The grass had become dehydrated. The trees poured out saffron. The brittle straws clung to mother earth, and there was a stream of orange. The soil was made of sand. It caved in and became hollow. A hole in the soil where I slept in awakening. I felt nothing at first. Then a hunger rose. I ate my hunger, I walked into a dream. Dream of life. There was silence in my heart. It whispered an autumnal dirge, there was a war. And I was a wounded soldier. There was much pain. I saw dancing lights before I passed out.

I felt I stood in front of a ship. This specter of a ship, full of passengers on board. They held golden scepters and drank from golden cups, these were Kings and Queens of greater imaginations. Once they were here, fighting like crazy for the love of the land, in powerful bodies. Now they seem to be dancing like flying apparition, I waited out on the shore as the ship slowly anchored. Deep into the blue of an ocean of wonders, I waited patiently, to catch the Kings’ ponders. They rose from their seats and summersaulted. For they were a bunch of glowing faces, drowning in ethereal gases.

I wondered why they looked like this. Also, the ship, a vessel of uncovered ribs. A telltale sign of for no fleshy tales, why did they drank and ate indeed. Then I realized, I was passing through a zone of a worldly flesh still on bones. My memory was intact, but merging with the unknown, subdued and livid, alas in a free-zone. I still breathed an air, in this warfare, except there were no cries in this stilly night. The bullets were gone, the soldiers slept at peace, in their little crypts, some closed and some bare.

Where was I, this fuzzy zone, caught up between in another war zone? The dances of the lights led me on, but I felt like a dunce in tattered clothes and all. I was still wearing a soldier's uniform, but pretty sure I didn’t need one. I felt a rush of adrenaline pushing me on, wake up, I heard a call, from mom next door. She came into my room and covered me up with a patched blanket she had been stitching for a while now.

“Wake up, wake up, you fool,” she cried out.

Mehreen Ahmed

Forget-me-not dear father. Please do not look at me blankly or ask who I am. For I know, I shall mope for days on end, when you do that to one of your own. Your own loving daughter, you raised with so much love and affection. This affliction hits you, now. It tears me from within. It tears me apart, dear father. Lump in my throat, you not around to mend.

I think of you and my mother. How beautiful she looks? Her skin, fair, soft in the moonlight glow, a midnight of cascading hair. You sitting by her side, holding each other in the clear, dazzling light, propped up by stars of a night; listening to Andrea Bocelli, singing, reciting Tagore and Nazrul Islam’s poetry. Tonight, you’re a different person, sensitive, caring and romantic, playing chess, laughing at silly, odd jokes, talking vibrantly, being the perceptive mind that you are.

Bocelli’s voice, smooth like an aluminium sheet over a placid sea. The blind seer, who saw how he could conquer; his vision peerless in his understanding of the world. But father, your mind, to the contrary, was not, hence your visions blurry. Dear father, did you not see it coming?

Alas! You just called my mother, your mother. Mother knows not that one day, you’ll not remember the distant past, and forget the formidable immediate. Mother knows not until this day, that you would be looking at the world through your netted mind. You, who made so many sacrifices, once. Your charities saved lives. Your readings, misgivings, your writings, musings, your first class brain, a full life.

Who now holds Shakespeare’s complete works in his hands and pretends to read it. You, who knows enough to hold the book, although the words may fall through the holes of your once whole brain. Words melt away, Words writ in water. But you did that much, at least. Hold the book closely enough, salient like salinity to an ocean, faithful to your art; hold your pen upright, to your diary. I often watched you, a little girl in awe, how you cut and pasted, sentences with scissors, in those days, without computers. How you edited, You knew your words so well, in your meaningful hay day.

You took me to see a circus once, you caged me within your arms, dear father, so no one would brush past me, or hurt me inadvertently in the crowd-filled circus-park. I have not forgotten anything father. But you have. Your memory has lapsed. You go out for random walks, beyond the rail tracts, and forget your home, the little blue house. These long walks back, not wilfully wayward, but to ensure safety, I had to lock you in the house, so you would not lose your way, back to us.

Your brilliant mind, the much lauded works, the published newspaper pieces, bear testimony to that. Now, you forget people’s names, friend’s names, your children’s names. Oh! Forget-me-not, dear father. I cannot endure this. But if it’s in your genes, then you cannot help it. How helpless people are when they cannot remember, forget the next word. How overwhelmingly, helpless it must be, when you can’t even recognise your own beloved wife, let alone the names of great writers of all times, Iris Murdoch. Today you have shared the same fate. Iris Murdoch, who knew so much, then knew not what words to put in a sentence string.

What sort of morbidity is this within your mind? How do you interpret when you see faces? This blinding world of nothingness, yet, nearly, not half as blind as the world of Andrea Bocelli of notes, rhythm, tunes and modulation. Every chord, he feels. Every spice on his palate, explodes in celebration of this world, which has thus far distanced itself from you, and rendered it off limits, that you descend into this chaotic place of discordant beats of no taste, certainly no musical vibrations. In severe cold, you forget to put your black coat on. And you forget to select shoes from your wardrobe of hundred pair collection.

