by Sreemanti Sengupta
I
woke up and saw that my
grandfather had beaten me to the loo. I watched the painted wooden door which
he had shut three minutes ago and thought about what a bummer Diabetes was. I
was sure I would meet Diabetes some day, the same way I had met Migraine and Myopia
and I would treat him to Pink Candy Floss. I remembered Candy, yeah that’s what
they called her, but I was too young then. I loved her because she was around
all the time. I had dreams of Candy and Blyton’s Five going on quests together
and Candy stealing their picnic basket. I think that’s what she wanted - picnic
baskets or men with big picnic baskets. I couldn’t look at Candy without
getting lost in her lips. I was soulwrecked in their bloody excess. I cringed
every time Candy bent down to kiss me, sighing at the hard work that awaited
me, just to rub off the red riot from my cheeks. I lost Candy or she me just
like we lose strains of beloved poetry to our memories. I had gone into some
illicit wooden trance by the time the door opened, bringing on The Old Man and
The Stink. I couldn’t hold it so I shuffled inside. I tore away the Three Black
Ants that were sitting on the rim of the Poo Bin, waiting to pinch my ass. I
sat and crapped serenely and couldn’t find one good reason for spoiling this
with a newspaper which the Stereotype does. I am not interested in Stereotype
types. I meet them everywhere, or they meet me. I think they are the real
sneaky types, betraying people, choking people on their last drinks. I had a
whole bundle at school and way up to college and to university. I doubt I
picked up Paranoia from them. I never liked Paranoia, that insane creature. I
was afraid taking her out in crowded places, like happening places with people
and buzzing with activity. I felt rather irritated, nay, embarrassed when she
called me closer and whispered that everybody on the street were either looking
or bitching about her - her dress, her past, something or the other that was
incredulous and disturbingly Unicorneish. I gave up when she demanded all the lights
be switched off when we were doing it - “the chairs look queer” she
said. I of course needed the lights, I needed to see them under me, feeling my
enormous weight. I am done with crapping and the black poop floats inside the
bin. I asked Mamma why it’s black and she said that’s because I take iron
tablets. I remember when this happened, the time since I have been Black
Pooping. I and Hemoglobin were great friends till such time I saw him making
out with my girl on the hospital bed. It was a bloody mess. I throw up
everytime I recall how he tried to explain that it was necessary for the girl
to get well and have a Normal Life. I left him with my girl and he left me with
Black Poop. I don’t like going out, I think that Paranoia bitch had something
to do with it. I vaguely enjoy a mock solitude in my room, with an indifferent
track playing in my desktop unless it croaks and stops...arrgh that bothers me.
I am me in too many ways and too many of them are obsessive and protective,
when the day ends it irks me because I haven’t ended. I hate this part when I
have to go out and people stare at me. I have disorders in the brain which are
friendly. I think Bipolar was a little disappointed when I told him about Low
Confidence. I can still picture him brutally facing me and saying it within
quotes that Low Confidence was a total Loser and I should concentrate on The
Grand Things, such as Schizophrenia because I am destined to have exotic
disturbances, not prosaic, beer bellied ones. I go to an Exotic Corporate
Office to earn my bread and write Exotic Things to sell Exotic Things. I’ve
travelled some places with my babes and brooms where Exotic has been warm and
kind to me. I have had Exotic doing me favours and showering me with gifts. I
have known Countries In a Single Leaf Of Tea and Suffering In The Rhyhm Of
Dances Cut Short, just because I had Exotic around me. I have been easy on him
and he on me, except his choice in women and people in general. I was Exotic’s
guest once and he told me that there was no time to tour, and we needn’t. I
watched as The Girl From The Tribe entered, shed her clothes and waited. I
turned and saw Exotic breathing down my neck and marking the erogenous zones on
the brown body. I stared and sank as he explained you couldn’t go wrong with
her, she’s our pride! I anyway will now cross the street and you must know
it confuses me. I can't understand roads or road signs in the same way bats do
not understand the morning. I have a sense of distance because it tires me, of
speed because it is the wind against my hair and acceleration, because it
brings hopes and highs. I cannot fathom why roads are not flowing and
going wherever they want to and why there are destinations we must reach, why
destinations are waiting so ridiculously where they have waited Yesterday and
Yesterday and Yesterday. I beg you not to believe anyone who tells you
that I have gone to their door on a festival night to ask them about
Peculiarity. I can vouch I haven’t done so. I can tell you of an old dying man
who irritated me with a silly smile stuck on his face like a eight peg vomit to
the bottle. I am sure these are Quirks and Peculiarities, and both are exotic
