Temples

A sequel to Voices.

A temple stood on bamboo feet in the middle of an abysmally and particularly Sicilian-mafia-fashion brutally murdered place – a place devoid of death and full of life

‘Ah Life’, snorted the yak in disgust.

‘Aren’t you alive’, asked the woman.

‘I am a statue, can’t you see’, the yak replied.

‘With piercings on your knees’, the woman added.

‘I am punk, you idiot’, shouted the yak.

‘Oh, I see’, wondered the woman.

The variegated stained glasses ornamenting the window-ey eyes of the mud-clad temple with bamboo stilettos provided the woman with invigorating images of the world that lay rotting outside. The woman and the yak stood face to face in a metaphysical encounter.

‘Souls are real’, asserted the woman.

‘Commercial yak-shit’, laughed the yak.

Yes, they worshipped the yak in that devil-forsaken place. The zombies had a perfectly lit world with a 7 inch long Bunsen burner. Their ideas were cradled over the blue flame of flowery filth and littered hopes for the deceased. They called their world Earth and portrayed it as a utopian condolence for screwing up big time. And yes, they worshipped the yak.

‘Then, why do people come to you’, the woman thought to herself.

‘Because they are irreparable fools’, whispered the yak to her.

‘You can read minds’, exclaimed the woman.

Don’t you know Bunsen burners do not emanate a lot of light, do you? They are non-luminous blue flames. Blue films and laboratories are lit with such flames. Then how could it qualify as the sun of the world the zombies lived in? The coloured glasses had a certain mystical quality to them; they showed exactly what the person in conversation with the yak wanted to see.

‘They say, you are pimp’, blurted out the woman.

‘Yes, I am into souls...’, hurried the yak.

‘You hypocritical piece of excrement’, intercepted the woman.

‘...the business of bodies hit a rock-bottom a million years ago’, continued the yak.

The blue-ey, gooey mess the zombies lived in was swept aside with an acidic broom of tantrum thrown sky high by the yak. The yak swore by his foibles and abhorred vicissitudes although his decision making abilities rested solely on the visceral(stooping over the bent down carnal) traits of audio-visual juxtapositions, in a flickering no light effect strewn once in a while with a hard mix of psychedelic lights upon haystacks that carried the stench of cattle saliva. The yak was the root of this world. He had sustained the world with his sheer magic, his wand being the Bunsen burner. The zombies worshipped the yak.

‘So, what brings you here’, the yak inquired.

‘I came here because...’, the woman stopped.

‘Do you see what I see’, the woman resumed.

‘No, it’s only meant for you’, the yak added quickly.

‘But, I want you to see...’, the woman gasped frantically.

‘...what I see. I want to share them with you’, the woman murmured slowly.

‘Okay! I will have your soul’, the yak declared.

‘You are free now’, the voice of the yak echoed through and beyond the mud walls.

The glasses were funny, you see – they showed visibly transmogrified dark skins into fair ones and expensive lenses that entitle you to call yourself richly gifted with convoluted perceptions of a swamp, over which moths hovered and the zombies called those harmless creatures butterflies. As the caterpillars grew old, they invited the humans to wake up from their deaths and live, to become zombies. Then the caterpillars deluded the humans and fancy-dressed into butterflies. The zombies had a floating joke about the humans – they named their moths butterflies.

‘The temples are beautiful’, the woman said, looking through the stained glasses.

‘They are all fakes’, the yak quipped.

‘What do you mean’, the woman asked in disbelief.

‘Don’t worry, you would forget that they are fakes when you walk out of that door’, the yak sympathised.

You can only reach the temple of the yak by an invitation.

The woman christened zombie walked in distorted strides out of the temple and as she did her tinkling anklets rusted and wrapped around her feet like hand painted tribal tattoos.

The bamboo shoots twinkled with the blue light. The glasses had turned gray. The bowl of Earth had been heated enough for the day. The mud walls became soft and clayey. It was time for the yak to rest. Yes, they worshipped the yak.

Sean removed his shoes, then his socks. He put on his shoes again sans the socks and wore the socks on his hands like gloves. He stepped into the temple of the yak.