You decline sharply, to a merciless, dull spot of muteness. Living in this speechless world, is perhaps much braver than we’re willing to give it credit. Out of bare ignorance, it must feel like blackhole, which no light can ever penetrate. This life of forgetfulness, forgetting, and to forget at a frightening pace. All things, present, near past and then distant past, information lost in this fretful deep well, things, names, places, and babbles.

Forget-me-not, dear father. For I’m your loving daughter, who may one day follow your footsteps, like many demented others. How rapidly this disease grows, accelerates to invade the most private thoughts and not so private. The most cherished ideals, blighted in the brain, just as vices of every deplorable sin, leaving no room for confessions, amendments, let alone forgiveness. To become blank slate, a vacuum without any traces of vices, or virtues, records of ever praying at evensong. A flat line, father, is all you display, mere shadow of yourself without smiles, breathing expressionless and wordless, statued on the sofa or lying stiff on bed. Mother by your side, as ever; we around, but a faceless number to you. Your books, your writing desk stares at you, dear father. Even the inanimate speaks volumes.

Why though, father dear, my sorrows, vapid, unbound. I miss you. I miss you. I get claustrophobic, thinking of you. I know not, how you feel in your mind, claustrophobia of a kind? Indescribable that you will never be able to express. No more, no less, it is you though, who ultimately carries the burden of wealth in that paradoxical net of your brain, knitting this wealth of knowledge of all the lights, the world cannot see. Nor reach new heights. Knowledge of this ugly barred condition, eludes wisdom and sanity, the world waits to garner more brain as much brawn.

Laura stood at her window in the forest hut, watching a jaundiced sky. The bats and the crows flew in uncertain directions at dusk. There was a blaze over the tall gum trees. Laura couldn't figure out what it was. The telltale sign from the yellow sky suggested the end of time. The blaze continued to grow high, then higher. The creatures of the forest, the possum, and the dingoes, and the Tasmanian Tigers ran amok around the bend deeper yet, into the forest. The stifling air made Laura cough up phelm. Distant cries of human voices carried distress. All Laura could see was an engulfing fire. Fire which overwhelmed her and the bush rapidly. Trees and houses and the animal habitat burnt to cinder in this inferno. It burnt for days on end. It burnt without ebb. It still burnt, a permanent haze in the sky darkened the forest. There was no reprieve, no lights, but all cosuming darkness of a fire sparks like ubiquitous fireflies.

by

Mehreen Ahmed

I sat in front of a mirror. The many glaring lights fixed on its frame enhanced my reflection. I saw a masked face in white make-up paste. The make-up artist diligently applied colour dust with a small sponge on my dark skin. “You really have very soft skin,”she whispered into my ears with a smile. I smiled back asking, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Can’t really tell,” she said, moving her attention to my eyes now. Eye make-up was the hardest to do.

“Take a look.” She held a mirror. It looked black. I saw a cinema. Of my mind. Of a stream of monologue.

The wind was rough. In the early dawn, the door rattled in the stormy winds. I screamed and held on to the flimsy bed frame. On a summer’s day, The winds revved up like a car in the hands of a novice. Five years of age. I sat by the window. The winds knocked on the glass pane. Another morning. Some clouds had gathered. I opened the windows and a sudden gust of wind whipped my face as it passed through the hut. My hair blew wildly over my face, almost veiling it with a mass of dark locks. I looked at the distant sky and saw layers upon layers of dark clouds; each layer a different shade of grey. The little daisies down by the mountain stream, danced insanely in the ferocity of the winds. Poor yellow little souls and bleeding blades of grass. Then there was a knock on the door. They came back. There was a ship wreck off the peninsula. Couldn’t make it in the storm. How was I to endure that? Those faces of the desperate sailors floated in the oceans of my eyes; their bodies floating. The gardens bled.

Who’s at the door? My son? Did you come back for me? Have you come for my soul. Oh God. The wooden door went off the latch. It flung apart, flew open. Crazy! The crazy winds. My hut seemed to be wrung out of its soil. But the doors flung open. The mountains green, but dark and grey today. Dark. Yes, pitched dark it was too, when my 16 year old unfledged boy sailed away off to the edge of the peninsula. On a boat they sailed toward a faraway coral island. The mountains spring. The fall from this height among the rocks and the craggy crevice. The rains lashed its spray across the. My son, my young fledge, Are you even alive? Come back to mama. But no drugs and overdose. The ship that drowned in that ever engulfing sea. Took away. The water. The ocean. This stream. How I miss you? Little baby. Little. No more. My son. Down by the green valley, I see him running. I see him now and then, he vanishes. There he is again. Play. Play. Playing hide and seek. Don’t run to the ocean though. Come back. Come back. Dear child. There he comes now. Up the ragged hill he climbs back. He’s here. In my arms. Kisses and hugs. The ocean rises and falls. Boats passing through mountain ridges. Suddenly all falls apart. No boats. No ships, only the sounds of the raging seas.