and it suits me fine. I know that politicians will often ask you for the wheels
to their wheelbarrow and you throw in some obscure Flower of The Hills, Some
Rotten Old Lady Who Still Has Babies, Some Tea (ah!), A Dance Step Or Two
That’s Swear To Zillionbeeps Authentic and some more. I try to convince myself
that I have gotten into severer exotic things, to the soul, where politics
cannot invade. I am disturbed about not being more disturbed. I think it’s
mighty interesting to have a tortured soul, except that night when I had an
unending dream and am not sure I’ve woken up at all. I had the the baddest day
at office and I was thinking of the epiphanic words that would explain it on my
Facebook wall when urgent sleep fell on me like a huge beam of burning wood on
a forest sleeper. I saw a plush washroom, my shaving kit all arranged and
pretty, the walls all lined with mirrors, mirrors I have always hated. I looked
up and I got taken aback for a few seconds. I stood there trying to smile, as I
naturally do in front of a mirror, any mirror, even those that are cracked and
poisonous with scribbled abuses. I watched as nothing happened, nothing. I
couldn’t see crease lines or the pupils lighting up and then I realised it was
a mask. I immediately ventured to tear it down and did - tried to smile -
didn’t happen - tore it down again - tried to cry - nothing - and again and
again. I have developed a thing for the opaque and the simple after that,
almost zen like. I am not necessarily the in-betweener, but habitually so, and
damn it’s painful. I can tell you what it is like if you can tell me how it is
to be blessed with immortality, that too on the condition that ‘thou shalt have
a fish bone stuck in your throat forever.’ I am walking to office now and
everything attacks me - the drizzle has torn up everything in shreds - the
faces and the cars - the zip zap by and give me queer looks. I curse Paranoia
under my breath and the rain falls harder. I open the Giant Black Umbrella,
that titanic shield against everything, and I walk, I murmur a pagan prayer ...take
me to the Corporate Office, will ya?. I think I think..that it’s always me
and my and so much so…...SPLASH!...sonouva..the guilty car passes by and there
is a little pothole filled with sparkling rainwater.
Epilogue
* * *
by Sreemanti Sengupta
I
|
woke up and saw that my
grandfather had beaten me to the loo. I watched the painted wooden door which
he had shut three minutes ago and thought about what a bummer Diabetes was. I
was sure I would meet Diabetes some day, the same way I had met Migraine and Myopia
and I would treat him to Pink Candy Floss. I remembered Candy, yeah that’s what
they called her, but I was too young then. I loved her because she was around
all the time. I had dreams of Candy and Blyton’s Five going on quests together
and Candy stealing their picnic basket. I think that’s what she wanted - picnic
baskets or men with big picnic baskets. I couldn’t look at Candy without
getting lost in her lips. I was soulwrecked in their bloody excess. I cringed
every time Candy bent down to kiss me, sighing at the hard work that awaited
me, just to rub off the red riot from my cheeks. I lost Candy or she me just
like we lose strains of beloved poetry to our memories. I had gone into some
illicit wooden trance by the time the door opened, bringing on The Old Man and
The Stink. I couldn’t hold it so I shuffled inside. I tore away the Three Black
Ants that were sitting on the rim of the Poo Bin, waiting to pinch my ass. I
sat and crapped serenely and couldn’t find one good reason for spoiling this
with a newspaper which the Stereotype does. I am not interested in Stereotype
types. I meet them everywhere, or they meet me. I think they are the real
sneaky types, betraying people, choking people on their last drinks. I had a
whole bundle at school and way up to college and to university. I doubt I
picked up Paranoia from them. I never liked Paranoia, that insane creature. I
was afraid taking her out in crowded places, like happening places with people
and buzzing with activity. I felt rather irritated, nay, embarrassed when she
called me closer and whispered that everybody on the street were either looking
or bitching about her - her dress, her past, something or the other that was
incredulous and disturbingly Unicorneish. I gave up when she demanded all the lights
be switched off when we were doing it - “the chairs look queer” she
said. I of course needed the lights, I needed to see them under me, feeling my
enormous weight. I am done with crapping and the black poop floats inside the
bin. I asked Mamma why it’s black and she said that’s because I take iron
tablets. I remember when this happened, the time since I have been Black
Pooping. I and Hemoglobin were great friends till such time I saw him making
out with my girl on the hospital bed. It was a bloody mess. I throw up
everytime I recall how he tried to explain that it was necessary for the girl
to get well and have a Normal Life. I left him with my girl and he left me with
Black Poop. I don’t like going out, I think that Paranoia bitch had something
to do with it. I vaguely enjoy a mock solitude in my room, with an indifferent
track playing in my desktop unless it croaks and stops...arrgh that bothers me.
