While I was asleep...
Bruised lips and crimson red eyes did not make for an exactly pretty image when I saw my face in the mirror. My mind was randomly bouncing between memories of the first day at school juxtaposed with understandably misfitting comic illustrations of last night's fight. I could barely put two and two together for my ass was still hurting and I did not have the usual twenty eight shining white teeth after roughly twenty years of living a grown man's life. Washing my face only further aggravated the confusion, and the pain. I dug my face back into the pillow having instructed Axl Rose to sing on repeat mode, loud enough for me to be able to somehow conjure cringe-inducing memories of him in his record breaking world's tightest shorts, screaming his way to my class room on my first day at school while I was being beaten blue by funny looking illustrated figures.
" Are you serious? Why would I want to give a shit about B coming after A? I know all the twenty six letters, how is their arrangement in a specific order, which by the way does not even make a sensible/amusing/funny/offensive word, of any importance to that bitch"
"Oh. That gentle lady just heard you calling her a bitch, and I've been told by my brother that she does not particularly enjoy being called that."
"Being called what?"
" A female dog. Now, she will kick your arse"
"That's not exactly how I meant it but, Fuck.."
"Yeah"
What we've got here is failure to communicate
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week
Which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
Gentle Lady: Say all the letters, in the order you please, without breathing in more than once after every five letters. And don't repeat any letter. And don't say "Fuck" in my class, ever. You can call me a bitch though, you will know why in good time.
I repeated "A". Thrice. Not Q, or L or even B. A!
I managed the controlling my breath part quite well though, that it did not matter is an entirely irrelevant fact in itself. Well, its my first day in school, what the fuck else to expect with that intimidating bitch in her illustrated-line drawn form, breathing vengeance down my neck. I was a smart kid back then, still am in a lot of ways-not a kid but smart, and a convoluted breathing exercise involving stuff that I would consider beneath my potential was not what I was instantly prepared for.
Gentle Lady/Alright, the Bitch: Great. What do you think was my motive behind this?
" You care for your students and want them to know the right thing (You hate my face and would shit on it if you could)?"
The Bitch: Well, that..yes (/too. Also, because I am the one who says "screw you" between you and I.). So?"
"Oh, I am sorry."
The Bitch: Hmm...
And then, she left, disappearing into thin air leaving behind a trail of white smoke starting from her mouth and gradually moving- almost as if in rhythm with Izzy Stradlin's Guitar riffs- towards the ear of a girl who happened to be sitting next to me now. As the smoke cleared out to reveal her soft, fair and hairless ear, I jumped in shock like a frog that is probably poked in the arse, letting out a feminine screech albeit without any sound. It was not the ear but her finger that was drilling it which looked like desperately searching for some means to break through my dazed view, and it did.
"Can you not do that! And why are you so tiny. But I'm so tiny too and we're in school on our first day, that explains your size and the finger in ear fascination. Still, don't do it. Please."
"I hate boys"
"OK. I don't, I think they are just fine. I have turned out quite fit too, only the bitch wouldn't agree-not right now anyway. What do you not like about them?"
" You know what I do not like about them?"
"No, I don't know."
"I hate that they are not like girls.You know, how girls are, good and all. Girls are sweet and they love dolls unlike boys "
"Yeah perfect."
We practice selective annihilation of mayors and
Government officials for example to create a vacuum
Then, we fill that vacuum. As popular war advances,
Peace is closer
"Oye, tune Dil Se dekhi hai?"
And I turn around, "Nahin dekhi".
Its not the class anymore. I'm at the same dingy little pub I was in yesterday, approximately fifteen minutes before I was to be hit in the head, ten minutes before I smoked enough pot to fuck me up real bad- so bad that it took me three days to feel the pain of a dagger hitting the top of my skull. At this point Axl's voice felt so distant that I was confusing it with Slash's Wah Wah sounds, I could almost touch the Sound waves but not hear a thing. I could feel ears, thousands and Millions of ears all over my body and the sense to hear was replaced by the sense to feel. It was like sitting inside a giant Speaker, getting stuck to its powerful magnet and vibrating with every thud, every beat.
