One night on the road

Today I am wandering in the road not because I am drunk, not because the world is moving before my eye, not because my vision has blurred and not because I am living the excitement fed to my body by alcohol but still I am swinging here and there. Standing near the road divider I watch vehicles escaping into the smoke of dark once in a while. My eyes miss to catch their speed but abrupt light jolts by brain. My brain that had been a factory of thoughts that disrupt peace. I have to rely more on my ear than my eyes. The swift whiff try to blow me with it, my hair fly, I feel the chillness in the air of the wintery breeze. The whore that offered herself to me is laughing, I cannot see her face in the street light under the pole but I can still see her face, I assume the smoke that rises from under the pole as the smoke of her cigarette. Same cigarette I gave her, since I had paid for the cigarette, the cigarette was mine but the smoke was not mine. I hear her laugh, meaningless laughter that rip apart the silence of the road. The laughter that ring my ears more than the sound of the vehicles that slides into the darkness. Where there is meaninglessness there is no question of ‘why’ still I question the meaninglessness itself. There is a man with her now and now I hear her shriek. I want to rush to her to check if the man is not hurting her but this desire is not because of any kindness but because of my male chauvinism. Someone was hurting a ‘poor’ woman, a human being who is taken as ‘weak’ for granted just because her genitals were different as mine when she was born, that arouse my ego, that challenged my strength I have carried by birth. Before I reclaimed my self hatred, I saw the two shadows under the poll becoming almost one, the shadow was larger than the shadow of one, it roughly sketched the silhouette of a human being but still they were human being. They had embraced each other ignoring me who was standing just about twenty or thirty meters apart. I wondered if they would make love right there on the cold footpath. The hunger of the body can make one forget the cold. The girl laughs again, she was laughing because the man had said something. She was laughing not because she understood anything, she was laughing not because the man told her anything funny. She was laughing on herself. It was the laughter that mocked on what she was. I remembered her face when she had stood in front of me staring at me top to bottom. The air that carried the smell of her breath said she was drunk but still she knew her business. If she was beautiful or not that is something I don’t care. The strong smell of her perfume had my stomach churn, fifteen hundred for the night she said. I didn’t say anything. Seeing neither approval nor rejection she said five hundred. Probably she would have said thousand but my appearance made her guess my caliber. I didn’t say anything again. She brought her face close to mine, I could smell her lipstick and I moved my head in other direction. She asked for a cigarette, I gave her one. She yelled at me, smiled and moved away. I could have slept with her for free but money is not a problem, had I allowed myself even a little pleasure, I would have paid her ten times what she wanted. My hatred for myself had been so much that I had not allowed any pleasure for myself. When life had become burden of responsibilities rather than wish to live, how could I allow myself bodily pleasure no matter even for few minutes?
My cell had been ringing in desperation. I once see who is calling me though I knew it was from home. Its eleven thirty and more than half of the city around me is asleep. My cell says I had missed fourteen calls and twelve are from home. Two are new numbers I don’t recognize. I get angry on my people at home because they love me, they worry for me and I get angry on rest of the world because it ignores me. It ignores me, it ignores the whore who has just slipped into the darkness. Anyone can drive his/her car over me, anyone can come and rape that women.
Why am I wandering in the street, I have no answer? I have lost nothing that I need to seek. Even if I had lost anything, I didn’t want to seek it. A van passes so close by me that it misses me by an inch of a hair, the driver slows down and yells at me. I borrow the laughter from that prostitute, I feel with my laughter the whole city has been disturbed, all the dwellers are in panic, I feel a grandeur in me. The driver gets scared and vanish soon. My mobile rings again, it says ‘Wifey calling’, ‘wifey ‘ how lovingly I had replaced the name of my wife with this term. I know how much I loved her when I had just married her, in the years that followed, what ate me I don’t know. My feelings for her is more ‘sorry’ than ‘love’. I dislike her because she seeks her happiness in me, I am angry with her because she is sad since I am sad, I have lost myself. Just yesterday, I fought with sleeplessness. I had just fallen asleep when I woke up, I lighted the lamp, my wife slept so silently beside me. Her face still as pretty and innocent. The hair that spread on the pillow as soft as they had been when I had first touched them. My life has halted there, entangled on the string of her hair. If there is one thing that has made me drag my body through days and night in this earth its only that face, its only that life. The life that peacefully slept by my side. I had slowly put my lips on those beautiful cheek. If she were awake I could have never shown that gesture. She is not like other women I have seen, who enjoys independent identity, she is a poor creature who had submitted herself to me. I switch off my cell. I realize that would make her more desperate. If my deeds made her hate me, that would be the only happiness I could grant myself but she doesn’t. she will never leave me no matter what I become, what I do. The prostitute appear from the darkness making her clothes, she wraps the neckerchief and walks along the light. There is no man beside her. She fears no darkness because she has nothing to loose. Far away a dim light is still simmering, that is not my home but somewhere beside all these houses the lights in my house are also lit. Somewhere a woman with the most beautiful eyes in the whole world is worried. I switch on my cell and it rings abruptly. I pick it up, “Where are you?”, its her. “I am coming”, I reply. I too follow the light. Further I move from the street lamp my shadow elongates, as soon as I reach the other lamp post my shadow becomes a dwarf. Soon I am in the road that ends at the gate of my house, yes the light is still on. When I open the entrance gate, those very two eyes peep from the windows wiping the dew deposited by night. She rushes to open the gate. My parents are already asleep, the tears have dried in her face but she still looks beautiful. She says nothing and I hate her for it, she does not quarrel. I know I have to live the other day as well because by saying nothing she has given me a verdict to hate myself the other day as well.