Your Facade Is No More An Option

We live inside perfect glass bubbles. Each acting like a crystal clear ball that only shows us the reality. Seldom are the voilent winds outside our protected atmosphere lured in, disrupting the flow for a while. But once in a while those very winds whip at our perfect bubbles madly, ringing the bells of change. They cause our bubbles to spin hysterically in a perfect havoc, the bubbles clashing against one another until they crack and crash; then, the very shards of our indifference hit us along with the actual reality, piercing our skins and the white noise scraping against our eardrums like nails dragging along chalkboard.

What we had been ignoring for so long, now knocks us out. Our worst fears materalize before us. We rise and fall, ceased by the truth of it all. No one is safe. Epiphanies strike; we live within illusions, infinite illusions that merely hide the reality for us, but it's bound to strike. Truth eventually takes off that sheer blindfold. It holds you in its storm until you can no longer evade this fact. Until your facade in no longer an option.

-Momina.

The Last Note A Distant Hum Of Tinkling Bells...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benoitcourti/5057156004/

She blows delicately through perfectedly pouted lips; a gentle blow that causes the shiny liquid layer to swell into a ball and blow off with the light breeze, only to pop seconds later. The air is thick and dry, the atmosphere near barren and devoid of much color. In the midst of it float the few bubbles that waft their way here and there before they snap into tiny unseen droplets of soap. she watches them hover in the air; illuminating tiny rainbows within the delicate little see through spheres, and sighs.

She stands with her back pressed against the back of a red car, a cup of soap mix in her hand, the other clutching a ball point pen lacking its ink fill. Next to her, sitting on the boot of the car is a little kid, like her, clutching half a bottle of slick soapy water and bubble making stick.

They keep there postures intact, not moving besides their heaving shoulders and their cheeks inflating and deflating like balloons as they blow. The midday sun grows fainter over their heads, dropping lower with time while they blow their respective bubbles, watching them flutter in the light breeze. Delightfully, they watch them dance in the wind, enjoying their lives before they are popped away.

At times the little kid shrieks with delight as he streches out to burst a big bubble even before it escapes the edge of her pen, his laugh echoing in the still air, the last note a distant hum of tinkling bells. Sometimes the bubbles shatter as they were blown in. It would burst in their face, smarting their eyes slightly; like a joke with a bad pun.

Just as the sun is on the verge of dipping down and kissing the horizon she turns, tilting the remaining liquid in her glass into the kid's bottle. As she leaves he looks startled, sad and slightly happy at the prospect of more soapy water. Sitting in her car she looks at the anonymous kid sitting in his car porch on his car in the empty neighbourhood who lended her his bubble mix. He continues to blow gently, making bubbles that light up the empty surroundings in the still July air.

She smiles at his innocent form and drives away with slippery soapy hands for a another date with the future.

-Momina.

A Peek into Her Soul

Everyone with whom you share an eye contact becomes an untold story in your head. That day she bacame an unseen story in the heads of so many individuals. An untold story that buzzed with such intensity despite the little place it took in the folds of their minds.

She fled meaninglessly through the empty roads leaving a havoc in her wake. She never got a chance to read into the stories that glimpsed her that day. No, she was far beyond that point; her eyes a soulless abyss that saw through everything without actually looking at anything before them. The despair in her face and the emptiness in her eyes caused many to look back at her once or twice, but she never noticed.

She was not there; wrapped in her own misery she walked through the roads leaving an eerie feeling to those who caught sight of her, stared and watched her go only to be left with an agitation for having glimpsed the darkness dividing her soul.

-Momina.

Eternal Insanity

I call for death in a desperate attempt to escape this suffering, this eternal insanity. Bewildered, I watch as it stands there, mocking me. It watches me innocently as I lie there frozen in pain of my thawing bones. It smiles knowingly. Its at ease as it watches me suffer, for it knows that I'll soon be enveloped in it's embrace. Hence, it lets me hang on to the shreds of life, overlooking my pleading eyes, my desirous cries.

The light of life dims before my blurry eyes like the flash slowly receding into darkness. In the last bits of the abating light I see death smile in my face. I smile back.

-Momina.

This may or maynot be a poem.

Lets have conversation about word and how terribly beautiful they are.
We'll have mellow music in the background while we refer to the thak thak of a typewriter;
Comparing it with the thik thik of a laptop's keys, silence of a phone's keypad
And the scratch of a pencil over a note.

Lets have a conversation about how words leap.
About how instead of painting pictures, we write in our own heads, what we see.
Lets speak about how they swerve eagerly, transforming mere thoughts
Into memories, into history.

Lets have a conversation about words and how they jump,
At the emotion unstability of our surroundings. About how they make us feel what a stranger feels,
Cry at fictional sorrows and embrace the happiness of those who reside between,
The pages of a novel.

