A story in Eleven Parts

I. A foetus, no bigger than a fingernail, was growing inside her womb. Kadru knew this, vomiting the insides of her stomach, hunched over the white porcelain sink. She pushed her hair back and peeked into the grimy mirror. I hope It's not a girl, she thought, staring back at herself.

II. The doctor peered over his spectacles at Kadru, fixing her with a cold, disapproving glance. What you ask of me is wrong, he meant to say. But he didn't. She slid the money across the table. He tucked it away into his shirt pocket.
He spoke, breaking the heavy silence that hung between them. "It's a girl."
Kadru went home. She closed the doors and windows, pushing out every last bit of light. She lay on the bed, sweating in the stuffy darkness, as her heart and mind fought. What to do? She fanned herself with the edge of her pallu. The air was heavy, fetid. She counted the minutes till her husband would arrive from the office. What to do, what should she do, what did she want to do?

III. Kadru closed her eyes and pressed her fingernails into her palms. She gritted her teeth. Blood poured out between her thighs, and the foetus slipped out - tiny, no bigger than the palm of one's hand. The abortionist picked up the tiny scrap of flesh, a frail, delicate thing. Like an albino alien. She tossed it in the garbage dump outside.
But it wasn't dead. In the darkness, when dogs howled and cats shrieked, a tiny figure peered out of the shadows. It opened it's miniscule, blind eyes and stared at the night.

IV. Dawn broke, and light flooded the thing's eyes. It slouched back into the dark shadows, observing the street as it awoke. It watched the nieghbourhood dogs fights, the milkman go by on his cycle. The day pressed on, cars and trucks and scooters sped by. Housewives came out of their homes, still attired in their long, frilly night dresses, to harangue harassed vegetable sellers.
And as night dawned again, the foetus began to think. What am I? Who am I? What am I to do?
It tottered into the night, on its small feet. It passed a crow, pecking on the scraps of garbage thrown in the street.
The foetus asked, What am I?
The crow cawed and shrieked in revulsion. I don't know. But you look like a tiny man thing. A very tiny man thing, that hasn't been fully made. Like you shouldn't have been hatched yet. Sick. I haven't seen your kind before.
The foetus quavered. I'm a monster, the foetus thought. An abomination.
Minutes passed. The crow ruffled his feathers, shamefacedly. I'm sorry.
You are still here?
Yes, the crow cawed, tossing a half-empty packet of milk to the foetus. Drink.

V. In the years to come, strange stories crept through the neighbourhood. About a demon, a spirit, a tiny half-human thing, that could be spotted flying through the skies, astride a crow.

VI. I was a man once, the crow said. I think.
You were?
The crow ruffled his feathers. There is a house at the edge of a city. A dark house, with twisted mango trees in the front, blocking out the sunlight. Strange things hide in the shadows and dark corners of this house. Ghosts and spirits. A magician lives there. He is impossibly old. He turned me into a crow.
Why?
The crow was silent for a moment. I can remember the sound of children splashing, on a hot summer's day. I can remember the smell of perfume, of over-ripe bananas. But more than that I can not remember.
The foetus pondered this.
Could he make me, you think, what I was meant to be? A man-thing?

VII. There was house still, and crooked stumps that dotted the garden. But there was a big hole in the roof, and rubble, pieces of cement and plaster filled the house. The steps were worn, the windows broken. There were queer shadows, that seemed to move, even in the absence of light, but there was no man there. In the backyard, they found a pile of broken bones, shards of glass, and a human-sized skull, picked clean. Here the grass had been scorched, as if by fire, and nothing grew.
There's no one here, a squirrel told them. No one for years.

VIII. The foetus was left with a dream. And impossibly, it began to hope.
I want to be a man, it told the crow.
And the crow sighed.

IX. The foetus peered in through the window. A man sat, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, rifling through the pile of papers that cluttered his desk. The foetus carefully crawled through a crack in the window pane.
The man looked up. He heard the sound of a dull thud, as the foetus scrambled past the pane, and crawled onto the ledge.
The man heard a voice.
What are men before they are born?
The man looked around, amazed. But he saw nothing.
What makes a man?
The man turned his head. He failed to see the scrap of flesh on his window ledge, clinging to the curtains. The man knelt on the carpet, and bent his head.
He began to pray.

X. The foetus wept.
The crow pecked at a loose feather. Men see only what they want to see.
The foetus raised his face, his tear-stained unformed face, to the sun. We don't belong in their world.
And for the first time ever, it laughed.

XI . For many years after, in that town, there were stories, of an invisible angel that visited men and spoke with a human voice. Stories of food and books that went missing. Tales of black feathers found behind an altar, between the pages of a book. Of a half-man, half-bird that a child once saw on her windowsill at night. These were tales that men of science and reason scoffed at; but old women and children whispered to each other behind closed doors.
Stories of magic. Stories, that for some strange reason, gave hope.

