warmth of a grey monsoon summer sky. Clouds thundering, grumbling. About to burst forth into a downpour of fresh rain from the heavens. Heaven sent. That was it. That was her.

Smile like a thousand splendid suns. Cheekbones high and collarbones sharp. Hands soft, slender. Tender.

Hand sculpted by the lord of Olympus. Welded in the forges of Hephaestus. Watched over by the jealous eyes of Hera and her minions. Heart raging with the passion of Ares. Eyes twinkling with the light of Apollo’s sun chariots. Body lithe like Artemis.

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His head was a little drowsy. The music was loud, country. Foot tapping on the floor. He felt the fingerprints on his index as he rubbed once against another. Eardrums throbbing in a convex curve. Sound coming out in a plane. Eyes brimming with light. Fingertips tapping out an impatient melody against the wooden table that. He spread them out over it. It felt strange. Smooth and rough. Rivulets and sand dunes. It felt poetic. He took in a deep breath of air through his nostrils. Nothing. The air smelled of nothing. He could feel it. Cool air through his nostrils. Without odor. His stomach grumbled meekly. He swayed a little and out his head on the shoulder of his best friend. She patted it. He was silent. In front of him sat a beautiful girl. Light grey eyes deep as the ocean on a starry night. Hair gold as silk. He tapped his foot on the ground and closed his eyes. Her eyes twinkled with laughter as they played a prank on someone. Her smile wide and beautiful. He closed his eyes and sighed inside.

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He looked around the room, and then popped a blueberry in his mouth. It was a little bitter but so what. It didn’t taste rotten. The room was warm, his feet were cold. His brother lay sleeping in front of him. He was sitting cross legged on the blue sofa. He looked at the series of cushions that had supported his head over the night. Pretty comfortable, he had to admit.

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His finger hovered over the keyboard. He hesitated, nothing showing on his face, and then moved the cursor to close the screen. It had been like this for days. Since he had touched down in the land of free, the enveloping, suffocating power of its biggest overlord had been upon him. They had perfected it to a science, and they could no longer control it. It controlled them. But it did so so subtly. So beautifully. From the outside, you would appreciate and value it.

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The door whistled as it opened and a man walked in. sunlight streamed in through the open windows. Outside, everything was quiet and calm. No one else walked the roads. It was a Sunday morning, and in this country, people slept till noon on a Sunday. Grocery stores opened at noon. This barber’s shop was thankfully open earlier. It could not afford not to be. Shadows followed as the door slid to a close, light being melded through the glass. Inside, a man had been sweeping the floor, and he stood to attention as the customer walked in, hurriedly asked him to take a seat, and scrambled around to find a cloth, which he draped over the customer, and the other necessary things for a haircut.

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From standing still, it hummed as the mighty heart of the beast began to work, driving it forward. From standing still, it began to roll down the long stretch of gravel at an incredible pace, within a matter of minutes. The atmosphere was calm, tinged with a hint of tension. To some people, no matter how many times they had done this, the act still brought them some fear and worry. Very few in the beast were new. A larger number than the uninitiated worried.

The beast jumped off the ground. He wondered now, not always, but he wondered how it jumped off. Bounced off, was it able to somehow look up and take off. He made a mental note to look that up when he got the chance. For now, his phone was in airplane mode.

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The wind caressed his face with a bipolar rage. Caressing with cold to the touch, sharp icy fingers scraping. Could almost hear the screeching. His cheeks felt numb. He ran on. They would soon settle. All that he needed was movement. One mile in, and he would be fine. His chest heaved. His legs were moving, one after the other. Smooth, flawless. Was it the change in the surface his feet were pounding, he wondered? Where was that poignant pain in his ankle. The one that painted his eyes with red, colored his brows with sweat, the one that pained as it reached his chest, and it contracted. Where was that pain in his ankles? That damned pain.

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Again. He almost slapped himself in disbelief. After he had gone through this once, why did he put himself through it again. Two losses in one day. Just three months after the first time. Same two. His right hand shivered, hurt a little, veins on his wrist throbbing erratically with the beating of his heart. Deep long sighs. Didn’t help. The air was scented with a scent meant to pacify. He was not. His feet tapped impatiently on the carpeted surface in front of him. His butt hurt from sitting on the sturdy seat for so long already.

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Music was playing softly through the speakers hung in the corners. Songs from a decade to two ago, that brought smiles of nostalgic to the crowd this place wanted to attract. Once that crowd came in, young adults, people in their early twenties, people almost at their twenties, once this crowd came in, others would follow. Or at least that was how the theory went. It had worked out that way as well. The place was clean, the crowd at this time, when the sun had not yet set, but it was not high up in the sky either, at this time, around four in the evening, was not large, but that was to be expected. It was neither lunch nor dinnertime. Why would there be any people here. Yet there were.

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Music was playing softly through the speakers hung in the corners. Songs from a decade to two ago, that brought smiles of nostalgic to the crowd this place wanted to attract. Once that crowd came in, young adults, people in their early twenties, people almost at their twenties, once this crowd came in, others would follow. Or at least that was how the theory went. It had worked out that way as well. The place was clean, the crowd at this time, when the sun had not yet set, but it was not high up in the sky either, at this time, around four in the evening, was not large, but that was to be expected. It was neither lunch nor dinnertime. Why would there be any people here. Yet there were.

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The wind whipped around the board, a veritable fortress buttressing the embankments. The men were hollow shadows of themselves, skin straining to stretch over their bodies. The board was glowing with an energy that could only be described as purple. You looked too close or too long at it, and you would be taken into the throes of madness. Would descend into something close to despair and destruction. Look too closely at the board, and you would see a throbbing power, you would see sounds, would hear the green and yellow, and red, and purple dancing and intermingling. You would smell the ground beneath your feet, and your nostrils would feel the gravel underneath. Would feel the sand whipping around. Fire would be heard as it burned you. Thunder would be smelled as it roared. Madness would descend upon you, gripping onto you tightly. Tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter. Until naught remained but an empty shell. As it was, the shadows that had been watching the board had dispersed. They could not handle the madness either. The sounds cracked through the air like whips of thunder. Each piece being

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Jamil was biking. Faster and faster went the revolutions of the pedals, his fingers hovering near the brakes just in case. Faster and faster. Faster and faster. Now they were just a blur. Jamil was biking, wind whipping his face, his clothes pressed tight against his chest, and baggy behind him, like a balloon. The wind was so fast, he was moving so fast, the wind so fast against him in reaction that he almost could not breathe. He had to gasp to take in air. His fingers were cold, almost cold enough that he could not move them. His eyes were blurring with tears from the wind barraging them.

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