Let's have a conversation about words, lets aimlessly wander with them.
Let's stop making sense.
Lets leave this epiphany to continue to it's own end.

-Momina.

Epiphany

As you eye her careful stance, envying her balance, her hold on life, you assume things, one over the other about the perfection of her life, herself. You never once guess at the fact that this very girl once pressed a smarting cigarette between her delicate lips, trying to ease the pressure that threatened to strangle her. You don’t assume that she relied on the blissful numbing effects of nicotine to escape the intensity of those failures.

As she walks through, smiling at one and all you assume her as a celebrity, happy and frank with all. Yet, you don’t ever see the never ceasing creases on her forehead, even as she laughs. You don’t notice how she always smiles briefly and is so often lost in thoughts. And you certainly don’t see the slight pain in her eyes that gives you a peek into the hardships of her life.

As she goes around telling people to hold on, to not let go, you don’t see how she reminisces those days when her own hold on reality was so brief that she was almost about to let go. She floats like a free bird yet her reality is a cage in itself, unable to break free.

You don’t observe the tiny tattoo of an anchor she looks to every now and then, drawing and redrawing over it, in an attempt to hold back. She hides the scars and the carcass of those hidden thoughts behind her attire and yet with each passing eternity it threatens to jump back to life and cut away her anchors. 

***

In the confines of her home, with her perfect hair wrapped in an untidy bun atop her head, lose wisps of hair framing her face she closes her eyes against the stinging smoke. There are three cigarette studs in the ash tray and sill half the box to be puffed away, while she waits for the spreading fire to swallow her completely.

-Momina.

Until then.

The sky… The sky is a perfect blue. The kind that compels you to hold your gaze there and stare at it until minutes pass .There is a dull golden moon, not half and not entirely a crescent, decorating the royal blue; partially lighting it up. The sky is still a little rusty at the edges; where the ends mingle with the lands and disappear behind buildings, all around. 

And between the tall buildings that surround the area, between the long shadows she stands silently staring above at the reality she shares with a million others. A thousand of who could be stranded alone gazing at this mutual reality, thinking this very thing. She’s holding on to that single thought or else she could sink under the weight that pushes her down. She could drown and she’s willing to but not yet. Not until that thread breaks off. Not until she really knows that there is nobody out there not going through the same troubles.

-Momina.

White Noise.

You can't escape it, the noise. You can't flee from it. It penetrates through the thick walls, through closed doors. It travels to the quilt you are curled under in a desperate attempt to evade it. But it passes through, and it continues past the pillow covering your head inside the quilt. It snakes in between the vaccum in the middle of your ear and the headphones that blast music to drown out that noise. It grows over the beat of the music bellowing into your ear like a formidable, daunting whisper.

It's the background hum that never recedes. Instead, it continues to built up in intensity against all odds. It rocks your threshold. Slowly breaking your hold on tranquility. It throws you into a cyclone of commotion. Clamour. Racket. Uproar. It tears away the shred of peace you hold on to.

You scream. You scream so loudly in the depths of the night and in broad daylight. It's like a shadow that haunts and stalks you, no matter what time of the day it is, no matter what your surrroundings are. It pinches your fears, fueling them into a burning rage. Bubbling hot inside you while you are in a desperate attempt to cool off.

No one understands as you stand on the threshold of insanity; breaking down brick by brick, unable to hold still. All your attempts seem frutile. Nobody sees the fear behind your glassy eyes. No one notices sweat that breaks on your face. No one realizes what pain you are in. And nobody hears your silence screaming.




-Momina.

Like Ink Unto My Soul

I am happy. I am infinitely happy. If it weren't for the first post this very day, two yeas back I wouldn't have been this happy and this proud. I wouldn't have known so many wonderful people. I would have missed the chance to interact with them and to read them.

Being a writer was never an aim as a child, it was never a dream. And yet today with every word that I write I live a dream to become a published novelist, to never abandon this romance with words.This journey is still young right now but this journey is special. And it wouldn't have been possible you all reading me and appreciating me. 

Today my blog has turn two and for once I have no words to express my happiness and gratitude. So, I summarize it into these four words from one of my pieces that you guys appreciated the most. This is for each of you:

"Your Insistence Is Adorable."

Thank you special ones and love to all. All aboard. 

-Momina. 

Look Back, Won't You?

I can hear them; it’s only at a mild stage right now, barely out of the door but in hearing distance. I am supposed to be studying this lesson. Instead… I peek over my book, first towards the closed door and then towards my sister. I look at her somewhat disdainfully, yet in a way I envy her and her indifference. She never looks up from the cell phone in her hand, furiously typing away. It’s either that or the phone pressed to her ear. How can one be so absent minded?

