thirty-six

21:43:46

I'm sleepless in the jabal.

The summer has receded to the coast and away with it tumbled down the lights of my neighbouring villagers, leaving me with the flickering TV screen of the village priest. He too has a God at home.

Having left behind the tumult of my first day back, I find myself without distractions. I find myself with fishbones in my throat and a writhing ball of maggots in my gut. Even the layers of shawl over jacket over cardigan over T-shirt cannot keep out the cold. Guilt writhes in my belly like a baby kicking its own mother and like a mother ridden with guilt, I stop breathing to make it go away.

I turn around for the last time and behind the curtain of rain and weeping glass I see Imaginary Extraordinary Him looking back from inside the car. I see myself drop my bags and run back towards him to say goodbye, to kiss him and to hug him, but I'm running late and I wonder why he isn't running towards me instead, so I pick up my things and run down the stairs and unto the westbound platform. My shadow lingers for a moment longer at the top of the stairs and I see him drive off into the mist of rain. A blur, a spritz, a shadow and then nothing.

I was too busy feeling angry and rejected. That morning I had placed a mirror between us, so that I wouldn't need to say goodbye, I wouldn't need to see dejection, unless I punched myself in the face to have the bullshit shatter. I deserved it, but my littleness didn't allow me to reach above my knees. So I slammed the door instead, pulled out my bag from the boot and walked away without saying a word.

If three years of life can seem unchanged on a bench at Hyde Park, then three days of life can feel like three lifetimes on a train platform. Mind the gap in logic.

So along with the two ticking clocks, the howling dog and the car roaring somewhere across the valley, I'm left alone with regret tied to me by an umbilical cord. Why didn't I throw my tantrum out the window? Why didn't I allow myself to feel fragile in his arms one last time? No amount of bedsheets I can burry under to feel a warmth like his surround me.

Although...it takes two to make a child. But it takes one to feed it. I'll starve it till it shrivels. I'll starve it till it dies in my cold womb. I'll starve until I don't recognize hunger. I'll starve until I meet a deprivation and depletion quota, until it's too late to sayve anything at all.

twenty-four

02:29:43

I’m sleepless in the jabal.

Wow. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the stars. It’s been so long since I’ve been alone with the world that was made to nourish me and for me to nurture.

I drove into the nowhere, past cars parked in the darkness, until there were no more lights from nearby villages. I stretched out on the roof of my car and fought back the tears that were tickling my lower eyelids. The children of the city have been denied the universe; the universe of far away suspended snow-flakes that will never reach the ground in our lifetime, the bottomless limitless globe of black glass that holds us in its steel silence. One tilt of the head backwards and man is humbled. Man is diminished into a speck on a speck and he is drowned out by the sound of crickets and the wind in the grass.

Would we not be more pleasant a race if every night before going to bed we’d see the sky peppered with countless twinkling fireballs instead of “Dancing with the Stars”?

A shooting star.

I should make a wish. Should I wish for world peace? Or should I wish for you to see this arc of the Milky Way and come across your insignificance?

Oh what are men compared to rocks and mountains?

I’m humbled.

Looking towards the sea, I see an endless stretch of clouds, bottoms of which are illuminated by villages, towns and a city. One peak juts out, like a black iceberg in a sea of white icing. Above it hangs Venus, passionately preening in the light of the sun. Further to the left is Mars, blushing as he watches her. Lastly, there is Saturn, a little lonely, a little mighty, yet ready to provide the rings if…

I’m in the company of gods and goddesses, isolated from the dirt and grit and sweat of people as a general! This is the top of the world. Skybar, anyone?

I feel like I belong. I shrivel up as cars drive by. It’s not the night I fear but the people she has cast her spell on. They leave me in peace; nobody wants to mess with a weirdo in pajamas, offering herself to visible gods on a metallic tray that makes bending noises as she rolls from side to side.

I’m spilling with awe and joy, and the only thing that is missing is a voice that would wow along with me and a warmth that would glow beside me.

My phone rings. The one who is missing. Imaginary Extraordinary Him. My rock, my warm bed, my curled toes, my special only, my my my…let’s be humble now, I only own my words and actions and never, anyone.

The emotion is mine, however. He is the cause, the emotion is the effect, take a deep breath, the two are separate. The two are halves. We are wolves beneath the unphotographable indescribable sky, howling into the receiver, tails between our legs, humbled by the force of love, they call it?