content warnings
graphic content: violence, body horror/body gothic
[2344 words]
“It’s pathetic, I think, to need God,” Ruh said. “Absolutely pathetic. To need a moral compass, to define it, ensconce it, in the imaginative figure of a deity far removed from our every day lives, and to pray and pray that this creation, creature rather, will step in and save our sorry hinds from the every day shit of everyday relentless bullshit, is so fucking pathetic.” They slowly inhaled, drawing deep drags from a cigarette that permeated the air with a wafty thickness that suffocated the spark of an argument I was slowly building. I was desperate to continue the conversation.
“God. Yeah, fuck God,” Ruh continued, blowing smoke at the cracked cobwebbed ceiling of their flat. “Like, really, Dosteovesky was onto something quoting Voltaire and going to think you need to conjure one such creation to treat your fellow beings with dignity and decency? Omg what’s wrong with the lot of you.”
“I am sure…” I started, exhaling in turn, watching the plumes dress their face, shielded by the light, tucked away in the folds of the evening darkness, as the city churned and moaned around us beyond the walls of their tiny 1BHK, “I am sure, gods are like…Let me put it this way. Gods,” I tried again, swallowing, the smoke catching me in my throat, hinting at an itch only a cough could cure, “Gods are primitive, sure. And much can be said about the stuff you said just now. But at the same time, despite it all, I do envy,” I coughed, “I do envy the faithful their faith.”
“What’s there to envy?” Ruh said, looking at me from the corner of their eye, the red of the cigarette glowing, irate, judgemental.
“To believe in something beyond yourself, in that you cannot see, touch, or feel. Something beyond your senses.”
“Easier to believe in the prospect of injecting oneself with heroin, or getting scammed when you are so sure that’s never going to happen to you. It’s just like that.”
“You know it isn’t Ruh,” I said, refusing the dying cigarette and a final drag.
“Why are you being a contrarian? You know what? Never mind,” Ruh said, flinging the half dead cigarette into a bowl and drowning it with capfuls of water from their crinkled, half faded Bisleri.
“Hey, what is this about?” I asked, tugging at their sleeve.
“Nothing.”
My eyes went to their lips. Dry and cracked. I could imagine the taste of cigarettes on them, the familiar ashiness of it on my tongue.
“Talk to me.”
“I think…” Ruh stopped. They hurriedly grabbed another cigarette, inches away from my fingers, the click click of the lighter loud against the silence that lay between us, and the flame, bright, ruinously beautiful, bounced off their skin. Drawing in a deep mouthful of smoke, Ruh turned to me, an edge in their voice, “No. Tell me. Why do you envy the faithful? Look at the word. Faithful. Look at the words we attach to god and religion. Faith, devotion, worship. And then we apply those words to relationships and love. He was faithful to her. She was faithful to him. Till death do us part. What the fuck? Your body is a temple. He loved her to the point of worship. Devout, devotee, ew?”
“Don’t you find it romantic? Such depths of feeling? To go beyond love, to worship?”
“No, not at all, Maahi. Nothing about that is…desirable. It’s frightening.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice soft, realization dawning on me. The truth was nearly here.
“Why, because I don’t, haven’t ever felt that way about anyone!” Ruh was nearly screaming, a wild look in their eyes. “And you envy the faithful because you feel that way too. You are just like me and yet to pretend to be better, deeper, more…ugh, I don’t even know.”
I looked at them. They fell silent, breathing hard.
“What are you thinking?” I asked them, reaching for their hand. Ruh crossed them, drawing their legs to themselves. A ball of bones and blood.
“How would it be like to fuck God.”
“Why are we talking so much about these things, Ruh?”
“I want to feel something, Maahi. Something deep and big and primal. I want to feel something.” They stood up and began prancing the littered floor, tissues and wrappers sighing under their bare feet, the chipped paint on their toes winking at me with every footfall. Their body may not feel like a temple but they sure did try. I didn’t say that out loud though.
“Maahi, listen to me,” Ruh said, drawing closer, their face inches away from mine, their breath fluttering against the clammy skin of my forehead, “I want to feel. Not a second-hand feeling, but a real, true to me feeling. I have spoken more about God today than ever in my life and I am sorry for being such a cunt but gods I am tired of feeling on the edge of a feeling and never biting into it. Like every night I feel a tremor between my legs and then nothing. Silence. And it’s like, what? What are you trying to say?” Ruh moved away, hand in their hair, an exasperated look drawing on their face. They needed my help but I also knew that would be a mistake. Not when they were like this.
“Maahi,” they tried again. “It’s like, I am living but I am also not. You know? We are great. This is great. But like I want the taste of something…more. Something like the madness that grips the devout when the voice of the divine or whatever echoes in their skulls and suddenly they fight armies for France or construct poems when they couldn’t before. I want to feel like I matter to someone and the sky isn’t empty and when I pray I want God to sit up and give a shit and protect my ass like God’s supposed to have done for everyone else. Notice how in every story God does that? Pray and lo and behold. Poison turns into nectar. Serpents become ropes. Arrows become garlands. A death assuring fall becomes an embrace of jasmines. Maahi, what’s wrong with me? I have been shit to you and I have been shit and feeling like one. I don’t know what to do.” They sat back down, gasping, searching for the forgotten cigarette. I was vaguely worried about the house burning down, but even that felt false, this worry that was an aftertaste of the fear that should have taken its place. Instead, I stared at Ruh, mulling over their words. It was true. Things had become complicated for reasons beyond me. They had become distant, moody, the growing glint of dissatisfaction that hardened with every conversation.
“Ruh, I think I know how to help you,” I said suddenly.
They looked at me, wary but hopeful.
“But I need you to trust me on this. Can you?”
They nodded.