I think I might have killed it. Actually I did, I believe. The sea didn’t take him. I did. I took his baby life the night that he was born. The storm had raged just outside my wooden door. It had rattled persistently in the crazy winds as it rattled now. Rattle, rattle rattle. Oh my, my dear baby. Did I grab the pillow and smother you? The cries. I couldn’t take it anymore. The cries kept getting louder and louder relentlessly but, my baby. Not 16? No, he was but a day old. I had picked it up. Fed it put it back on the pillow. Then I took the pillow from underneath and placed it on his face. I pushed. I pushed it hard on his baby face. His tiny little nose. His dad was away on a fishing boat. Fishing yes, he was. Caught loads of fish too. Off the peninsula.

Mummy, mummy. I hear his slight voice crying, calling me from far afar. Only Heavens know. I see him floating up in the sky doing a summersault. Why? Mama why? I cried. I was hungry. The hunger pains were terrible. You didn’t feed me enough though. I cried. You took it. The pillow and pressed it down until the last breath slithered out of me. Baby. Come on baby. Come now. Mummy didn’t do that on purpose. I wish I could do this to myself. My baby. Come, come now. No. No. No. No. Standing by the glass pane of the window. I see the sky cracking up in delightful, severe lightenings. The fire-works of the sky. I ran along the mountain path. My sister behind. She stopped and took a deep breath. Clearly, I couldn’t keep up. I looked behind. She’s gone now.

Dinnertime was quiet. Soup. Watery soup and few measly pieces of meat afloat. I break a piece from the corner of my bread. My sister does the some from the other end. Mum and dad look on. They pick up scraps from the table. There’s no more bread left. Dad has not been paid for the work he did. His employer went bankrupt. The carpenter hasn’t been paid. Dip your bread not in wine but in water. Lo! The fury of the ocean. The sound and the fury. Waves overlapping, layer upon layer. The ocean couldn’t be contained. The winds and the ocean entwined in the fury of a twister. The boat tussled across the waves. Boats were rare on days like these. They are on their way to the Netherlands, for sure. A man did come through the fog and knocked on the door. I had turned 18 and sister 20. Mum, There was no money at home. For dad had gone for a long haul across the seas. My husband. That’s who he was. He said. And yes, we  had a church wedding. It was small. Paid upfront. My husband did. Eyes half shut still on my honeymoon but stayed in the cottage. Sister and Mum next door. Dad not at home.

My husband not with me. Half-asleep, I listen. There’s suddenly lots of food on the table. I stand looking at it through the gaping hole of the wooden hut. The fury of the seas. I see through the gaping hole my husband paying his good money to my mother. My wedded husband! And then he left. The sailor who sailed into my life, sailed out the same way he had come. Off the sea shore, his sailing boat wrestled. Cheering with his mates he left. His ship over the bosom of the great waves, dancing like a toy. I saw through the crack of the shaking door. The flimsy bolt did shake. He left but he put a smile on Mum’s face. My sister sat alone by the window watching the ship float.

Oh the horror. Few years past I’m now big with child. All the money has now run out. No more boats or sailors did drop by our hut. Mum sat mute. The man who fathered my child had left I, not wanted in his life, no more. No none of the children were really wanted. What did we do to deserve this? Why us? Oh why us? But surely it was going to be you. The easy targets by the sea. No one was there to protect us. A sailor’s wife. There’s a wife for him at every port, I’m sure. There was me and another elsewhere. A storm did rise dark in the evening sky. By the window pane, shut and a rattling bolt sat my sister alone looking into the grey, melancholy. With my husband alone, and I’m meant to share a life of love with him without a contester. But I think others loved him too, although he didn’t marry them. Why did he need to marry me? He could’ve just broken in and out of our lives, like broken waves on seashore. He paid mum for our services and left laughing jolly out of that door.

But no! Somethin’ made him marry one of us. In God’s name in the merry white chapel hall across the graveyard and behind the grey walls of the mossy run down church. There was endless booze and his friends swam in it not in the ocean so much, I reckon. Fish were caught in the muddy waters. Huge mouth watery barramundis and pints of ale. Luckily mum’s white bridal veil was still there I wedded my husband in. I felt blessed, until I found out how he screwed us. Big time and yes, big time. My child would probably go the same way too as soon as he leant to row the boat across the hundred seas. 16 was the age. Tender and malleable when he would go out like his father. That’s when his father left home to become a sailor. He saw and learnt from all his drunken mates what they did at the end of a day on every port the ship threw deep anchors. While it lay down under masses of water. My sister declared. She had it up to her eyeballs. No more, no more of this nonsense. Not fallen anymore.

She was going to get a job. She wanted a clean life for herself and for us. My baby was going to be borne out of a legal marriage. My sister understood that well and truly. She took off in the evening when a fierce storm gathered high in the sky. She cloaked herself in black widowed coat. Black like the dark day and the murky sea water’s black, mirrored. She took off. But not to return. I weaved at the fire with Mum. Weaving a knitted sweater for my little unborn. Sea-farer that he’ll become like his father. But I did nothing to stop my sister. My own mother’s womb that we shared once. Home that sheltered us. My blood. My sister. She went out in the fowl winds never to return. Mistaken. She returned all right afterwards but battered and bruised. Something went wrong at her job search. She couldn’t wipe the slate clean. Water in the well went round and round. There was no exit. We had fallen.

#streamofconsciouonsess