Madness

I live with Madness. We are two, trapped in a cell with walls that reach to infinity. Smooth walls, that we can not scale. There is no way out. We turn to each other, our nails grown long and gnarled, our stomachs and minds hungry. We tear and rent skin, we snap at flesh, we crunch on bone.

I clutch Madness. She, protean, changes in my grasp. I hold an old woman, a moment later, a snarling child slips my grasp. There are feral glints in her eyes. In seconds, she matures into a full-grown woman. She walks with pride, there is beauty and grace in her movements. But I see jealousy, I smell anger, her tongue flicks out, like a dragon, and her breath is hot with fire.

There is a flaw that beats in her brain, like a pulse, polluting her blood, infecting her senses. She sees black in white, and darkness where there is sunshine. Where there is beauty, she sees ugliness, where one finds pleasure, she is tortured by pain. Her moans poison the air, fill my ears. I clutch my head, press my fingers into my ears, to block her sound. But some particle slips past and swirls into my head. I am infected, Madness blossoms inside of me. I hear her laugh, her manic laugh in my brain, and I feel her fire burn my insides.

I douse myself in cold water. Madness retreats. It is now just a slow poison that blocks my brain and leaves me sluggish.

Meanwhile she has changed. She is a starving, wide-eyed child. Her skin hangs off her bones, her jaw falls slack. She looks at me, but doesn't see me. When I approach, she shies away. When I touch, she bites me. I stare at flesh, blood drips - she sucks at my wound, and the madness is borne away.

I hammer at the walls. There is no way out. Every day, the walls move closer. I cry, I shriek for help - but no one comes. I hear nothing of the outside world. There must be world, beyond this - I think - beyond her and me.

She is dying at dusk. How do I know it is dusk? The sun is too far overhead for us to see, this walls stretch to infinity. But the shadows darken and lengthen. She lies on the floor, her flesh weak.

I force food down her throat. She struggles but I pin her down.

She falls asleep. I wonder if perhaps, we are the only two in the world. I have never seen anyone else. Perhaps it is just us.

I scream. A hand seems to grasp my heart, squeeze my breath out. The walls move closer, the ground seems to tilt. She sits up now, stares at me. She pulls me away from the wall. My nails are bleeding - I stare at them. I hear howling. Her mouth is closed. I am howling.

She smiles. She places her hand over my mouth. I bite her palm. She jerks back in surprise. There is anger in her eyes, in the twist of her mouth. She bares her teeth, and wraps her hands around my throat. She presses down, choking me. I struggle, my vision blurs. I kick, I ram my hands into her soft, child-like body. I dig my nails into her arms.

Finally she falls off. Now she lies, spent, on the floor.

We both lie, unmoving.

Night comes.

How will it end, I wonder? I can not remember how it began. But we have always been here, her and I, in this cramped space, in this windowless, cell.

I wonder if there is a God. A demon. Good and Evil. Sometimes, I think, if there is only two of us, one of us must be God, one of us must be the devil. One of us with the power to create, one of us with the power to kill. But here, trapped in this space, our powers cancel out.

A vision visits me. I am clothed in diamonds and black, she is wearing pearls and white. We stand next to each other. I wear a crown of blue feathers, she wears one of red. I smell blood. I look down. There is a headless body before me, sprawled on the ground by my feet, blood staining the edge of my robe. I touch my hands to my face, there is blood dripping down my mouth. I spit out a bone. I look at her, her mouth is red, her teeth sharp and pointed. She opens her mouth wide, I glimpse an eyeball on her tongue.

A moment later we are running through a dark forest. A herd of townspeople follow us, crying in rage, bearing pitchforks and torches. A sorcerer leads them, he weaves a spell and flings it at us. We are caught, in his spell, and around us, jagged boulders rise, like teeth, from the earth. We are trapped. The sorcerer laughs, and the spaces between the stones disappear. We are imprisoned in a room, with high walls.

I wake up, screaming. She is leaning over me, her mouth open. She grabs my hand and brings her mouth down on it. Her teeth pierce my skin, graze my bone. I scream and shake her off. I throw her against a wall. A bone snaps, and she lies, broken.

Was it a dream or a memory?

Madness lies asleep, her bones have healed. I try to dig the ground, but it is hard stone, and refuses to budge.

I wonder what I look like. Do I look lke Madness? Is my face the same as hers? Sometimes, when I look at her, I feel like I am staring at a mirror. But I do not know what I look like. I have forgotten. I know only the shape of my hands, the shape of my body, but I do not know what is on my face.

