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Sattire Attire - Tomorrow

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time..." - Macbeth (William Shakespeare)

The faint knock on the door breaks the loudness of silence again. All the imaginary hue and cry in Sylvester's head grows faint, the pictures become colourless and vivid, and the sound that emanates when bone hits wood completes its journey from an echo to a crisp, sharp and articulate call to attention.

"What is it!" barks Sylvester to the anonymous skeleton behind the door. The knocking stops. And for a few moments it appears as if the prepetrator is contemplating returning at a more agreeable time.

But before conscience can hold sway of judgement, a less irate voice speaks: "Can't you see that the indoors is unlit? That implies that either no one is present or whoever is present wants the wanderer to assume that they're not!"

"In times like these one cannot rely on accustomed norms. The indoors is unlit but outside is as alive as daybreak, with the conflagrations outshining a full moon past midnight. Should that be taken as an invitation to stray into the streets and pay respects to the banquet of the god of pillaging?"

What is this voice? Cloaked behind a door propagating words with a message slightly hidden. "Your god is not my god..."

"When divinity is the reason we hate each other, how are our beliefs any different? You burn my tent in your god's name. I burn your's in mine. We both bow to the god of pillaging..."  The sound of a thousand steps interrupts the outsider, "And there's the call to prayer..."

There's some chanting in the streets. Mischief is afoot. To bear witness to the mob action would be to allow sorrow to seek refuge in the deepest confines of your conscience where it would forever cast a shadow on every emotion felt henceforth. Like a forgotten bad memory, all thoughts would start with dread and even pleasantness would be remembered with a frown. The scene outside is a sick reminder that evil always seeks to outdo itself; murder is not enough now, mutilation is.

The identity of the voice is of little concern to him now, the safety of the unknown person behind the wall spurs him to change the topic. "You are not safe out there. If they find you... come inside, the door is not secured."

"I do fear the streets but there are dark corners that may protect me. You might disagree but is your abode secure? You lit the match that set these flames ablaze. Why should I trust when you believe our gods are not one, that we are not one?"

"The air that we breathe, though separated by these walls, is one. It will carry your words as it carries mine, as it carries both our lives in its tight fist. The air that instills fear in you, must rally me to cower as well. Therefore, come in and keep your mind at peace!"

"But it is not fear that governs your countenance, it is madness and rage. And while we share this air, let us not share our rage - let us separate our madness; let these walls remain..." said a voice that he knew; a young voice but with an old message. A young body but an aging soul. Was it her?

Moments, unaccustomed to the routine march of time, pass by where a long time is not measured by minutes but by the degree of uneasiness that only the wall of silence nourishes. That wall of silence, now more tangible than before becomes more potent than that wall of brick and dirt that only separates the physical. The wall of silence disconnects two sides more completely than any other. Making one unaware of the presence of the other, and in love and in hate one's existence depends on the existance of the counterpart.

Sattire Attire - Worlds Apart

"May the living let us in before the dead tear us apart" - Springtseen

Embroiled in the hysteria that was Sylvester's own creation, we forgot about Fate. To a casual observer, she might be the root cause of the conflict of mild undertones between two friends and maddening frenzy between communities.

We do not have the heart to paint a picture of the riots. And there is not enough life in language and in words to share the horrors of what happened.
Words do not get wet; "agonizing sorrow" does not get moist with tears and "butcher" does not bleed. "Flames" do not burn, keep warm or cook. "Hate" is just a four-letter word that does not spread. Words are a transparent cloak on reality.
Words can be exchanged for another, but tears cannot without more sorrow. Blood cannot be redeemed save without more slaughter.
Though words do get wet, in ink, they remain mere words; they can remain unsaid and unread.

Unfortunately, the casual observer only had words to hang on to - excluding the words that were never said. It would be monstrous to use words to describe Fate. She deserves more than just words; a poem or a song in the least. But she compromises; her heart is grander than a cave full of treasure.

She was not the cause of it all. She could not be. It is the men who are weak of will...
But we digress; words on Fate. We would be foulmouthed to suggest that even if the sun eclipsed, the moon would shine when she'd glance at it. But words fail me, let's not linger on words: She wore a veil. She was an enigma, the missing piece to an unassembeled puzzle. The word that would rhyme all poems. The elixir that would quench all thirsts. The key would unlock all doors. The idea that would possess all
minds.

To understand Fate, one would need to understand fate and fate is never fully understood until it is fate no more. It is a vicious cycle and so it is with Fate as well. When death lingers, life waits and they both are part of fate.

