“No, no, no, no, no”, his voice increased in pitch and volume and he hurled the phone at the wall and curled up in a ball. He screamed in rage and moaned in frustration. Boris stood by, arms folded. He rolled his eyes, and sighed lightly. He looked over at the smashed phone, almost made to move towards it, and then decided it wasn’t worth it. He’d just get Arif another one. That seemed to be his task these days. Aiding and abetting Dr Arif Tendu in running from monsters. How could you run from the monsters that plagued your mind though? There was a small, constant drip and patter as drops of water fell from somewhere in the ceiling to the cold floor below. The doctor was curled up in a ball, his arms around his knees, sounds of animal frustration coming from him. His eyes would be red, rimmed with tears, and tired from the exhaustion and stress that comes from staring at a screen all day long.

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The squirrel approached her. And she saw. She saw. It touched her. She was still dancing. Then the world began to whirl around her. Thunderstorms and raging winds, and aegis. Everything around her, swirling, dancing, raging. She could smell all the colors that the world ever had, and the ones that were rejected from the first designs. She could feel all the movement, could hear the vibrations of the earth. Could hear the deafeningly loud silence. Could sense the murmur and the dreams and aspirations of all creatures that had ever been and would ever be. It happened in the blink of an eye. And then she was back. If she had been there for longer, she felt she would have gone mad. Her brain could not handle it. As it was, it could barely handle all the information that had been passed onto it.

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Hūr Amran woke up with a gasp. Outside the air was heavy, pregnant with moisture. Inside it was just hot and humid. The fan whizzed, circling so much and so fast that looking at it would make you dizzy. Diligently. Yet it seemed, to no effect. He was lying on what they called a manjee. Very surprisingly comfortable. A patchwork of straw thatched together. Stronger than an individual straw, very strong as a whole. It was hard, but it was comfortable. He felt alert, he felt like he could jump up and run six miles. But for today. Today he woke up with a heavy feeling and a gasp. It was as if a heavy blanket had been put on his heart. It was dampened. Slow and fast at the same time. Heavy, sinking almost to his stomach. Flies buzzed around him. Crickets called to one another in the late and getting later hours of the night. Otherwise, all was silence.

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The uncertainty surrounded him in a smog of too many things to say, too many words to say them, and not enough said. It stifled his breath, put a heavy damp, smelly blanket on his heart, choked his air supply. His throat constricted, his words deep, and heavy. Silence coming out, shaking the earth with its enormous weight.

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They knew without him having to say it. Some kids playing in the fields had seen him coming, they ran off to tell the others, pretty soon, the village of just a few dozen people knew. His wife came hurrying along, she saw it in his eyes, and she began to wail. Her cries pierced the stillness of the afternoon. His youngest came hurtling towards him, and the man winced. His heart dropped. The boy had lost his brother, and he could see it in his eyes. The eyes refused to believe what was in front of him: his struggling father, and the prone, upright body of his brother. Then he began to stomp on the ground, and began to hit himself. His mother rushed towards him, but her father grabbed her arm, and shook his head, eyes teary with sorrow. Then the villagers came, they had heard. They saw, and two young men took his son off his arms and began to drag him to the maulvi. He sighed.

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The road was bumpy. He didn’t dare look over to his side, even though many people had been casting furtive, and others, not so subtle glances his way. The driver hadn’t said anything when he had carried his companion in on to the bus. He had been prepared to fight with him, to beg, and plead, and argue. He was a little relieved that he hadn’t had to. But he was also upset. No one understood, no one understood because no one knew. He wanted to tell someone, to share his sorrow. That was why he was going back. And for his son. He could hear the slight rasping breaths as his son struggled to breathe. He would die. And it would be soon.

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“I’m sorry.” His eyes were clouded, blank, empty. “There’s nothing we can do.” Silence. Outside, five floors down, they could hear the occasional honk and the throbbing heart of traffic. Inside, it was a smelly kind of sterile. Bland light streamed in. It was cold inside. A door whooshed open,, a guard peeked outside of the icu. The doctor stood in silence, waiting. His eyes were studiously on the wall instead of the man, just as his words had been directed at the wall instead of the father of his patient. He wasn’t that new. He had had this conversation a few times before. He had been working here for nine months now. But he could still not get over how his supposed mentors were so callous about this kind of conversation. He couldn’t emulate them. He hadn’t lost his empathy yet. Maybe the way they did it was kinder though. Maybe that was how you needed to tell someone. Wrench off the bandaid. It would hurt. But just once. Then it would be a dull, throbbing pain every day for the rest of their life. But that would be there regardless. Don’t think about yourself, think about the patient. He chided himself internally.

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They looked up at him with intelligent, unblinking eyes. One had big blue eyes, another had stormy grey eyes, the third, the humbug had black eyes with a line of yellow in them. He looked through the dirty glass at their small cubicle, tinged only with a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The ground was dirty, there seemed to be spots of pee on it. He looked at the mud pit, it did not seem to be saturated. He could feel the stickiness on the floor outside through the hole in his shoe. The boxes were worn down. He missed the fourth one, for a brief second, the one that was so terrified that it used to be hiding in those cardboard boxes, and could not be seen from the outside. Then he thought, maybe it has a better life. It had run away, their caretaker had claimed. It was highly likely. The other possibility was that it had died. Either way, it was in a better place. But there were dogs outside this remote compound, maybe it wasn’t in a better place. Footsteps outside the room, huffing and puffing. He turned around and walked away to the sounds of meows at his back.

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Crows cackled overhead, a bird of a different kind cawing above. He stood staring. The wind was cool, the ground beneath him just the right interlude between soft and firm. It was sunny above, but not too hot. This kind of day was rare in this country.

