I think it's time to strangle the tailor.
Or burn him slowly.

surfacing

Finally, I find my voice returning.

In bubble-induced calmness am I living it right? and the answer is an overwhelming, resounding YES, threatening to spill out of my head, coming out of my mouth instead I sing along, it oozes from my pores as satisfaction.

A strange nervousness runs through my nerves, my fingertips tingle, my voice is shaking. This is my first vacation from work. This is my second home, over lunch I was thinking today of how steaming mugs of coffee first thing in the morning in the winter how Ali P. and his camera how violent, sudden moodswings, how many months now? So will my pc stay germ-free when I'm away for three whole weeks?

There is a koiyal in the trees behind the parking lot behind the creche singing all day long, and somehow it sounds so wrong, koiyals are supposed to sing in the languid heat of Karachi, not the piercing heat of Islamabad, they are the first thing I wait to hear as soon as I get there, opening mess-bathroom windows, eucalyptus swaying in the sea-breeze, a koiyal in Islamabad is cheating.

Ammi and Papa 30 crazy years I am awestruck and humbled and in wonder.

I think I might be unearthing treasures flashes of old and new inside and I think I'm scared to step out but I'm beginning to feel whole.
Bliss, and yet not quite.

morphed

Words are changed, particles of dust are displaced, air is breathed in, objects are touched. Somewhere there is you, living, breathing, being, and this thought is enough to thrill me, to leave me ecstatic, and then suddenly alone. You are learning, growing in my absence, but somewhere, there is you, there is an existence that matters to me.

On top of a heap of morbidity, dreams are dreamt and sleep is yearned for. Deep into the night my abandoned head is resolving its issues on its own, it's dealing with problems, it's dealing with the strange quiet that haunts it during the day and its playing Live.

A mosquito leads me into my room. Summer is here.

Somewhere: The space that's left here is bigger than you. It's you and I, combined.

'You didn't create your body yourself and it's not yours to keep, so don't criticise it.'
Sometimes her words send me reeling. Could I be more awestruck? It's a small thing to say, but how can someone be so focused on the bigger picture? How can you live each day treating your life as a mere phase? Her disinterest, her indifference makes sense on days like this. She yells and calls me to her room to show me the bird she's adopted that lives, mysteriously, on the neighbour's PTV antenna and she calls him 'Chirpy'. And she tells me that 80% of her is me so if I love her so much, I should know that I should love myself too. I still love her more.

Alone in the backseat of the car, after years pehaps, I sit in the middle of the seat and put my elbows on Ammi's and Papa's seats, aligned with the AC vents and the rear view mirror. I have to keep my head ducked so as not to be in Papa's line of vision, but all of a sudden I remember Karachi, or my childhood, I don't know which. Except that our cars used to be smaller, and I used to have no choice but to be in the middle seated like that, Apya and Faiqa on one side and Bhayya on the other. Why does every day feel like I am only here for a short while? I need to study ammi's face, commit the lines on her forehead and around her eyes to memory. To look at Papa's hands and wonder if any other man in the world has hands like his, do other people's fathers know the names of the shampoos their daughters use? Do they hide toffees under their kids' pillows so they can accidentally find them?

I find them sitting close together on their sofa quietly staring at the floor and panic grips me. What's wrong? Did you just speak with Bhayya? Is everything ok?

At Khala's house the silence is the broken trust. The tray of dirty plates taken from my hands might be love, or respect, or just plain old formality. Death still hovers somewhere near the ceiling, hides in the shadows behind furniture, in headaches and laughter ending in sighs.
As we leave, Maqsood bhai hugs me and quietly says 'Thank you'.

spoilt

What a strange time this is.

In the haze of the sheesha, the noise, the standing ovation for the short film and the mad dancing, somewhere there was me alone, trying to see where I fit in a flurry of silk and makeup.

Somewhere, hidden away from me just now, is a great future waiting for me to stumble upon it.
I just know.