Where were we then? Oh yes, there was a knock on the door...

Sattire Attire part XVI - A day in the life of...

"How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?" - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

How can you expect a man who has love to understand the barrenness of life; a body without a soul. A purpose without passion. To wake up each morning with depleting hope. When "living life" becomes an irony. Would a man who was not as marooned be able to understand and be an impartial judge and jury?

A trial must be fair and it would not be so in his case. He had considered revealing himself and bringing an end to all the madness that ensued.

But would that be fair?
No.

Should the future be held hostage by the past?
Maybe.

Was he in prison?
In a way he was. And he had been all his life. He thought that with an act of madness might break free from his confines.

So let the world go on by embroiled in love and its half-brother, hate. He was not part of that world and consequently beyond the jurisdiction of its laws of love and hate.
His actions were driven by madness derived from love but not love. And certainly not by hate. Sylvester had acquitted himself.

And so he asks and wonders:
" Where do we go from here?
How will I reconcile to a lifetime without you?
My mind is fogged. If there were one thing that I could forsake, would it be love?
- its joys and its eternal pain.
This deciet-amour has cost me more than my breath; I will never smile again."

The city still burned. He could smell that fiery serpent; hate. Hate slithered through the cluttered streets of the city, making its way into citizens' dwellings through crack, window, pipe, gutter and door. Leaving behind a bitter trail of venom, fatality and revenge. It spared no one. The poison was spreading, the pupils dillating and the tempratures were rising in the middle of the coldest winter. Life and its ironys; associated with living and death.

Sylvester had his eyes closed but he could see everything through his pulse as it beat faster than a dragonfly's wings. It only slowed down when he heard a faint knock on his door...

The answer of sensitive souls to an insensitive society (2003)

In a dark corner of a tiny room lies Amjad on the bare floor. Only a beam of moonlight illuminates the room, or whatever is left of it. The walls are falling apart, piece-by-piece, brick by brick, just like the Mughal regime in India. The water pipes are leaking, revealing the perpetual cracks in the ceiling. The door is hardly a barrier, being held up by a series of cobwebs indicating it's seldom use and lack of visitors in Amjad's life.

Except, perhaps, for one man called Rungoo, who would visit him every fortnight to replenish Amjad's supply of heroine. He was oblivious to his surroundings and the state he was living in or maybe the state that he was dieing in. He was oblivious because his mind was not in his head, in fact it was not even in the room.

It was amazing that how even a pinch of white powder could take him far away, further than America. He would bend over a scrap of foil, light a match, and then using a half-cut straw suck in sharply as the white dust disappeared. And then he would sit back and relax and watch the world float by. A single word spoken would sound like a faint echo. He would feel no pain. He would feel no feelings. He would continue this activity for another year.

Many fortnights later Amjad sits and stares at the door patched up by cobwebs. He is waiting for Rungoo's next visit, who is now his only acquaintance, his only friend. At least the drug dealer was honest in his dealings.

Amjad closes his eyes and opens his mind to go back, years back to the time when he had many friends and none of them were drug dealers. None of them were honest either. Amjad could still remember them discussing what they would do when they all would grow up: Run a business, cure patients, provide justice and much more. Taking and getting addicted to drugs was not one of them.

Amjad is not living the life he had dreamed of in his childhood. Things have not turned out the way he had planned them. This was not the life he had hoped and worked for. He had felt weak when he was betrayed by the insensitive society. Now he enervates even more with the very air he breathes, every particle that he inhales, every white particle that is. He had hoped for opulence in his schooldays but now he was facing the worst of indigence.

Amjad had completed his education when his father and mother both were alive. He had been a top student all his life. Coming from humble origins, Amjad had worked night and day to change his stars, to make the wheel of fortune spin his way. And he had been well on his way had it not been for the rules of society. Rules that make the world go round and rules that made the wheel of fortune spin away from Amjad over the horizon never to be seen again, not even in his dreams.

Amjad realized that being hardworking, holding a respectable degree and possessing an enviable Curriculum Vitae were not the means that would enable him to change his stars, that could take him to America. There were other things, other more important means. Means like powerful and influential relatives, social status, the weight of your wallet and the list could go on and on...

Degrees that were bought were considered to be more authentic than degrees that had bene rightfully earned because anybody could work hard but not everybody could pay hard cash. He could have handled all that. What he could not bear was the fact that nobody in Lahore would want to work under a talented Christian. Amjad Jacob was another vitim of discrimination, he was just another 'choora' of the society.