He stood and stared. There was an ant crawling up the side of one of the white steel sides. He had been meaning to come. He had made the plan to. He hadn’t known why then. Even now, he didn’t know why he came. Maybe it had become habit. But he had meant to come, ever since November of ‘18, when it had happened. And yet, that had somehow never happened. And then he had flown, left, flown the coop in February. And yet, here he was.

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The board stood still. Everything around it moved.

The board moved. Everything around it stood still.

The air was on fire. The ground was deluged with water. The atmosphere was electric. The sounds were ominous.

The men were bare husks, kept alive and animated by some power unforeseen. It was the power of the board. It seemed more alive. They moved the pieces fast. And sometimes slow. The game was now on a pace where it could not be controlled, it did not have to be fast. The board stood in a crater. Around it was death. Around it was destruction and magic and the chaos of a world going insane. Around it was the end. The end was swirling closer, black and grey and colored clouds of mist. Swirling in, swirling around, like dust trailing in the wake of a fast car in a desert. Only this was not a desolate area of land. This was one of the epicenters. The pole for those who were drawn. But only a handful remained. And most were at other ends of the globe, trying to put the pieces together.

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The wind is soft, brushing past his face, his fingers are getting a little chilly. The mountains are craggy and rough under his feet, he has to keep a close eye on the ground, which detracts him from the view, but every few hundred yards, when he has got a hang of it, or when there is a stretch of flat plain ground, he looks up. They are formidable beasts, these mountains. They are magnificent, huge, towering. He feels small and in awe, looking up at them. He can smell the trees, and the animals, and just the nature, in the wind. He fills up his lungs with a fresh deep breath. This is perfect. This came to him in a daydream, on a rocky road, sitting in the backseat of his car

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One spark is all it takes. It erupts in a fury of flame. Covering the village. Destroying everything.

They took away my compression gear. Then they took away my shorts. The guard standing up as I come back on my first day back to the great and illustrious country of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, to run. Four hours after landing. The guard standing up, belly wobbling, stretching out a hand, smiling as he tells me, “Sir shorts are not allowed.” And me, I’d thrown away most of my full length joggers. Ok, so I bought more.

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Inside the stoic mountain, lava burns. It bubbles, but never erupts. The mountain is considered dead, and a whole village has sprung up on its foot, where the soil is fertile and the air fresh.

I was going to write about something else, but let’s vent a little.

630am, Thursday, February 27th, 2020

The Great and Illustrious Islamic Republic of Pakistan

First mile done. For the first time in a while, my first mile, and especially on the fourth day of the week, when I should have been worn down, my first mile was fast. For me. For this day. 12:35.1. Which wasn’t really that big a deal. I was doing an average of less than

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She used to crawl on my lap and sat in that singsong voice, “baba, can you tell me a story?” Those big brown eyes looking up at me. Like I was her whole world. She’d hold my hand as I told her those stories. She would tell me everything, boys she thought were cute, teachers she didn’t like. And she hold my hand. She has held my hand, since her hand could only hold one of my fingers. Look at her now. She looks resplendent. Red kameez. Shalwaar white. Decorated with jewelry. She is looking down shyly, eyes demure. She looks up and sees me looking at her, and smiles. My heart almost shatters. She won’t be living with us any longer. She’ll move to his house. God, I hope I chose the right boy. I think I did. I mean I know his father. They are a good family. At least from the outside. I hope they treat my daughter well. I hope she knows she can come to me anytime. My wife is

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They look resplendent. Music softly plays in the background. Sometimes the music was in line with the volume, sometimes it was upbeat and incompatible with the volume. It was still nice though. They looked resplendent. My son in a black coat, gold vest underneath it. Shalwaar white and starched. I wish he had brushed his hair though. His bride looks beautiful. Maybe he could have done a better job. He didn’t. It was us. I wonder how she’ll fight me. Will she? Saas susraal problems, naa? Everyone seems happy. Are they judging me? Of course they are. This is the Indian subcontinent. The entire purpose of people’s lives is to judge. To be fair though, they do things that should be judged. Not us. Not us.

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“Ouch”

“Ouch”

“Hey, dude, stop.”

Ok, you won’t listen to me through a warning, how about this. I began to bark.

“OW! What the actual fuck dude?”

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I checked my gun. It was in my old school bag. I put it away.

They barged in. There were five of them. My father came in unwillingly. They hadn’t found the others. Or they were dead, as I looked at the gym in one of their hands. Only one of them had one. My bag, it was too far away. The one with the gun seemed to be the leader. They all positioned themselves around me. I put my hands in front of me, visible, and made a gesture that I would not do anything. They believed me. But it was also true. The man with the gun pushed me in the stomach, I backed away. They were not wearing masks. Their faces were unremarkable, entirely forgettable.

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He huffed and puffed. His eyes were red. Nose runny. He smelled of sweat and physical exertion. His breath was wheezy. Rasping. Gasping. Starving. The ground underneath him wet and gravelly. His feet bare and each minute piece of the gravel that rolled around but into his skin, those pieces that he had enjoyed at the start of this all were now starting to hurt. The feel of it on his soles. It had been pleasurable. Natural. Now it was terrible.

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It was as if the earth was breaking. The rain facing was that heavy. His glasses kept on fogging you, even as the water flowed through them. The water would drop, and find its way down the landscape of his face and then to his neck. It would drench his shirt and then soak in there. Some made its way off his shirt, saturated as it was and bounced off. The rain was so fast that even though the water streamed off his glasses like water should, it did not give him a break. His sight was blinded. He sighed, stopped to the side, and took off his glasses. He hung them on his shirt. There. He could see better now. He tucked his hands inside his pockets, and then out, breathing hot air on them. He almost could not feel them. It was painful.

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