"Dimaag se bhi nahin dekhi?"
"Chai piyogey?"
"Tum badey hi chootiye ho, chalo chaltey hain. Samosey?"
"Yeh lo, ise kehtey hain maal. Sex bhool jaogey"
"Do."
"Lo. Aur kya samosa bey, saaley tum chauthi mein padtey ho kya. Halwai ki aulad ho?! Theek se piyo, smoke like a man!"
The thing about smoking pot is that it is the lightest you are likely to feel but if it is your first time, it is the quite simply the most significant fuck of your life. You lose control of your senses and arrive at a strangely alive numbness where your hand touches, and it feels the warmth too but only that. Your hand feels, ear listens, eyes see, nose smells but none of these is you. You are like a car that has the engine, and the wheels and all the several other parts, but the one in control is not the car itself but an entirely different entity, which the car can not relate to.
Until the the car runs into another car with a giant, resounding blast of smoke and screams engulfing the environment. And the driver is not to be blamed for, the car is.
"Why did your hand land on my face, I broke my fucking tooth, my fucking incisors. You fucking arsefuck."
"But I did not, my heart hated you and my hand conspired with it."
"What are you saying, you retard?!"
"Look, every now and then, there comes a day in your life when that one thing that you least expected to happen, happens to you. This is that day in your life."
And just when you have lost all control, it comes right the fuck back, in the most awkward moments. These awkward moments aren't just ordinary awkward, these are moments when each second seems to slow down to a thousandth of its life cycle, and your intelligence gets the better of you to enlighten you about what the fuck you just did. Oh Fuck.
"That's a dagger buddy, you'll break me into two"
"I know. And don't say "Fuck", ever!"
" No shit, really"
Sometimes, you just want to shoot Axl in the throat and wish that he was never born. What is with those butt ugly shorts, what sort of books is he into.
And then he stops.
To compliment the slowed down time, his voice slowly dissolves into reverberating thuds of electronic music, very slowly. The mid point of this dissolve is a strange heady mix of sounds and emotions where your shadow separates you, flipping you the birdy, and starts an animated performance of all that when wrong in life- to make things juicier, in the fucking chronological order. Meanwhile, you cringe and scream but not a whisper leaves your lips.
"Look, stand straight and it'll be over in a minute."
"Ok, but be soft. I don't want to die"
"You won't, do not worry."
"I hate boys."
"Ok, I don't. But I can not care less if you did, or not. And what the fuck, are you trying to distract me? I'm going to make two of you here and you're telling me you hate boys? You really are a lunatic, aren't you? Chutiya hai saala!"
"You know why I hate boys?"
"No, and like I said, I do not care."
"I hate that they are not like girls.You know, how girls are, good and all. Girls are sweet and they love dolls unlike boys."
"Shut up!"
And then it happened. As the dagger was about to fall on my skull and break open the topmost layer of skin on it, time came to a stand still for about three seconds where everything felt clear as a crystal, and I could hear the electronica beats take over Axl with an episodic completion. In that stillness, I could not only hear but also feel everything all over again. I could see, smell, feel and hear with the minutest attention to details. That glass of whiskey, the dingy club with its fluorescent floor and the eyes of that man who was going to make two of me. Going to? Have I not seen this already? My mind panicked and tried to look all around but all around me was a haunting stillness, like I was in a photograph or something.
Why could I not see beyond this point? Then with a flash, time broke free and time caught up speed with life. The dagger hit my skull, drum beats went out of control and I realized that this isn't a dream, that this is the yesterday, yesterday that never got over. And today is still far away in the clutches of tomorrow.
I don't need your civil waaaaaaaaaa...
...Feel like I want to be inside of you
When the sun goes down
As long as I'm gonna be around you
When the sun goes down.