When Madness awakens, I take hold of her. I push down her. She wraps her hands around my throat and squeezes. I look at her face. I am suprised. There is no anger, no fire. Her eyes are tired, pleading. There is a question, a word - that eludes me. But I think I know what she means. She tightens her hold. I tighten mine. We both squeeze, strength ebbing. I do not let go. Her hold slakens for a moment, but then, from somewhere, she finds the strength to go on. I can not breathe. My vision turns pink. I can not see Madness, I can barely feel her....there is numbness spreading across....I hope, I hope so much...I hope that...

this
is
how it
ends

THE LIFE OF A CITY

In the mornings -

Men and smart young women walk briskly to offices, laptop bags slung over one shoulder, a leather handbag or brief case clutched in one hand, a mobile phone clasped in the other.

School buses shudder across roads, crawl past manholes, and jolt over speedbreakers. Screaming children hang out of the windows, waving soot-spotted handkerchiefs.

In the afternoons -

Old women sit by their window sills, parting curtains covered in soot and grime, drinking weak tea, watching cars and cycles pass below.

The sound of a hundred rival soap operas playing on a thousand television screens, the sounds of snores, of love-making, of phonecalls and barking dogs push past closed doors, and merge into a blurred cacophany.

In the evenings -

Mothers bring their children out to the parks. They sit silently on benches covered in pigeon droppings, and watch their children play. Their hair is pinned up, hap-hazardly, in a straggly bun. There is something strange in their gaze - at once abstracted and familiar. They look as if the world is passing them by. They sigh, absently, and move a lock of hair back, as the wind stirs.

In houses, husbands and wives glare each other. A heavy silence hangs between them, full of unsaid things. A door bangs, a tear falls, a car speeds away.

A child sits, by a window, watching the sunset. He jumps up, when he hears a car back into the garage. But it's the neighbors. A maid comes in, with dinner on a tray, and leaves it on a nearby table. The child pushes the tray away.

In the nights -

Lovers meet, for a tryst, but they are tired and fall asleep.

The beat of a nearby night-club keeps a secretary, living alone in a squalid, one-room apartment, up the whole night. Unable to sleep, she gets up and crouches by her tiny window, watching beautiful, rich young men and women cue outside the night club. A glint of gold jewellery catches her eye. She turns to see a young woman, her age, dressed in a tight red skirt, with stiletto heels. She is laughing, one hand wrapped around a handsome man. The secretary recognizes the man - he is an actor from a prime-time soap.

A car drives past, stops and blocks her view. When the car passes, the couple have disappeared.

She sighs, and tries to go back to sleep.

Past midnight -

The city is asleep. Men and women toss in their beds, in the clutches of Dream. As one young man, writhes. He moans, he sweats. He grimaces, asleep, in pain.

Finally, he awakens. He rolls across his bed, opens his drawer, and pops a pill. He sinks back into bed, and falls asleep. A dream uncoils from his head, slides out in a whispery, grey vapour from his ear, and drifts into the sky, to join a poisonous Cloud of Dreams, hovering above the earth.

The cloud shrieks, flashes, and moans. It rolls across the sky, and goes to torment the sleep of others.
.
When the young man awakens, he can not remember his dreams.

And so the days -

Are changeless, mornings fade into afternoon, lapse into evening and slip into night. The months march past, patterned by such days, the seasons move in a steady progression, as the stars slowly shift their places in the night sky.

Thus years pass.

The people of this city live their lives in this constant, unvarying fashion - a life of mornings, evenings and nights, a life of absent dreams, pregnant silences and forgotten longings.

The Laughter of God

The first time

It was a black day, when it first happened. Dark, heavy thunderclouds, pregnant with the promise of rain, rolled across the sky, blotting out the sun. Lightening flashed, followed by the dull roar of thunder, and a moment later, the first raindrops began to fall.

I sought shelter in the doorway of a bookshop, standing beside a woman, with lank, greasy hair. She reached inside the pocket of her oversized, battered leather jacket, and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She was polite enough to offer me one, but when I declined, she shrugged, and lit a cigarette. The smoke rose from her mouth, from the glowing cigarette end, and hung in the air for a moment. In that moment, it seemed to me, the smoke took on the semblance of a form - a grinning horned sprite, with red eyes. The sprite opened his mouth, to reveal a flickering, snake-like tongue, and rows of pointed, sharp teeth. He began to laugh- a horrible, mad sound.

The sound of terror, the sound of chaos.

How can I describe the sound? It was the sound of horns blaring, sirens wailing, children laughing and dogs barking. The sound of the universe tearing.

I shivered, trembling, my palms slick with sweat, my heart beating hard in my chest.

The woman next to me, the one who was smoking, tugged at my sleeve. "You okay?" She asked, a little concerned. "You look like you're coming down with a fever." The wind rose, as she spoke, blowing away the mad, grinning face of smoke.

I shook my head, stunned. She turned away, and took another long puff on her cigarette. I watched, mesmerized, as she exhaled, waiting for the smoke to transform into another strange, animated vision. But nothing happened this time, the smoke remained smoke, ascending in a slow, sleepy spiral towards the heavens.

