Mile markers

The purple of her hands taunted me with their frailty

Zip.

Zip. Zip.

Arun's hoodie engulfed me - just as well, since I was desperately trying to ignore the shrill noises of the highway. I chanced a peek forward, Ty was driving. When did he grow a foot? His toes still barely grazed the acceleration. My little guy.

Speedometer, 148mph. Gas, empty, full, running on empty. A stuttering hysterical laugh threatened to break free from my throat. Ty, driving? Ty, swerving. On a packed, deserted highway. Sports cars racing past us, chasing us. Glance out the window, nothing. Ty, underage, younger than age, shorter than height, running in the driver's seat.

Ty, sitting in the witness box. "Lighten your chest, son." "Not your son."

Ty, glaring insolently. "You will answer the question." "Fine. Lighten my chest." He let loose a lusty breath, a brazen smirk flitting across his face. "Yeah?" The cloud of air dissipated, no trace. 

Ty, poker-faced. "She was too much." "Too much?" "You heard me."

I was barely enough. A tease of a taste, inspiring a craving - a single pistachio, the early hours of a TV marathon. Nicknames sagging with the weight of nightmares and sanguine expectation.

Blink, and suddenly it's dad in the driver's seat. Ty's next to me in the backseat, yanking my ponytail while shoving his size 3 foot under my rib cage. The car rang with the impish cheer of his two-index-finger years, vibrated with the thrum of the highway.

Arun sized him up, ever the skeptic, then huffed out a rueful chuckle. "Harass me? If anything, I was the bad influence. I gave her the caffeine addiction, after all. And phone calls at 3 in the morning." "And then she screwed up."

"Yes?" His whisper fell heavy with rust and ashes. "Wish I could say yes. The only thing she did wrong was ask for too much. And I knocked her down for it. Repeatedly."

Because I had too much to give. It pounded through me, clawed out of me, innocence with wax fingers running from a frenzied blaze.

Adrenaline swept through my veins like chilled lava. My hand inched out from the sleeve, its destination left stranded as my grip collapsed. An origami kitten fluttered to the seat by Ty's foot, traces of red ink visible through the folds.

"She cared too much." Angel carded her fingers through her own hair, a distorted mirror of a taunting memory - an impertinent vision of thrones and grapes and a hand languidly soothing over my scalp. "I wrote her letters. I handed her my story, mystery, in a soundtrack. She listened to it, heard what I didn't even know was there. And I couldn't take it back. So I took me back instead."

Because I didn't belong, until you. You translated the crescendo of shadows into a symphony, and now without you, it's morphed into a chanting litany, static in my ear.

The car weaved through ghosts on the street, Dad at helm. Suddenly, gunshot, a red rose bloomed from his shoulder, proud green stem and prickly thorns. No bullet. Another pop, a bullet hole nowhere close to us, yet in the car seat next to Ty, next to me, no, Ty, no, wait…

If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend it sounded like popcorn exploding in the microwave at movie night. Loud, irregular.

Mrs. Relnik's fingernails tapped a staccato rhythm against the rail. "She forged her mom's signature on a form once." "See, Your Honor, a bad--"

A distracted musing cut through his slow build. "She made a pop-up book about dinosaurs on long-lost planets. I framed one of the patterns she colored for me." "Framed, ma'am?" A stammer - he cut himself off in surprise.

I won a spelling bee for you. It's been my little secret.

Steady. If they would just steady, if the lurches would settle, if the bullets would stop whizzing, I could play the game. Massage the magic spot on my neck, vanish for a little while. Maybe a long one…

The knowledge lurked, crushing and panting, behind his languid gaze. "We could've been twins, you know? Should've been." "T--twins?"

Xavi's eyebrow quirked up even as his voice quieted to a murmur. "Well, different moms. Different birthdays. Minor details." He tossed out a nonchalant smirk.

The smirk was always your tell. Yours to show, mine to know, a bitter aftertaste in both our jugulars.

Ty, all trust and bristling energy, squirming to the tempo of the silencer. His earnest, naïve adoration drools a flood, painting a lake over the road. And the car grows gestures, beating through the sweat of vision.

"I guess...I guess it got too hard." "What did?"

She gave a helpless chuckle, a frantic hand wave with long, artists' fingers -- tried to encompass the words she couldn't lift, the milky threads of burning summer woven into a raging waterfall. "Everything. Phonecalls. Emails. Goodness, I make it sound like we broke up or something. Listen, I don't know, okay! Ask me anything else and I'll know. But if I knew this… well, you wouldn't have dragged me here if I knew." "Listen, Ms. Penny--"

And there was the haughty stare, relishing in delivering a challenge. "Penny to my friends. That's Penelope to you, sir. Why would I tell you anything worth sharing?"

The worst things about the desert are the mirages. A gleefully tempered tempest turned into a parched wasteland, turn of the hat. You put super glue on my idioms, until I sagged under the agony and tore through skin.

