By Mo Shah

"Duniya ki mehfilon say ukhta gya hoon ya-Rub,
Kya Luthf anjuman ka jab dil hi buj gya ho?"

My God, I have tired of the festivities this world offers,
What possible pleasure can lie in the company of others,
When my very heart has been extinguished?

- Illama-e-Iqbal

Only when she graced unconsciousness would the memories race this fiercely towards her. Memories, like the pink hints of dawn that arrived at the magic hour. The time he poured wine on her lips before the glass shattered to pieces. The way she thrilled to that. Memories. Like the renaissance of her moments with them, when they could hold her, just hold her, and keep her from slipping into the person she had recently become. She thought about them in her sleep. She felt herself clawing helplessly for fragments of what had once been. And when Sara finally surfaced, she sought ignorance from the past.

She awoke to sunbeams pouring in through broken black blinds. They traced her body, slitting her throat. With the patience of saints, the lights touched her lips and toyed with her eyes. She relented to their piercing white game. Chemical waves ebbed within her as she tried to recollect shreds of the previous night. The line between nightfall and daybreak had become a permanent haze, and she could not fathom why there ever had been a time when this dilemma amused her. She had somehow resigned herself to the notion that certain pieces of her life would habitually be stolen away from her. In younger days she laughed and called them “jigsaw” nights. Had her husband been equally amused, things might have turned out a little differently. But now, finally, after realizing just a whisper of how she had squandered away infinite possibility - she shut her eyes (gently, then tightly) and accepted that such terms, much like the rest of her life, were bullshit. Sighing, Sara sank into thoughts of a safer era.

She had graced her twenties with a surplus of momentum. Formidable trajectories had been charted in the guise of acting, novels, and works of art. Her mind was never at rest. It was this fleeting nature of hers that sabotaged all hope of consistency, although to her credit, she learned to romanticize every last one of her short-lived dreams. She fancied herself an incarnate of Jean Brodie or Louise Brooks - even Devika Rani. She was going to leave her mark on the world, just as they did. Legions of misunderstood and disaffected youth would put her picture on their walls. But when she stopped to think, reality struck: tragic figures didn’t crave tragedy. They didn’t plan it. Sara was just a tourist in their space.

In later years, when her accolades were reduced to distant memories on a scrapbook page, nothing made her light up quite like those instances when she was recognized as the has-been Bollywood siren of a forgotten year in the Eighties. She could talk about that period forever. Could she discuss scandal? Anything for my public, Jaani…anything.

Shez often wondered if this was just a pathetic gift for delaying the inevitable. The day she might realize that it had all slipped away. Or may be he just couldn’t stand the fact that she had been someone, and was at the very least an ephemeral part of something he wanted just as badly. Fame.

Sinclaire. Sinclaire. The man grounded them. Perhaps when all three of them were together, Shez and Sara stood a chance. En masse, they didn’t quite resemble the fucked up messes they appeared to be as individuals.

Meeting Shez and Sinclaire only exacerbated her desire to create – to be part of something all over again. Unless complacency is hammered into your genetic makeup, the older you get, the more desperate you become to prove yourself. This is only true for those souls for whom the quest for fame eclipses the talent required to get you there. Nobody who knew her beyond a one-month hurdle rate believed in her. But they were still enticed by her. Shez understood her, because she represented every mirror he cracked since he was thirteen. And Sinclaire loved her. She in return, tried to mask from them the danger lodged inside her very fabric. Rarely does a woman seek so much, so desperately, and remain so ignorant of the hunger. A hunger that reacts only when it knows it will not be satiated. A hunger that glittered so terrifically inside, it blinded them till the very end. And soon, the only thing left to glitter was gunfire.

She glanced in veiled disgust at the remnants of a life more orderly. She perused the very stains of her attempts to garner significance. The film-reel cases that were now burnt coasters for hash. The laptop containing aborted fetuses of countless novels and screenplays. The canvases, now butchered with one half-drawn thought painted over another. She never stopped dreaming.

Every last fiber of their lives was interlaced with art, and for Shez and Sara this common disposition simply meant “destiny.” They relied on each other a little more than they competed with one another. They learned from Sinclaire. They knew what it meant to be repeatedly moved by something. They knew the right words, and when to say them. No turn-of-phrase escaped their attention. They rejoiced in idealism and philosophy, and reveled in certain pieces of cinematic brilliance. And while they searched for a purpose, it was music that sealed their fate. It was music that made them inseparable.

They debated why one of the most delicious periods in music had just disappeared. Shez was enamored by Sara’s ability to quote Kureshi as matter-of-factly as she did Wilde or Iqbal. He collapsed in the wells of heaven when they dropped acid to My Bloody Valentine. And Sara found temporary bliss when they lay back and caught the final twenty minutes of Abbey Road. She adored Lennon. He preferred McCartney. They both thought Harrison was ace. The last words of a record came to her now:

And in the end, the love you take,
is equal to, the love…you make.