The next time

I was sitting at a coffee shop, alone. In the table in front of mine, a man waited, watching the clock. Minutes passed, he grew more agitated. He pulled out a cellphone, flipped it open, and scrolled down for a number. His finger hovered above the green call button, and as the seconds ticked by, his indecision mounted. Finally, he flipped his phone close, and laid it on the table, in front of him, watching the LCD screen.

Nothing happened, no one called. He pulled his phone towards him, and repeated the same ritual over the next fifteen minutes, innumerable times. The last time, he stared glumly at the glowing LCD screen, before pocketing the phone. He moved to rise, but just as he did - a woman strode into the coffee shop, breezing past the waiters and the other customers. The man's forlorn face broke into a smile. She
reached him, and pecked him on the cheek. They sat down, and he reached across the table, to hold her hands, as he whispered to her.

A look of confidence spread across her face. She looked like a cat, with a rat in her grasp, and as she smiled, at her lover, her tongue flicked across her lips, a serpentine, flickering tongue.

My coffee came. I read my book, drank my coffee. When I finally raised my head to summon the waitress, the couple in the table in front of me had left. The waitress came, took down my order, and removed my coffee cup.

There was stain, where the cup had been - a faint, wet ring on the table cloth. Even as I watched, the stain shifted and changed - it was now a face, a grinning, horned face. A smile writhed across the face, and lips opened. Laughter sounded - a sound so loud that it blasted my eardrums. I raised my hands to my ears, to block out the sound. I stumbled across my chair, in an effort to escape the grinning face, the horrible laughter. I shut my eyes.

Moments later, I felt a pair of soft hands on my shoulder. I turned around, and looked up into the waitress' face. She murmured something soothing, and grasping my hands, led me away. As I turned, I saw the table had been overturned, a plate had splintered into pieces on the ground, a chair had been toppled.

Was this the beginning of madness?

The next day

I took the day off from work, and stayed at home, watching clouds sweep over the sky. It was a bright day, the sky was blue, and the clouds looked soft and fleecy, like sheepskin.

A solitary crow flew overhead, giant winds spanning the breadth of the cloud, and darkness descended, as he flew past the sun. I shuddered, suddenly cold, and wrapped my arms around me. A moment later, warm sunlight streamed down again. I smiled, and turned my head, as a black shape flickered at the corner of my eye.

The crow sat on my window sill, watching me.

I was paralyzed by fear, because there was intelligence and menace in his fierce, bright eyes. I was suddenly aware of his sharp beak, of it's capacity to inflict damage. I could imagine, that sharp beak, diving into my soft skin, bright red blood dripping.

But the crow simply opened his beak, and a violent noise filled the air. It was the sound of manic laughter - the sound of chaos and horror, fear.

Was this what the Gods sounded like? What language was this?

I screamed the crow to stop, to shut up. But he cawed, even more fiercely, and I closed my eyes and tumbled into darkness. But even there, in the darkness behind my eyes, the laugh continued to sound.

An eternity passed.

When I opened my eyes, my hands were covered in blood. There was a bloody mess of black feathers on my lap, and there were feathers in my hair, on my hands. Here and there, were sharp, incisive cuts across my hands.

But there was no crow.

What had happened?

Sometime Later

I sat at my desk, in my office. Colourless, blank walls rose about me, and I was confronted with a blinking white screen on my computer. Letters danced before my eyes, I rubbed my face, and the letters and numbers settled back into sentences and phrases.

What was I supposed to be doing?

I frowned, shook my head. Grabbing my mug, I headed for the coffee machine. A pair of lovers - a secretary from Supplies and an accountant from the Fourth Floor hovered by the coffee machine, faces wreathed in smiles, giggling. Their laughter stopped, as I walked into the tiny cabin. The silence was tense, and the accountant left first, hands in his pockets. The secretary left a moment later, after directing a fierce, intense look at me. There was hatred in her eyes. Why?

I returned to my narrow cubicle, and my blinking computer screen. Moments later, a telephone rang. I started, and turned to my right. There was a bright red telephone on the right side of my desk. It was a strange thing - an old-fashioned telephone, the kind with a rotating dial.

I stared at this foreign object. I had never seen it on my table before.

It rang again, insistent. The noise was deafening.

Slowly, I reached for the phone, and picked up the handset.

"Hello?" I ventured, cautiously.

There was silence for a brief instant, and then there was the sound of that same, fiendish, black laughter. It flooded my ears, and paralyzed my brain. And even as it did, the letters and numbers on my computer screen rearranged themselves - into the black form of a grinning, laughing, horned face.

The sight of that face, the sound of that laughter.

I screamed, trying to shut out, blank out the laugher with my scream, but to no avail. I shut my eyes, stoppered my ears, plunged sharpened pencils into my ears, to pierce my eardrums, to stop the sound.

The blackness came, finally, soothing and peaceful.