Even as I make my way to the closed door, I know that this is a mistake. It’s not a mundane issue any more. It was, but only at the beginning.

*******

They are at it again; the screaming and shouting. Yes, it starts from an ordinary issue but now it never ends there. They don’t even bother closing the door now. It turns into some sort of competition of firing blames and opening your Pandora of regrets. They string other problems into it so efficiently; accusations, lies, regrets, they pile them all high. The speeches increasing in tempo, the voices rising high. You can feel the hatred, the aggression; you can smell it, touch it.

I don’t want to be a part of their fights. I don’t. Yet, I am dragged in too. Always. You don’t get a choice. A choice is a mere illusion, in the end you are meant to be torn inside. The torture, however, is obviously unseen to them. Illusions.

******

It’s all because of me. I know. Every little step that I take towards resolving the fight turns into a giant step fueling it.

‘They don’t need your bloody little amendments, you freak,’ she said to me today ‘You are the cause of the problems. The root.’

Am I? Is it really because of me? The other night all I did was bring them water and they started quarrelling. Do they do this on purpose? Of course not! Perhaps I am the cause.

I asked her this while she was engaged in another one of her endless calls.

‘Would you stop it? Stop being a pain to everyone? Would you ever just stop and mind your own business!? I am so sick of this place, of them, of you! I need out but guess what, I don’t get out. It’s all because of you, all because of you’

And then she pinched me; a mere twisting movement of the hand that sent burning sensations down my arm. Weird how it was oddly comforting. As if for a moment the pressure on my brain leaked out a bit.

She hates me. But she can’t do that without reasons. I am her sister. What if…

*******

I have been thinking, perhaps if I just give it a try I’d know. For now I cannot even think straight. Their fights echo in my ears even if I sit as far as the boundaries of this house allow. They ring terror bells in my ears twenty four hours a day.

What if this helps? It’s only a tiny needle.

I hold the needle in my left hand which quivers violently. I watch it for a few long seconds but of course I can’t. Like always. Like I can’t stop the fights, like I can’t stop the all from hating me. I am the glitch, the fault.

I clench my teeth shut and watch as the needle moves forward and pierces the skin of my forefinger. For a split second there is pain and then relief. It washes over me like a wave of cool wind in suffocating heat. As if a block has been moved away from over my nerves.

I’ll do it again.

*******

A shard of glass is more powerful. The greater the pain it’ll inflict, the better. The longer I feel secured. The longer I feel enveloped in the embrace of physical pain, it helps ton done the constant drill that continues in my head.

They stand outside my door. They scream for me to stop, they shout for me to throw away the pin, or the jagged piece of glass or to stop banging my head against the wall. They look at my bruises and cry and blame. And then… and then they fight again. It starts all over. The blames, accusations. Guilt.

This time, I won’t be stopping them. This is their torture, for all the suffering. I’ll follow the light, any light, any path that brings me the peace.

*******

She came and she cried. I saw her after years. We were so close, always. Her tears were genuine. She ried for the state I am in. And apologized. I wanted to tell her not to, for she was the only person who was not at fault. Or was she?

They look at me like a creature in a zoo. All of them. The kids poke me, the elders try to make small talk which is plainly awkward for both of us. I do not talk. The time for talking is over.

They’ll be gone. She’ll be gone.

******

They have taken away all and any sharp objects they could find. They don’t realize that my peace doesn’t require pointy things. They would have bound me if not for her. She screamed at them for hours, for once there was silence between them. She advised them strictly about me, about pressurizing me. For once, she was the parent and they were the children. She came in before she left; apologized, cried and talked, she tried to make me talk. I cried. I cried after what seemed like year but I couldn’t say a word. I tried, yes. But I couldn’t. Maybe I am past that stage.

******

She called me today. It was not the first time yet there was an odd sensation. She talked, she spoke only to me refusing to put the phone down until I tried to talk back. I couldn’t. She cried. She begged me to come back, to try a little something. For her sake.

Okay.

******

She told me to try and read; to recite one name of Allah, only ten times a day. I tried.

She told me to read the surah. To not torture myself for a single day, a single hour. She calls every day, for an hour she continues to take me through the rituals, the actions I have long abandoned. She recalls the words and helps me learn. She’s there and she tells me He is too.

*****

I did. I’ve never felt serenity as such. Never. I never thought I’d find peace in something so close. But maybe that is where the fault lies. Maybe that’s what we always forget. We look for peace in places where we only find hints of it. And yet we abandon the pool that never dries and walks wherever we go. Why do we rely on every worldly rescue but deny the right path that resides before us. Why is God the last source that we turn to?

Oh Lord! Help these people, help us all. Guide us toward the right.



-Momina Latif.