Floating an achingly idyllic path as Airplane Ty whizzes around the car, his lilt tripping over his tongue, undulating with eternity. The brakes suddenly hydroplane a powerful void, leaving behind lather and a choppy shore.

"Once in a dozen paces--" "--Excuse me?"

"You're excused." "That's not what I--"

"I know that's not what you. So what are you?" "This isn't about--"

"--Like hell it isn't!"

[AHEM]

"Ma'am, let me finish. Once in a dozen paces, and it wasn't enough. But you knead the dough and hope like hell [AHEM] it rises." "Yes, but--"

"I do believe I'm getting kicked out for impertinence. Just too bad, hm?"

The gavel banged onto its bed of petals, deep maroon pulsing with rusted hope.

One Year Later

So much can happen in one year.

One year ago,

I moved to a new city

Rohit, Varun and I started on the next big journeys of our lives

I had to relearn how to forge new friendships

Meghu started her last year of high school

Neha was about to get married

The world was a little bit less of a minefield. Or a little bit more. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.

One year ago, September 11th was the last day I saw you.

One year ago, September 16th was the day you took your last breath.

Anniversaries are strange creatures. They force you to remember, and dredge up the oddest musings along the way.

Mama and Papa redid your room a couple of months after, and converted it to a mandir. I think it helped lift the stifling aura of grief that had engulfed the room for seven years, since Barimama left us from there, right where your bed was. It was a ‘circle of life’ moment, where my two doting grandparents, who had devoted their lives to caring for each other and their family, inhabited and vacated the same space.

Whenever I need a moment, some breathing room, I sit in your room, and I can see both your faces – okay, okay, I confess, that might be because your portraits are hanging on the wall. But you know what I mean. You usually have. It sounds corny, but…I feel like I’m enveloped by that same sense of security and comfort I used to get when I was five years old, running rampant around the house under your watchful eyes. I had missed that, for the past few years, and you helped me find it again when I wasn’t expecting to.

Meghu and I still cannot bring ourselves to use your bathroom. The whole room was your space, but the bathroom especially feels like an invasion of space. It feels wrong. You had your weakest moments there, which broke our hearts even as they wove us closer together. I used it once, for the first time this summer since you left, and I couldn’t go back in afterward.

I’ve been working on my letter to you for the past 24 hours, struggling with what I wanted to share, what I was feeling, how to articulate the thoughts that have been running rampant in my head for the past several days. Today, one of my very good friends pulled me out of my head and helped me re-energize. It was a variation on your question, you know? Beta, itna kyun sochthe ho?

I never got a chance to work through a lot of my feelings surrounding how you left us, those last couple of years. Everyone should get a mandatory vacation from life for a few days after having to bid someone adieu – we need that time to process what happened, and I don’t know if I ever properly did.

While you were alive, somehow there was always an irrational hope for a miracle, defying all common sense and scientific precedent. You were my grandfather. You survived a motorcycle accident. You swam from shore-to-shore of the Ganga. You could survive anything.

When Barimama left, I was there for all the days leading up to it, and I was there minutes after it happened. When you left, I wasn’t there for those last two weeks; I last saw you five days before it happened, and couldn’t make it home until 24 hours after. Until today, I don’t think I ever realized what a significant impact that left on me.

I felt guilty for the longest time, for not being there with you. And sometimes it still doesn’t feel real, until I go back home for the weekend and the house is dead silent.

At times I feel as if I never got a chance to process that you were gone and not coming back. You left right as I began on the path that I had told you I would follow when I was a six-year-old who refused to acknowledge that she couldn’t fix her grandmother. You would treat me to a gentle smile, maybe a little indulgent, but you never laughed off my childish insistence. And that persistent support pushed me forward, reminded me what I was working toward.

Today I can say, while I fervently wish you were here to share these moments with me in person, I know you and Barimama are both watching from somewhere – probably shaking your heads and laughing a little at my antics along the way. I know, I know, I have a ways to go. But you set me on the right track, and I intend to keep at it.

Your leaving brought with it a sense of vulnerability – in sense of self, in relationships, in my perceptions of strength and eternity. You were our center, I think. And now that you’re gone, the rest of us are still trying to find and hold onto a new one. 

मेरी हँसी तो मेरे ग़मों का लिबास है, लेकिन ज़माना कहाँ उतना ग़म्शनास है । 
जब मैं उदास था तो ज़माना था खुश, अब मैं खुश हूँ तो ज़माना उदास है ।।

Kick in the Pants

Med school started 'forreal forreal' yesterday, with Host Defenses and Infectious Diseases. So far, it is busting our chops big time. And it's barely been two days.

Exam day Tuesday didn't go quite as Ian had hoped. And tragically, this is Ian's new reality:

In other news, things I've learned so far:

The only way to get better is to get wayy worse first

And there is a profound revelation reflected in Ian's shaved head

(yes, his nose is actually that hooked. Peer closely the next time you see him; it'll creep him out)

This is kind of turning into the 'Ekta and Ian' show, isn't it? Only good things can come of it.