When I awoke

I was in a white room. There were white walls and white ceilings and white floors - whiteness spreading into infinity. There was no one else here, just me. At first, I didn't mind it, because there seemed no way that the face and the sound could follow me here.

But I was wrong.

Now, I shut my eyes, because even my shadow betrays me, and shapes into that grinning face, with that horrible mouth, and the terrible, earth-shattering laugh.

But I can not shut my eyes forever. And there is nothing here with which I can pierce my eyes, gouge out my eyeballs.

When I open my eyes, the face is in front of me, as large as the entire wall - it's mouth huge and growing. The face spreads and grows, and now it is the size of the entire room, and the mouth is before me, longer and taller than me. The mouth opens, and I see a red, wet tongue, and rows of sharp, pointed teeth, the size of trees. The walls dissolve, and then there is only the face, as big as a mountain, before me.

The tongue slides out of the parted lips, and wraps it's long, sinuous length around me.

I hear the laughter of the Gods, for one, last time.

Untitled

Once, as a princess slept, she dreamt. It was a beautiful dream that she dreamt, and as the night wore on, it grew more exquisite. The princess cried in her sleep, tears staining her soft white pillow case - so beautiful was the dream.

A magician, living leagues away in dark tower, smelt the wondrous fragrance of her dream. He followed the scent to her window, and saw that she dreamt the most wondrous dream ever in existence.

He wanted the dream.

He uttered his most powerful incantation, and slowly the dream uncoiled, unwrapped itself from the princess's mind, and drifted into his outstretched palm. He grabbed the dream and locked it in a charmed locket. Then, he fled, with the dream into the darkest part of the night sky, never to be seen again.

The princess died, weeping in her castle.

Poets have written odes to this dream, philosophers have debated it's contents, scientists have searched for it, and sorcerers have cast webs of magic into the night sky, hoping to catch this dream.

But no one has found it.

I am still looking for the dream.

The Shop in Old Town

Many, many years ago, I chanced upon a strange, little bookshop in Old Town. It was a ramshackle operation, stacks of books lined the pavement, moulting pages in the noonday sun, arranged haphazardly - The Communist Manifesto keeping company with The Wind in the WIllows, and Polidori's Vampyre lying precariously close to Austen's Mansfield Park, pages touching. I chuckled to myself, imagining what havoc was to unfold if Polidori's bloodsucking protagonist were to leap out of the covers and jump across pages, to sink his teeth into Lady Betram's beloved Pug. Catastrophe would result, with a vampiric pug chasing down the corridors of Mansfield Park - turning all our beloved (and not so beloved) characters - Fanny, Edward, Henry Crawford, Ms Norris - into creatures of the night.

But as I examined the contents of another pile, I stumbled across a tiny black book, with an ancient, threadbare black cover, leaves spilling out. I opened the book, and glanced across the first page. There was nothing - just a blank page. Puzzled, I flipped past pages until I came, in the middle of the book, to a white page, marred by a single black dot.

The dot grew, before my very eyes, it spread across the page and resolved itself into a black and white etching.

It was a portrait of a young woman, who looked strangely familiar. As I looked at the picture, her features withered, her eyes grew rheumy, and lines etched themselves in the corner of her mouth. Even as I watched, the edges of the page began to burn and charr, fire creeping slowly towards the center of the image. The woman looked at either side, at the burning edges that framed her, and fear began to twist her features, furrow her brow. Her face began to burn, features melting into a pool of black ink. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

I shut the book.

The smell of burning still hung in the air, and my heart rocked in my chest. I shut my eyes, hoping to erase the image of her burning face, but it was still there, etched in darkness against my eyelids.

I opened my eyes, shocked now, for I had realized why her features had been so familiar.

"Are you alright?" A voice sounded by my ear. I turned, it was a fellow customer, a sandy haired tourist, persuing the stacks of books on the pavement. I nodded and moved away, into the shop.

It was dark inside; it smelt of mothballs, dusty old pages and pann. I went to the cashier's desk, but there was no body there. Surprised, I peered over the counter, to find a little boy, sleeping under the desk, his head resting on a thick volume of Shakespeare.

"Is someone older here? Who owns this shop?" I asked. The boy shook his head, rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"No, my grandfather is away, but you can pay here."

I sighed, I didn't imagine that this little boy would be much help in learning anything about the black book in my hands. "When will your grandfather be back?"

The little boy shrugged, and then turning to a dark doorway behind him, shouted - "Ammi!"

A woman answered back, faintly - something I couldn't catch. As I waited, she emerged from the doorway - a pretty girl. She had a pair of almond shaped grey eyes, heavily lined with kohl, and fair, smooth skin. As she pulled her pink scarf over her hair, her bangles jingled, a soft, sweet sound. She seemed too young to have birthed the boy beside her. I was caught by her beauty, the incandescent beauty of an houri or a princess, a strange thing to find in the darkness of a bookshop.