I am me in too many ways and too many of them are obsessive and protective,
when the day ends it irks me because I haven’t ended. I hate this part when I
have to go out and people stare at me. I have disorders in the brain which are
friendly. I think Bipolar was a little disappointed when I told him about Low
Confidence. I can still picture him brutally facing me and saying it within
quotes that Low Confidence was a total Loser and I should concentrate on The
Grand Things, such as Schizophrenia because I am destined to have exotic
disturbances, not prosaic, beer bellied ones. I go to an Exotic Corporate
Office to earn my bread and write Exotic Things to sell Exotic Things. I’ve
travelled some places with my babes and brooms where Exotic has been warm and
kind to me. I have had Exotic doing me favours and showering me with gifts. I
have known Countries In a Single Leaf Of Tea and Suffering In The Rhyhm Of
Dances Cut Short, just because I had Exotic around me. I have been easy on him
and he on me, except his choice in women and people in general. I was Exotic’s
guest once and he told me that there was no time to tour, and we needn’t. I
watched as The Girl From The Tribe entered, shed her clothes and waited. I
turned and saw Exotic breathing down my neck and marking the erogenous zones on
the brown body. I stared and sank as he explained you couldn’t go wrong with
her, she’s our pride! I anyway will now cross the street and you must know
it confuses me. I can't understand roads or road signs in the same way bats do
not understand the morning. I have a sense of distance because it tires me, of
speed because it is the wind against my hair and acceleration, because it
brings hopes and highs. I cannot fathom why roads are not flowing and
going wherever they want to and why there are destinations we must reach, why
destinations are waiting so ridiculously where they have waited Yesterday and
Yesterday and Yesterday. I beg you not to believe anyone who tells you
that I have gone to their door on a festival night to ask them about
Peculiarity. I can vouch I haven’t done so. I can tell you of an old dying man
who irritated me with a silly smile stuck on his face like a eight peg vomit to
the bottle. I am sure these are Quirks and Peculiarities, and both are exotic
and it suits me fine. I know that politicians will often ask you for the wheels
to their wheelbarrow and you throw in some obscure Flower of The Hills, Some
Rotten Old Lady Who Still Has Babies, Some Tea (ah!), A Dance Step Or Two
That’s Swear To Zillionbeeps Authentic and some more. I try to convince myself
that I have gotten into severer exotic things, to the soul, where politics
cannot invade. I am disturbed about not being more disturbed. I think it’s
mighty interesting to have a tortured soul, except that night when I had an
unending dream and am not sure I’ve woken up at all. I had the the baddest day
at office and I was thinking of the epiphanic words that would explain it on my
Facebook wall when urgent sleep fell on me like a huge beam of burning wood on
a forest sleeper. I saw a plush washroom, my shaving kit all arranged and
pretty, the walls all lined with mirrors, mirrors I have always hated. I looked
up and I got taken aback for a few seconds. I stood there trying to smile, as I
naturally do in front of a mirror, any mirror, even those that are cracked and
poisonous with scribbled abuses. I watched as nothing happened, nothing. I
couldn’t see crease lines or the pupils lighting up and then I realised it was
a mask. I immediately ventured to tear it down and did - tried to smile -
didn’t happen - tore it down again - tried to cry - nothing - and again and
again. I have developed a thing for the opaque and the simple after that,
almost zen like. I am not necessarily the in-betweener, but habitually so, and
damn it’s painful. I can tell you what it is like if you can tell me how it is
to be blessed with immortality, that too on the condition that ‘thou shalt have
a fish bone stuck in your throat forever.’ I am walking to office now and
everything attacks me - the drizzle has torn up everything in shreds - the
faces and the cars - the zip zap by and give me queer looks. I curse Paranoia
under my breath and the rain falls harder. I open the Giant Black Umbrella,
that titanic shield against everything, and I walk, I murmur a pagan prayer ...take
me to the Corporate Office, will ya?. I think I think..that it’s always me
and my and so much so…...SPLASH!...sonouva..the guilty car passes by and there
is a little pothole filled with sparkling rainwater.
Epilogue
black umbrella
some blooms fine
I, me mine
I, me, mine
Sreemanti Sengupta enjoys a world of divided minds. She is an
advertising copywriter from Kolkata, India, a poet, a struggling author, an
e-mag editor, an elocutionist, previously published in various online journals
such as Mad Swirl, Paragraph Planet, Certain Circuits, Bare Hands Poetry,
Ppigpen and more including print anthologies in both English and her
vernacular Bangla. She founded and runs The Odd Magazine celebrating alternate
creativity here
www.theoddmagazine.wix.com/thisisodd and blogs at www.weareideating.wordpress.com
* * *
The painting is by Zoe Nikitaki, a
visual artist - illustrator and a storyteller, who lives and creates in Greece.
She also writes and illustrates books for children and for adults who keep on
dreaming and want to reconnect with the inner child. Connect with her on www.zoenikitaki.com (under construction)
* * *
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