A boy, ten years old. Lean, hungry, torn. Kicks a puppy, hard, so hard, repeatedly kicks it, kicks it repeatedly. He hears bone break, such a satisfying sound, a sound that fills, a sound that completes. A crack, a crunch. Like inhaling wine, he drinks in its high pitched protests, its whimpers. Drunk now, he is, on twisted power.
(Later, he meets his friends for a game of football. While the puppy lies mangled in the gutter. It will never feel the wind brushing its nose again).
Lurking outside a dimly lit bar, a middle aged man waits and watches. His eyes invade long legs going through the door. His fingers - they itch to know the smooth expanses of dusky, velvet skin his eyes already know. He bides his time, waiting for a pair of legs to stagger down a dark, empty alley. Helpless legs, beautiful legs. Legs that his thin, veined hands will conquer.
(He has a wife at home whom he has not touched. Not touched for two years. She still loves him).
A young girl walks down a lane. It's hot, so hot, as if a thousand suns, and not just one, are beating down on her head. A nondescript man steps out of a nondescript car. His pants, stonewashed in all the wrong places, are unzipped. A purple penis throbs in his hands. She averts her eyes. She runs.
(By the way, this is the first time she's seen a penis.)
An old man lies on a dusty street in Delhi. He's dead. Very dead. Once, he was not. He was young, he was alive. And people pass his decaying, damaged corpse. They screw up their faces in disgust. And why wouldn't they - that's what he is now, a thing. A disgusting, very disgusting, vomit inducing thing.
(He was a kind man, though. When his mother lay dying, he'd spend hours with her head in his lap, massaging her head, and loving her.)
In a small courtyard, grey stoned and peaceful, a small courtyard that smells of rain - there is a flower in a pot. A small flower, a pink flower. Unabashedly, unashamedly sweet. A security guard, in a starched uniform, carefully fills a plastic bottle with water. Tap water. He pours it over the flower. For no other reason than this: he likes flowers. They answer a wordless yearning in his soul. If he has a soul.
(And you, sitting on a stone cold, grey slabbed bench nearby, you, you'd swear, that you're not crazy, that you really did see that damn flower dancing.)
(Later, he meets his friends for a game of football. While the puppy lies mangled in the gutter. It will never feel the wind brushing its nose again).
Lurking outside a dimly lit bar, a middle aged man waits and watches. His eyes invade long legs going through the door. His fingers - they itch to know the smooth expanses of dusky, velvet skin his eyes already know. He bides his time, waiting for a pair of legs to stagger down a dark, empty alley. Helpless legs, beautiful legs. Legs that his thin, veined hands will conquer.
(He has a wife at home whom he has not touched. Not touched for two years. She still loves him).
A young girl walks down a lane. It's hot, so hot, as if a thousand suns, and not just one, are beating down on her head. A nondescript man steps out of a nondescript car. His pants, stonewashed in all the wrong places, are unzipped. A purple penis throbs in his hands. She averts her eyes. She runs.
(By the way, this is the first time she's seen a penis.)
An old man lies on a dusty street in Delhi. He's dead. Very dead. Once, he was not. He was young, he was alive. And people pass his decaying, damaged corpse. They screw up their faces in disgust. And why wouldn't they - that's what he is now, a thing. A disgusting, very disgusting, vomit inducing thing.
(He was a kind man, though. When his mother lay dying, he'd spend hours with her head in his lap, massaging her head, and loving her.)
In a small courtyard, grey stoned and peaceful, a small courtyard that smells of rain - there is a flower in a pot. A small flower, a pink flower. Unabashedly, unashamedly sweet. A security guard, in a starched uniform, carefully fills a plastic bottle with water. Tap water. He pours it over the flower. For no other reason than this: he likes flowers. They answer a wordless yearning in his soul. If he has a soul.
(And you, sitting on a stone cold, grey slabbed bench nearby, you, you'd swear, that you're not crazy, that you really did see that damn flower dancing.)