Amjad's parents were dreaming of grandchildren when he had graduated. They saw neither job nor wife as these blessings were not to be a part of Amjad's fate. He loved life when he had started; all races and all creeds. Now he was a mindless misanthrope. Hating the very sound created by human feet, except maybe the sound created by Rungoo's oversized, hairy and blistered feet.

Amjad's parents could not bear to see the dejected state of their son's life. 'Junior choora' his father would say to himself, remembering the hard times he had to face. At least he had achieved surviving in the society. They both passed away after seeing their son perpetually having all doors closed to him.

Amjad's battered ship of life had lost the only buoys in its vicinity and it hit the iceberg when Amjad met Rungoo. Amjad started sinking and now he has lost everything to heroine.

Rungoo is late again as Amjad waits in his dilapidated apartment located in the red-light district of Lahore. The apartment is an accurate description of Amjad's life. It is a work of art, the potential is there but it is left to rot; he is left to rot. "He should be here any second with some heroine" Amjad calms himself. Some heroine for Junior choora.

Life had lost meaning for him just like it does for a suicide bomber. Amjad had thought about that, his face next to the picture of an injured building. But that was just one of the many thoughts that came to him as he entered his utopia while staring through the thick white smoke.

There are many addicts in Lahore. Amjad is just one of them, his is just one story. Like him there are many. There are many sensitive souls in this insensitive society.

Sattire Attire part XV - Troubled Minutes & Dark Thoughts part III

And so it had come to this. Blinded by rage, maddened by jealousy, distraught by the abandonment of all hope, Sylvester, the hero of this dramatic odyssey, had turned villian. Every morning he would wake up with his world and state in shambles, his mind racing faster than his emotions like a train being chased by a passenger that is unable to catch up. Each passing moment in conciousness was torture; he had to spread the chaos that was consuming him around him.
The silent rioter loitering in the dark was somber, calm and methodic for the first time in days. He walked at a brisk pace, with a presence of mind that enabled him to avoid the puddles left behind by the rain earlier in the day. The rain had cleansed the city. Apt for the deed at hand and a new begining.
The delicate fabric of society that inhabited this city was made up of numerous threads of various races and religions, each as ancient as the other. It was a tightly woven fabric in which the threads were all fading into a single colour, so much so that it would be hard to distinguish one from the other; the fabric had a shade of its own.
But (there is always a "But") the threads are mere metaphors and the fabric was actually made up of men. Men who have darkness in them and an animal lurking inside that is caged. And it waits for that cage to be unlocked; when all social barriers and customs are suspended. When there is chaos. There is an animal in all men. And one just has to pull at one string to undo the whole fabric and let the beast go loose.
Sylvester knew that Dmitri and Fate were not the same creed...
The fog thickened all around Sylvester and he stopped walking. This was it. This was the meeting place. The curtain of grey parted for another figure who approach Sylvester.
"Is the deed done?"
"It is done. And you? Have you taken care of your end?"
"Yes... In a few hours the city will take to the streets. By noon the society's elite and intellectuals will have been lynched by the mob. There will be a curfew by dusk and each neighbourhood will begin 'cleansing' itself."
Good. How will they reconcile with each other after their friends and families murder each other's? Is the notion of love thicker than blood? No. Nothing can be thicker than blood.
"Thank you my friend. I did not realize that it would come to this when we first met each other at the diner."
"Strange as it may seem, but it was your friend who wanted us to be acquainted with each other. I wonder why he was not part of this noble cause?"
"Who? Dmitri?" Sylvester hid the shock in his voice as fog hid his expression.
"Yes."
"Well we must not loiter around here any longer."
And as they turned their backs to each other, they disappeared into each other's past.
Sylvester's walk back wasn't as calm as his walk to the meeting.
"Dmitri's sure to know who's behind this. This idiot will surely boast his doings all over" He argued with himself. An apology was in order then?
"Apologize?! Are you mad? You fully well knew who you were offending and how much. It's not really an apology if before commiting the fault you are aware that you will have to apologize for it after. And the magnitude of it all! You are beyond pardon from mortals, you fool. Your only choice is to finish what you started."
Sylvester half thinking sheathed his bloody dagger and tossed it to the side, and he walked home with moisture in his eyes and mist in his head.

Sattire Attire - More?

There is a story that I have to tell,
A story is only a story if it doesn't end well,
Time is not a healer - truth be told,
Time is just the cost of getting old.