“No, I need you to say it.”
“I trust you, Maahi,” they said, swallowing the barely concealed irritation.
Nodding, I stood up, extending my hand in their direction.
*
*
*
What was his plan I thought to myself looking at Maahi’s back as he led me to my bedroom
What a colossal waste this space had become this bed my rest like the rest of me
The laundry all unfolded and sweet smelling the warmth of the sun all gone
Cold cold like everything else
Just how dramatic can one get
He lifted all the clothes the veins on his hands lost under the garments I watched him walk away and then emerge hands free
He looked at me a softness in his eyes I wondered when was the last time I saw him like this
He came closer a joint in his hand
Smoke this for a bit will you
I loved weed
A banal statement but it’s true
The rush of ease
The vague sensation of pupils dilating
You know you don’t feel like it but I do I did I am
He lifted me carried me to my bed
He said close your eyes I did
I felt him draw closer to me his hands rough with use slide under my shirt trailing his finger rubbings against my nipples against my waist and when callused hand was replaced by the shock of a cool blade a gasp against my skin I was oddly at ease
So this is how a knife feels
Caesarean like Caesar — I chuckled to myself
Maahi smiled
I still was laughing when the knife drove deep near my lower ribs and warm blood softened the cold hard steel
It was almost nice
Almost
*
*
*
Scene: Maahi and Ruh in the car, silent, word free. All around through the closed windows, a cacophony. Rush hour traffic is the eighth ring of the inferno that no one wants to accept. Ruh looks at the honking reds and jarring yellows, the helmets and the cars. Maahi rubs his chin, hands on the wheel, exasperation rising. It’s going to be a long way home, he thinks. Ruh looks at him, turns to the radio. Something good oughta be playing on here, something to muffle the traffic.
Maahi glances at them, smiles. Ruh looks at him, returns his smile. A radio station is found. The program commences.
Welcome to The City, weary traveller. Today we are going to address reports of flying cows that the man by the grocery store noticed on his way home. Are you also on your way home? Good. You should be. Flying cows are a sign of schizophrenia. Or exhaustion. Or a high from a bad trip. Don’t smoke. Or do. Whatever sails it for you. But remember, cows will only fly if you are in the mood for it. The ability of cows to fly is directly proportional to your ability to care. To care enough to notice that sometimes things happen that makes no sense. That things happen because we want them to happen, no matter how unlike the nature of things. Cows fly because you are also a cow who can fly. We got the grocer to attest on the man who saw the cows fly. He said they had bright blue wings. And they soared into the clouds. It was dusk. It was dawn. The time does not matter. The cows flew. One man saw. Another man accepted that he saw what he saw. You, dear traveller, must choose if you are the man in the car on your way home or the listener of the radio show about cows and grocers. Actually, the answer is simple. Really simple. Sometimes, things happen. And we must happen for them to happen. Stay tuned as we take a break to discuss existentialism from the point of view of the man who was neither the grocer nor the witness but the guy behind the mic telling you about cows and bright blue wings. Next up, we discuss the ethics of human flight.
A static, followed by the strains of jazz music. Count on Me by the Natural Four.
Ruh looks at Maahi who has been staring at the radio. They lean for a kiss. Maahi thinks how bright their lips look against the reds that bloom and erupt around them. The loud hiss of colors. Traffic and sound. Sound and flash. Ruh in red, eyes closed, body arched for Maahi’s return to their flesh.
Stevie Wonder sings.
Fade into static.
*
*
*
I stood over Ruh. Their warm blood, so enticing, so red. I looked at them, their eyes fluttering. I rushed closer to them, pulled their head back and kissed them, deep and hard on their mouth, drawing in their fluttering breath, feeling their pulse flutter under my fingers. Ruh pulled away, gasping, but I knew they wanted me. Desired me. Craved me in a way they hadn’t before. The wound at the side gaped at me.
I knelt over them. I pulled off their shirt. I looked at them, bare chested, all bones and sinew, a healing tattoo of the crescent moon by their collar bones. Thin wisps of hair grew on their chest, their chin, shy and reluctant like a teenager’s. Ruh always seemed on the edge of puberty, though the way they reached for my face betrayed a maturity that was only theirs to claim. They kissed me hard, biting on my lip. I drove my fingers into their wound. They gasped. I bowed, deep, stuck my tongue into it, gently tracing the skin around it, feeling the rust of blood, the jagged edge of muscle and sinew, my tongue deeper and deeper, a softer thrust than a blade’s, stroking and paralysing. Ruh shivered and moaned. I traced it with my finger, my hand between their legs, on the bulge, hard and full, my lips on their neck, my teeth on their chest, Ruh under me, a shivering mass of ecstasy. Rapture was nearly here.
I pushed myself deeper into them. A finger, then a fist, now a hand. They embraced me, never retaliating. I went deeper and deeper. Ruh fluttered and shivered, their gasps echoing in my mouth. I kissed and kissed and kissed them, deeper and deeper I went. All of me into all of them. Ruh. Ruh. Ruh. Ruh’s eyes opened and deep into them I fell. Deep into Ruh, till there was nowhere to fall into, nowhere to land. How divine is desire. Do you see it now, Ruh?
Will you touch me again like that
Will you
Please
I think of Adam rib stolen a wound just like that
On his knees too begging God do me like that touch me like that
God nowhere to be seen just an empty sky only a wound left behind
God penetrated Man only to never do it again do him like that
But I’m no God, Ruh. I promise, I’m no God.
Shivani Kshirsagar is a writer from India. She’s been published in BodyFluids, HAD, Winnow, Misery Tourism, 7×7 among others. Find her @nakkorebaba on Twitter and @girlwiththemane on Instagram. Website: https://linktr.ee/girlwiththemane.
