Tag: story

Memory is a problem, so is imagination. I would prefer imagining nothing, remembering nothing. Dreaming drains me. My nightmares continue even after they have ended. For a change, I am listening to something else, something that is not jazz or blues or classic. The smell of a burning incense stick has made this place more livable. I can breathe without feeling, even for a little while, disgusted. A beer can emptied last night sits on my table. I pick it up and inhale. Pathetic. How could anybody drink such shit? And with this realization, how could anybody drink the same shit again the very next day without feeling anything. How could anybody do that unless it’s me doing that. Bagetelle No. 25. Ludwig van Beethoven. Tin tin tin tin tin tin tin the piano keys are struck down, emitting all the haunt at once and in daylight. I would empty my body of blood, if I could, as I listen to this. I need sadness. A tragedy would be better. Something that can bring me to tears for at least a whole night.

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The smoke rose up from whatever burnt and drifted west towards a darkness that was unknown to me. The children had come out on the streets, burning their fingers with some kind of sudden urge to enjoy that evening. By 7, the whole town grew quite noisy. I began finding less pleasure than before in sitting outside and looking up, fixating at some random star. Although one can say that no star is random, that it is there in that position by some universal rule. I did not care much about rule or no rule. That there was a star above and it was shimmering and could be looked at was enough for me. For some reason, I felt this sudden uneasiness. Maybe it was all that noise. I felt getting up from my chair and have another drink or go outside – to where, I could not think. Somebody made a bonfire. I saw shadow of a kid dancing around the fire. He seemed quite happy. Maybe he was never wounded. Fear hadn’t found a place in his head. Good for him. The smoke was spreading evenly over the town. Some time later, a car went up in flames. Its owner looked worried. The bonfire was extinguished. The children were taken inside their homes like something ominous had happened, like death was lurking nearby, searching for a young victim. I sat in my balcony and watched and I realised that the town was not ready to grow quiet.

Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

Meanwhile, the piglets gathered around an almost eaten rotten apple. They gathered around it and thought nothing. Creatures of action. Dirty, no doubt, but they acted and acted alone, and they ran fast when they felt afraid. I had eaten a half of that apple that morning when I realized that the other half had begun rotting. It didn’t taste bad. I washed my mouth and threw the apple out of a window. The dumping ground isn’t far from my home. My home is in a dumping ground. Garbage all around. Once in two days, a truck arrives to carry away all the garbage. Almost always, there’s more to carry away. It must be a tiring job – gathering the litter, driving away the piglets. The smell of it all. Nauseating! I watched the piglets gather around that rotten apple. One of them grabbed it by the teeth and ran off. The others ran behind it. The dumping ground fell quiet again. No rustling, no hustling. I went back inside and thought about cooking something instead.

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For a night, these men and women forgot their woes. They stepped out of their homes. Some even saw the light. The others talked about whatever. I guess everybody talked. I was nowhere, drunk and proceeding as usual, locked inside without any God. Something reminds me that I cannot have peace, that I cannot have what they have. I can have recognition, yes, but not peace. Something keeps coming up. I have grown up in my own, hard way. I cannot ever be entirely clean. I cannot be here even though I want to be here. I am in three places or more at any given time. It’s the path to disappointment. I feel that I have never met myself. Calculus doesn’t help, nor finance, sometimes not even good music or a little walk. Sometimes I wish to leave my home and never return. Sometimes I wish I never went anywhere. More than anything else, I wish I never had this head so I won’t have to write all this.

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There’s no stress. I just keep running out of time. I often think about vomiting blood although I do not wait for such a day. My god has, once again, gone far away. Meeting him is a cumbersome process. Alcohol cannot help every time. I am just too tired to find another way. I wish I could be a stranger here once again. I wish that and a couple of other things and none of those things matter. I am not looking for fulfilment. I am pretending to be a fool and in the process, I have, to some extent, become a fool. It is hard to unbecome a fool but I keep trying. I am half down in the swamp and I wait it enters my mouth and jams my both lungs. There’s wind blowing where nobody is receiving it and where the man waits, there’s neither water nor wine nor a moment of rest.

Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

I am waiting for a call. I won’t go until I am called. Or should I go on my own and put my neck under the blade? No. No. There’s still time. What if the call doesn’t come. The morning motor is running, the water rushing through convoluted pipes out of the cistern and into our mouths. I eat half and leave the rest on my table. By the time I return, I hope the other half is gone along with the pan. I wouldn’t want to see it. But what if I end up seeing it? What if it’s not gone? What if I am not gone? Because there’s still no call and it worries me. I feel worried. The ominous shit I ate in breakfast, I feel it turning to poison inside my stomach. At 10:38, a call. ‘Hello. Have you reached?’ ‘In 20 minutes,’ I say. My stomach eases a bit. The worst is over. The call ends. In another hour, something worse might happen. I close all doors and windows. I take my keys and leave.

Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.

Less was the least. More could have been much more. In whatever path I have walked are long halls emptied out before my arrival. I can’t do a thing other than take a walk and then sit for a while. Rarely somebody comes across and almost never opens his mouth. Whatever I touch is a trap and there’s really no God and the phone will always ring when I am in no position to talk or even pick up the call and talk a few words. ‘Hello!’ ‘No, call the landline! The fucking landline!’ ‘I am not who you want to talk to.’ Fifteen minutes remain. I have run out of time. No time to eat properly. I leave the rice in the case and run away like a lost beast. Nothing much until evening. I am sipping tea and it’s still raining like hell there’s an old love song playing on the wacked radio. I listen and listen and it’s almost hypnotic. I don’t need alcohol, not yet. I order another cup and drink it. Everything is slowly coming back to life and the dead ones won’t be bothered anymore. I get up from my place and pay the tea seller and step onto the flooded road and begin my walk home.

Copyright © Tomic Riter. All rights reserved.