The boy showed her the book. She frowned at the book, but didn't touch it, or glance at the pages. She smiled at me - and I felt my heart squeeze, for her smile was like a rainbow breaking across a land battered by rain. She spoke in beautiful, classical urdu - "I'm sorry, I can't help you. But my father will be back, next week, he's gone to his village."

I bought the book, in any case, and left the shop. I opened it many times in the following days - but it only showed me one picture, the picture I had already seen.

Months passed, and the book was lying, forgotten, in a drawer, when my nephew, a lovely six year old, was staying with me. His parents, jet-setting executives, had little time to spend with their boy, and so he often came to me. He was a quiet, frail thing and we would work in comfortable silence together, he - industriously colouring little pictures of houses and families, and me, scribbling the stories that were my livelihood.

One day, though, the silence was broken by a little cry. I turned around, and found the black book in his hands. He had torn out a leaf, and before our eyes, black was unfurling across the page. Black flowers blossomed, and then wilted, petals dissolving into rivers and lake of ink. I snatched the page from his little hands, and watched the image shape.

What I saw broke my heart.

"I just wanted a piece of paper for a picture," he lisped at me, thinking his quest for paper had occasioned my anger. I couldn't speak then, tears were choking my throat. I clutched him, buried my face in his nest of curly hair.

"Why are you crying?" He asked. I couldn't tell him.

That night I couldn't sleep, but watched the rise and fall of his chest, as he dreamt. What did he dream? What did six-year old boys dream of?

My sister came, a couple of days latter, to pick up her little son. "You should spend more time with him," I told her, gathering his toys together.

My sister wrenched his things of my hands. "It's all very well for you to say," she sneered at me, her voice rising, "You don't have a job." As I started in surprise, she went on, "Well...not a regular job, not like the rest of us. And you don't have a kid either. Children are expensive - schools, tutions, nannies, field trips, summer camp - we have to save for college as well." She stormed off, pushing things quickly into his suitcase.

She didn't speak to me for a week.

Perhaps it wouldn't happen, I told myself. Perhaps the book was wrong.

Some time later, I had a couple of friends over for dinner. It was a pleasant evening, and as darkness descended, we uncorked a bottle of wine. It was a night full of stars, and as we sat outside, a friend began to tell a story - about a haunted house he had lived in. It was a lovely tale, and after that, emboldened by the magic of the evening and the wine, I started to talk of the black book.

One of my closest friends, an actor, dismissed my story with a sweep of his beautiful, elegant hand, an expression of derision spreading across his face. "No! No!" he cried, "that's not a story at all. You're a writer - you've got to come up with something better! With characters, plot, mystery and ambition! This is nothing...too much like Dorian Gray..." I was hurt by his flamboyant disapproval, I was a little in love with him then - many of us were - but I knew then that that it was only my friendship that he wanted.

Perhaps it was that which made me a little angry.

Incensed, I replied that it wasn't a story, that it was true. My audience guffawed, and to prove them wrong, I rushed into my bedroom and pulled out the book.

My actor friend pried the book loose from my hands. I watched his perfect, handsome profile, outlined against the moon, as he flipped through the pages, and watched his smile droop, the light fade from his eyes.

"What is it?" I asked. A strange silence fell over the gathering, as he shut the book, and handed it back to me.

"Nothing, nothing," he tried to smile, but failed. I felt a brief flutter of disappointment mingled with guilt - had it been anger, or the wine, that had egged me on? I watched him as he moved away and pulled out a cigarette. As the match flared, the fire lit his face briefly - and I saw something in his expression that I hadn't seen before - weariness, sadness, disgust? I couldn't tell.

Months later, he lay, sick and wasted, on a hospital bed, diagnosed with fullblown AIDS. "Too much loving," he told me, a smile twisting his withered lips. I wanted to ask him then, what he had seen in the book, but he turned towards the wall and coughed, blood spewing from his lungs, sores puckering his face. I never got the chance to ask him again.

Ten years passed by.

My sister had moved to the States, years ago, when my nephew had been a scant seven years old. I wanted to tell her then, what I had seen, but as the words hovered on my tongue, she spoke first. "I know what you're going to say," she told me, "keep it for yourself. You're not a mother, you don't what it's like." She turned, and marched towards her plane. In America, her family grew and prospered - they acquired a house in the country, a fleet of cars, American citizenship. She made it sound like a perfect life.

But one day, she called me, just as darkness fled from the morning sky. "He's gone," she wept, static punctuating her sobs. "He died, a few hours ago." Returning from work the previous evening, they had found him, wrists slit, floating in rose-tinted bathwater. It had been too late. The story came out, they - she and her husband - hadn't approved of his clothes, of his friends, of his dreams. "We didn't understand him," she cried. I couldn't think of anything to say. They hadn't understood him as a six year old.