The melody faded from her thoughts and she stopped herself from thinking more about what had been. Shez and Sara may have loved the final product, but Sinclaire was the guy who actually pieced things together and created something. And perhaps now, both of them realized that that – that seemingly simple concept – to “create something” - is the distinction between a “somebody”, and a “nobody.”

She looked at her red Adidas on the floor, still laced. Smiling, she imagined him trying them on. Stop. She caught sight of her face in the filthy mirror that balanced skillfully on a steel chair. Focusing, she could feel the chemicals mangling her, but their effects were subsiding quickly. Thank fucking God. She looked at herself again. It hurt to focus, but she forced herself to do it all the same. The mauve of her lipstick was barely visible, blending quite inconspicuously with her frail visage. She knew she looked the part. She was just sick of acting it.

The mirror revealed something else. Fuck. She was not alone. Sara approached a young woman sleeping on the carpet and kneeled beside her. She surveyed the familiar tan face which, even in this comatose state, embodied the unmistakable semblance of youth. She looked at the girl’s t-shirt. “Hello Kitty?” it read, with a caption of Goofy pointing a gun at the unassuming enlarged-headed Chinese cat. She mused at the girl’s breasts, which were smaller than her own. No bra. Those were the days. Slowly, squinting in painful regret as her eyes roved, she began to decipher the remains of her lipstick over the girls’ mouth and neck. She had flashes of meeting someone like her the night before.

***********************

Three pills and two drinks into the evening and…nothing. The music hadn’t found its way into her soul. It used to pierce through her like a bullet. That was why she did drugs.

She had entered the mammoth coliseum with overdressed acquaintances before pulling a traditional disappearing act on them. They had by now grown accustomed to her eccentricities. On occasion she even pretended to forget their last names. That was Sara. Her behavior provided nothing more than a cosmetic embellishment to their evening. They were that type. She wanted to immerse herself into the music; to let it get inside of her, the way the Smiths could do without any mind-altering expeditions. But it was only after indulging in an assortment of night-candies that the sound truly resonated within her. She removed an all too familiar pill from her bra and looked at it unconvincingly. “I need a new drug”, she thought to herself, before popping another smiley-faced tablet in her mouth.

The women’s bathroom on a Sunday night was a potpourri of nineteen year olds lying on the floor. Young women with Hitler-hairdos interlocked tongues in the stalls. There were a slew of Japanese-looking girls leaning on concrete objects. Sara smirked when she saw the token Indian girl trying so desperately to figure out if her aviator sunglasses should be put on or raised back against her hair. Young offender. The girl smiled. Sara’s deathly white face gave way to a pink glow - her eyebrows were dramatic, and her green eyes, always captivating, did not fail her now.

Sara smiled at the girl on her way out. She could sense the youth scrambling to collect her belongings and follow her, but soon Sara lost herself in an ocean of revelers. An army of pulsating arms were raised up in the air, and fists were pumping rhythmically towards the DJ. She saw a flash of lightening in the form of the young Indian girl racing through this traffic towards what appeared to be a group of her friends. Sara smirked when they pointed to the DJ booth, dropping cocktails upon cocktail as they hailed their supposed-leader with hands that emulated guns.

She spotted her friends through the thick of the crowd and turned the other way. She closed her eyes and something wonderful began to happen. The ecstasy hinted at the promise its name afforded. A synthesizer washed over the track and disappeared. She had heard that chord before. For the first time in a long time, Sara was excited. We used to love this song.

She walked up to the Indian girl and tapped her on the shoulder. The girl stopped dancing and turned around with a customary lollypop dangling from her mouth. Sara motioned for a cigarette, and one of the girl’s friends obliged. A couple of long drags facilitated the high. Finally.

“Come with me,” Sara whispered while flicking her cigarette, seemingly indifferent to whether or not she was heard.

The girl was startled, but acquiesced. They held hands and Sara guided her towards a speaker, leaving the girl’s friends in a flurry of momentary confusion. Their eyes followed the two girls like snipers until the current of movement had engulfed them. The track changed. The familiar chord returned.

The opening moments of the song were laced echo, along with an ethereal wash of electronic voices. And just like that, the night was given new meaning.

The girl tried to break the ice, “And here I was thinking I may never see you again, I really-”, Sara stopped her mid-sentence by delicately sliding the lollypop out of her mouth and slipping it into her own. It had a pronounced taste and was wetter than she had expected, or wanted. She threw it on the floor and rested her arms on the girl’s shoulders. They stared at each other through chemical lenses. The girl tried again, her demeanor a little shaky this time around, “So, I thought that I wouldn’t see you again –“

“You won’t,” Sara thought out loud.

They swayed to the chords sensually; it was clear that both of these women had a propensity to dance. The young girl was the more energetic of the two, but eventually calmed down. Sara got a visual of a jigsaw night from a bygone era. She smiled. It faded. They danced together surrounded by a sea of synths and hypnotic beats. Only at times were the words congruous:

“You had chemicals boy
I've grown so close to you
She smiled at you boy.
She was a lipstick boy
She was a beautiful boy"

They were wrapped tightly around each other. Sara looked at the young girl’s face. She could sense the eagerness in her eyes even when they were closed. She could actually feel this girl connect with the song, and it reminded her of Shez. It was a pleasure to picture him standing there with her – that sensitive son of dictatorship, swaying with the deadly daughter of democracy. She pressed her body closer to the girl’s and they began to kiss. The nervous energy between the two strangers began to dissipate.

