An Assortment of Not-Rights

Despite it all, lying on the beach, hand in hand. Sun beating on her face, shirt sticking to her back. Anything that ever works out for her in her life pales in comparison to the banal qualities of her and the other Her, together with dark skin sizzling with mild sun poisoning, deciding it’s time to walk back to the summer home. Smell of prawn and curry seeping out through the windows of the houses, a common dinner by the sea. Dull muddy-orange lizards running across as they pass by on the cobblestone village street. They look at each other on opposite sides of the kitchen, washing hands in the sink one after another, nails stained with oil after eating. Then dragged by the dog down the street in common attire – the t-shirt and knee length shorts, a scarf over the shoulder. The other him, joining them, and he’s brought smuggled delicacies – beef gravy in a stainless steel bento he asked nicely for from the Muslim family next door. We can eat it on the roof. Cattle meat is not allowed in the house, but the roof is not in the house. Maritime law in the realm of aviation. The three of them, licking the curry off their fingers after the meat is done, rinsing the box with a plastic waterbottle off the side of the roof. In a year’s time, all this some milky dreamscape, individual memories indiscernible from each other. She’ll be different, the other Her and him in cool moonlit apartments in various places that mend their spirit meeting others by the heat of the hearth. Do they feel it too – the grains of salt between their toes, fungus-like, growing, routine extraction to keep at bay? Something’s missing, something’s wrong, they miss it too. The other him, feeling it all the same, year after year in some midwestern lake with a piercing cold that makes it all the more prone to comparison. Shoulders slick with slight algae and looking up at the moon with a fear of God, punished to live the Western life for the rest of eternity. Unempathetic, unabashedly rude, foreign. Land of birth but not a place of cultivation. Education, yes, amenities and comforts, a lush laziness in excessive drinks and much gluttony; lacks in a primal fear and the joys in being seen, man to man, warm eyes and dark skin and rough hair. Can you say this is the place we built from our bloodshed? And the other Her,  aware of the burdens of her being, womanly but more earthly. Disdain and worship, all the same, the small moments more beautiful through rose-coloured lenses. I love you both, let’s meet again. In a different place this time, if you still want to. Years in the future, not as possible. The firm wants me coming in all day everyday. Perhaps in six months?  She reads the text. Yeah, that’s okay. Hm. Yeah, got a trip with some friends soon so I’ll have to save up for another flight. Lol. Do they even care? Some nostalgic cousins these motherfuckers claim to be. Do they even think about it all, or is she just fearful, to be given beautiful silver nights and never see it again. And as she knows it: her and him made it silver, skin chromatic in the light, doesn’t matter where they meet. A fundamental truth she only holds; her (the other one) and him meet at Pondicherry often. The culture. Family. Of course we go back. You should too, they text her. Maybe. Indisposed and inebriated. It passed so easily.

* edits to be made