I sat in silence, as day gathered into dusk, and wondered what I could have said to change things. As the call to evening prayer sounded, I pulled on my shoes, and headed for Old Town. I had come here many times searching for the same bookshop - but Old Town was a warren of tiny, dark streets, and it was impossible for me to find the same thing twice.

But today I was determined. Perhaps I had to convince myself that I had no guilt. In any case, I chased laughing children as they tripped across the roofs and alleys of Old Town, watched pigeons swirl high against an orange sky, and listened to the wrenching beauty of an imam's prayer, hurtling through a loudspeaker perched on a minaret.

And then I stumbled upon the bookshop, almost by mistake. The same piles of books lay jumbled on the pavement, just as they had been all those years ago. There was the same darkness inside the shop, the same grimy, yellowing volume of Shakespeare peeking out from under the counter. Only now the counter was manned by a young man, smoking a foul smelling cheroot, film music blaring from a mobile phone clipped to his jeans pocket. Stubble clung to his face. Behind him, on the wall, I could discern a few posters - Salman, Dino, Shah Rukh - the familiar catalog of film stars.

"Please," I asked timidly, "is the shop owner here?"

He glared at me, chewing on his cheroot. I pulled out the black book and showed it to him. "I bought this ten, eleven years ago, from this shop. I wanted to know...where it was from." I shot my most desperate, fervent look, and thought of my nephew, lying palms spread out, in a tub of tepid water.

Something in my expression must have persuaded him, for he turned towards the doorway behind him, and again, like before, shouted "Ammi!"

She appeared now, much older. Her prettiness had faded, her once smooth skin was now mottled and wrinkled. White streaked her hair, but her eyes were just the same - beautiful, grey, almond-shaped eyes - the eyes of a princess, of an houri. And again, there was the smile - the heart-breaking, beautiful smile.

I placed the book before her. "I bought this book from this shop many years ago. I was wondering whether anyone could tell me something about it."

She shook her head. "If only you had come a few weeks ago," she said, "my father died last week. This was his shop, he knew everything about the books here."

I smiled, regretfully, turning to go, but a thought occurred. "If you don't mind me asking - how did he die?" I asked.

"Cancer," she had said. "Of the lungs. He always said that smoking was going to kill him." She smiled again, "It's strange how he knew that."

That was some time ago. Now, I watch my face age, watch lines incise themselves onto my skin, my cheeks droop, my lips wither. I am growing old, everyone one grows old, but I wait for the day when my face will match the face I saw, I still see, in the black book. I keep the book beside me, waiting.

I wait for the fire to come and melt my face, and charr the pages of the book.

Couples

I spend a great deal of time staring at my face in the mirror. I prod a cheek, pull an eyelid. I am searching for a trace, a hint of beauty. The merest suggestion will do. I secretly harbor a hope, that under hours of diligent and intense scrutiny, my face will transform. Beauty will bloom.
It never happens.
In the next room, my grandmother watches TV from her bed. Her wrinkled, arthritic hands clutch the TV remote, as she restlessly changes channels. She's watching the evening news. She presses a button - pop music begins to blare. Then, a hindi movie.
She was beautiful once, charismatic and lively too. Now, though, her face is a ruin, her cheeks droop, her skin is mottled. But she clings on to the illusion of glamour. Despite the fact that she is bed-ridden, she has carefully applied lipstick and kajol. But no one comes to see her.
I envy her. I envy the fact that she was once beautiful. Glamorous. Chiffon saris and had hair piled up in bufoon bun. She wore gold eyeshadow and sunglasses. Pearls around her neck. Sleeveless, daring blouses.
She calls out for me now. I help her to her feet, propel her into the bathroom. Her kaftan is faded, there are holes near the hem. I should darn them. But I don't. She finishes, washes her hands, and then spends a few minutes by the mirror, patting her sparse hair in place. There is not much hair left, but she still dyes it black. The roots are white, though.