Voices

A sequel to Fits.

Fences crafted out of cheap, crude bamboos stood like imitation-ornaments along the dusty moon-burnt roads, guarding strips of black soil that bore clusters of malnourished saplings like uneven chest hair of an old man thinking of himself as an unusual child who has attained precocious puberty. Fences to protect a fistful of greenery from the herd, both human and cattle. To increase the green-ic beauty of the roads even the fences were painted green.

Splinters of green, born out of the muzzles of some automated science fiction-ed alien shotguns with infinite cartridge capacities and the ability to spit out those tiny quanta of hell as fast as the chronic blinking of the eyes of a person responding to some overwhelming temporary stimulus, shot across the place. Although fluorescent and illusory in appearance those splinters crept through the thin fabric and the bare skin of people and accentuated their collective hysteria of synchronised or desynchronised limb-manipulation and getting acquainted to strangers’ hides under the allowance of an unspoken treaty of overpriced fun.

The traffic lights turned green at the orthogonal signals. Sean was midway on the zebra crossing and the uncanny zephyr still irked him like mosquitoes hovering and buzzing around the ears. Music, that was, he believed but not the kind he needed right then.

The music stopped. A brief moment of superficial silence was crafted to overtly dramatise the wave of trance tsunami that was about to engulf the place, and also to let people catch their breaths. The girl ran to and fro between this bar and the bar opposite, impinging the sanctity of the eloquent moves of the crowd on the dance floor, with her lips sealed. ‘Truth or Dare?’ Dare, she had chosen. Now, she needed to fill the empty beer mug placed on this bar with the liquor she could carry in her mouth from the opposite bar.

Voice of the traffic police, voice of the hawker selling chewing tobacco, cigarettes and incense sticks, voice of the mother scolding her kid for throwing tantrums to get the balloon the other kid on vehicle next to them had, voice of the young girl with an infant in her arms begging for money, voice of the man shouting over his mobile asking the person on the other end to shout as well, voice of the old motorbike, voice of the dog limping it’s way to paradise; voices. The voice inside, ‘Voices’.

Voice of the man asking the bartender for a Screwdriver, another one asking for a Black Velvet, a woman asking for a Magarita, voice of the girl in blue stilettos describing how tired and cold she feels after coitus, voice of the boy passing lewd remarks at every girl he sees, voice of the girl talking softly to her boy, voice of the new watch, voice of the jerk getting off with steady hands exploring the female anatomy making his way to the restroom; voices. The voice inside, ‘Voices’.

Sean, in utter bafflement of the monstrosity of his ill-fate or snail-pace tripped. The man on the old motorbike hit him hard and shouted ‘Asshole!’ A myriad obscenity followed. The holes of Sean’s ears were violated so hard that his ears were cleansed. ‘Ah! Voices’, he sighed.  

The girl tripped amidst the madness of music, moves, booze and boots, her lips still sealed. Some complained, some didn’t bother. She emptied her mouthful (the little she could carry) of liquor in the mug. The glass overflowed. Her group of friends exclaimed in unison ‘Bitch! You did it.’ Her lips shone with the liquor-y lip gloss still positioned close to the edge of the overflowing mug. ‘Ah! Voices’, she sighed.

Sean got up and reached the other end of the road not bothering to get rid of the dust he had amassed from the generous road. He walked towards the door with the voices in mind. The doorkeeper stamped his arm. The door swung open.

The hand with the new watch tossed a lit matchstick at the overflowing glass of liquor. The liquor burned blue and so did her lips. She turned away and started moving, not bothering to put out the fire she had acquired from the generous people. She walked towards the door with the voices in her mind. She glanced at the stamp on her arm. The door was open.

Sean saw the blue amidst the black and green approaching the door.

The girl saw a silhouette walking in, not green, just black.

Sean held her and kissed her. The blue was lost. All that remained was green and a lot of black.

Sean made an effort to speak.

Before a sound could escape his mouth she resumed walking and as she went she said -

“Can’t talk. GN.”

n.b. - Not proofread. Please correct the errors in your mind.