Samaksh - Part 1

He sits on a bench at the sea. A bench facing the road with the traffic and honking noise, the sea threatening behind him. His phone in his hand, he swipes - up, down, left, right - inconsequentially. The wind too, moves with his thumb - left, right, up and down. His hair flies into his eyes, the way hair does when being blown everywhere. Browns and blacks mixing with the beige and rouge of his face - unsure if he is smiling, blushing or frustrated. Like acne, people appear and disappear - no one looks at him - a sense of if we don't make eye contact, we don't have to be kind. The car swerves towards a screaming woman who flings her coffee at the red vehicle. His face turns redder. The car turns redder. The wind howls redder. A distant siren wails against the assembling termites called humans, squabbling. Breathing helps, but the siren's rhythm is difficult to follow. The sea lurks, and the piles traffic on the street near the beach.

These seemed to be the evenings of Samaksh since he could remember his life in the past five years. A circular rut between the sea, the traffic and his own red face. He had little to call his own - no family and barely a house. Something to call his was the hate he carried on behalf of the world. His neighbours were the kind of people who would use ass fucking as their worst insult and believed in much less, except for their egotistical quest for validation. His friendless stray cat crept near him for affection, the way that it would when begging for food. A secret mirror he fell asleep in front of was perhaps the only possession he cared for - a broken piece, that allowed the little streetlight filtering through his window to paint a story across his red face.

When he walked back to the small hole he called home, he toyed with the piece of mirror in his pocket. Praying for a new story tonight. The moon seemed to emulate the sun's heat and rivalled the torture it could inflict on the termites he called humans. He took the mirror out and looked at the moon through it. Chipped, the mirror took away the scars on the moon's angry surface. A song appeared on the sharp edges between the moon and the mirror and paraded out of his whispering lips. Fear englufs with music when it remains unheard.

"Bring the brave

Forever to a grave.

Unearth the blood

Ready to boil.

Bring the spoils

As I rejoice

A silent enemy

Of my past joys.

The brave shall be coy

When I, so stoic

Leave you in my 

Empty soil."

The mirror seemed to glow, reddening with his face and the moon. He flitted between the bench and the hole. A parcel of bread to fill his void, he slithered away, street after street, avoiding eye contact. His hands found the key easily enough - trained or in memory. His fall onto the bed and between his pillows was just as familiar. The mirror whispering into his iris as always - the dreams of a forever destruction. Sleep turned into a wistful flying experience. "Tomorrow, I promise," the mirror whispered as he awoke. Tomorrow seemed far enough to be today. 

In order and in routine, he practised the chaos of his existence - a beautiful mole growing out of his inner eyelid - not a stye but chipped and cracked, he drowned in the sea's whispers. Honks and screams on the bench held him like a painting. The red of the avoidant gazes blew him across the whirlpool forming underwater - an ocean panting like the friendless, frightened cat. There beneath, lay his corpse, feeding termites honking at each other. The piles trafficked and fucked and played witness to a shiver in the wind. Beautiful echoes sang hymns.

The mirror fell from his hand, and he bent to pick it up - a piece attaching itself to his precious. The mirror enlarged, engulfed, and he found himself walking back to look at the moon. The same streets and red cars flitting away - like bugs sprayed with oxygen. The fire of the cigarette smoking through his veins left him in the arms of his bed again.

"Today?" He whispered, and the mirror giggled, "Yes, between the wind and the wave."

The night held him like a child in the arms of a mother. He rocked his imagination back and forth between his love and his lover. Neither existed beyond the unblemished moon. 

Samaksh walked to the sea that morning, with his hand toying with the bread and his fingers twitching with the mirror. The phone rang with no human calls. Notifications crowded his morning when he swiped the metro card and walked out onto the road. The bench seemed to glow the moment he walked. He fed the cat and himself. He threw the crust at the crows and waited for some eye to find his.