A man lives next door. He is handsome. The cut of his hair speaks of expensive barbers, his manicured hands tell me that this is a man who cares, fanatically, about personal grooming. When he moves, his stride is quick. He is restless. He spends his days in board room meetings, and his nights hob-nobbing with the wealthy and influential in expensive clubs and restaurants.
I don't go to such places. Our lives are poles apart. He is energetic, a man of the world, handsome, clever, polished. I have the myopic, spectacle-ridden gaze of a reader, the careless, clumsy gestures of a dreamer. I am not of this world, I build castles in the air, I live in daydreams and illusions. I am a writer. Time passes slow and lazy for me. I do not use every moment. There are moments that pile, everyday, unused. Moments spent dreaming, gazing at the sky, staring at my hands, staring at my face.
It is evening. I pass him on the road. He lives in the house next to ours. He is stepping out of his car. He doesn't notice me, even though I brush past him. he never sees me.
I pray that he looks up and sees me. He looks up. But not at me. There's another girl, walking down the street. She is beautiful. Not really, as I scrutinize her closely. But she has a sort of prettiness -a conventional kind of look. Straight hair, slim frame, an expensive leather handbag, high-heels. Beauty out of bottles. She greets him, they know each other. They exchange pleasantries. I pretend I have a stone in my shoe and stop to remove it. I hear their conversation. Nothing profound. Boring. Stock-market talk, office gossip. I waste time and brain space. I put on my shoe and leave.
The phone rings. I pick it up - a friend, a party at a bar. I agree. I dress up and go. At the bar, I order a drink. My friend has a table - full of people like us. Dreamers, designers, writers - people who create things. Who don't know much about stock markets. But can talk about theatre and art. People with long hair, clunky jewellery, khadi kurtas. Sometimes it is boring to meet only people like yourself. Sometimes it too much.
A man at the bar strikes a conversation with me as I wait for my drink. I realize despite the glasses and the myopic gaze, he is attracted to me. I stare at my own reflection in the polished surface of the bar as he drones on. He is in IT. There's a faint american drawl to his voice. I ask discreet questions, figure that he has never been there. The drawl is a pretence, designed to impress me. I take my drink and head back to the table.
The rest of the night is fun. At some point we dance. There are more drinks. My memory is blurred, it's as if I'm squinting. At some point I look at the bar. I get a shock. He is there. Here, I mean. Why here? This is a cheap bar. For those of us at the lower end of the food chain. A glamorous woman, in a slinky black number, by his side. She is out of place here, amongst the khadi-kurtas of the arty-types, and the buttoned down shirts of call centers employees and engineers. Her arm rests intimately on his, as she whispers in his ear. He smiles.
What do I feel? A sudden rush of disappointment and anger. Why anger? I don't have right to feel angry. I down another drink. I feel sick. My head swims, my stomach rushes up through my throat. My legs start to shake. My friends are concerned. I drink a glass of water, shake them off. I have drunk too much. My stomach tosses. I head for the bathroom.
I have entered the wrong bathroom.The Men's. He is there, by the sink, wiping his face. He turns as I enter. I am ashamed. I step backwards to leave. I mumble an apology. But I stop. He is looking at me. He sees me for the first time.
Something sparks inside of me. Courage fills me. I lock the bathroom door and turn to him. The silence is tense, pregnant. I reach for him, press my lips against his. He pulls my skirt up, fumbles with my underwear, loosens his own trousers. I push him back against the wall. He rams into me. It is over in a few minutes.
We are sweating. He smells of whisky. I peel myself off him. He gasps. I pull my skirt down, and walk into a toilet stall. He waits for a few minutes. I hear the tap running. He wipes his hands on tissue paper. He leaves.
I get out of the stall. I pat my hair in place and leave. I get out of the club, the air full of music, alcohol and laughter. I head home. It is cool outside. My head clears.
A moment of madness. Impulse. Strangers in a bar. I suddenly realize that there was no condom. I make a note in my diary to get checked, in a week. Best to be careful.
At home, my grandmother is still awake. I brush my teeth and kiss her. She pats my cheek. I love her. I love her so much. She falls asleep.
A week later the glamorous woman moves into his house. I pass him on the street, as he helps her move boxes inside. He doesn't notice me. His eyes fall over me, not seeing me. I'm a little surprised. I wonder if she knows about the moment in the bathroom. She kisses him. I look at him sharply. He still doesn't see me.
Something inside me breaks. I feel it must make a sound. I wonder how many bathrooms figure in his life - whether it is an addiction, a lifestyle. For me it is once and I do my penance. But for him, it isn't even a memory. I wonder if they will love each other. I do not love him, but I still feel pain. It is like a hole cut inside me, the sides bleeding and raw.
Later, it is dark. I watch them from my window. They are both laughing. My head hurts. But I still watch. She leans against him, he wraps a hand around her waist. They are bright and shining. Beautiful, perfect. I see the pattern of their lives. Glittering parties. A big wedding, fancy cars. A child. He will have affairs. They will divorce, after a few years. She will marry again. They leave, in a shiny black car.
My grandmother and I watch a late-night movie. It is a comedy. We both laugh. She laughs so much, she begins to cough. I pat her back, give her a glass of water. She leans back, tired, closes her eyes. I leave. In the balcony, I cry. I do not know what I will do when she goes. She will die, someday. Who will I share my life with then? We are happy together, both of us cripples. She is physically ill - while I am emotionally handicapped. She is the one who said that, who coined that phrase. A spiritual illness, a blackness that torments me and my heart wastes away.
A horn blares. A gate opens, a car door bangs, the neighbors are back home. My grandmother wakes up, with the noise. I look at her. I am scared of losing her. My heart will shatter, the blackness will swallow me. She smiles at me, lifts an eyebrow, makes a face. We laugh. She knows much. She is an intelligent woman. We are so different, but we understand each other. That is what love is.