“Oh my god,” the girl whispered in Sara’s ear.

“It’s alright.” Sara reassured her. Don’t talk. She led the girl to the speakers and pressed her against them. She clasped the girl tightly as they moved to the music. Sara ran her fingers through the girl’s hair and felt the aviator glasses fall to the floor. They both looked down and saw the cracked pieces scattered around their feet. The girl smiled a “fuck it” smile. Sara liked that.

Sara felt the masses around them rotate into a whirlpool of sorts. She looked up and saw a number of mythical night-creatures hovering above the revolving party goers. There were giant bats with luminous yellow eyes and eagles the size of elephants. As the whirlpool twisted faster, the creatures of flight grew increasingly violent. Reality was no longer an identifiable phenomenon. Mother-fucker…it’s a jigsaw night. Sara contemplated flicking the girl into the whirlpool’s vortex which seemed to be sucking in one dancer after another. She liked the idea, but held on to her companion instead. Soon, the creatures slowed down. The whirlpool calmed. Outside, sunlight replaced moonlight. The music was relentless.

The melody pounded through the speaker and the vibrations touched their bodies in a way that was pleasing to Sara, and unusual for the young girl. Sara whispered in her ear, “Let it happen.” She ran her fingers along the girl’s neck and bit into it feverishly. “Let it happ...”

As the two of them danced, the beats pulsed through them. The ecstasy shifted into fifth gear. The rhythm rubbed against them. This sensation was electric. Their bodies locked. They could feel each other sweat. One felt what the other felt. The techno grew louder. They could not contain it any more. They moaned loudly and veiled their sounds in a violent kiss. The night-creatures came crashing to the floor. Thousands of bright yellow eyes died one after the other. The beat died, but the haunting chords remained.

“Bravo.”, Sara sighed.

*********************

And so she had pieced an integral part of the jigsaw night together, still clueless as to how the girl wound up on the floor. Whatever. Sara went over to a cabinet and carefully selected a pair of undergarments – the best she could find. She walked into the bathroom and undressed. She stared at her breasts. They were still firm, and like the rest of her body, too fucking fair. She turned and tried to gauge the rest of her physique. Over the years she had negotiated convenient angles to accomplish this task. She looked at her backside. It was an admirable part of her body, though a touch larger than what one might imagine. She remembered how Sinclaire loved its shape. He used to constantly touch it and squeeze it and…do all sorts of things to it. She smiled. Animal.

Veins throbbed prominently on her temples. She opened the medicine cabinet and removed the only real medicine inside; Advil. She swallowed two and ran a hot shower. Sara allowed her body to acclimate to the hot stream, rather than turning it down to a cooler temperature. Again, that was Sara. She imagined she was not in her apartment, and that as long as she did not open her eyes, she was anywhere in the world but here. This made her feel uneasy. She dried herself and began to get dressed. Crossing the young woman on the floor, Sara approached a closet and took out a short fitted black kurta. She wore this, along with the jeans from last night. Her sandals were lying next to the young girl, so she walked over to put them on. While slipping them on, the young woman moaned. Sara looked back and accidentally brushed her foot against the girl’s hand. The youth surfaced.

Sara sat down next to her and stroked the girl’s hair away from her face, “Good morning. I’m leaving. See yourself out when you’re good and ready. I can’t stay, and I can’t talk. I don’t have any money, but there’s a cigarette on the dresser with your name on it.”

The girl was bewildered. “What? I don’t even know your name, and I don’t need money –“

“Shhh. That’s not important right now…take the cigarette…” Sara walked to the entrance and opened the door, “…and don’t lose that accent.” The door slammed. Sara walked out onto a chilly spring afternoon in New York City. She was sick of this routine. What’s happened to me?

She began a slow walk to Church Street. She needed that poori halwa stuff Shez always harped on about in the mornings. And then she stopped. She turned around. I don’t need that, I need him. She started to run. Faster. Her breath grew increasingly violent and unnaturally loud. But he’s gone. She shut her eyes. Everyone’s gone. She ran faster. She wanted to crash into something. That was all that was left to make her feel whole again. Her life flashed before her. Shez’s stories. Sinclaire’s dreams. The three-picture deal. The garden, the poetry, the politics, the sunset, the moonlight. Sachs, Saks, sex. Sanitized napkins. His music. His hair. His touch. His talent. The songs. Our songs. His taste. The arrest. Tokyo. The X. The exes. Bombay. Brooklyn. Banares. The fear. The confidence. The possibilities. The drugs. The azaan. Our sweat. How we earned it. The god damn Johnny Black.

“Me and my silver bullets!” she cried before collapsing.

She awoke to a street where nobody – not a living soul - paid her any mind. What the fuck happened?

Graphic Art by Mo Shah