The Memory Of A Companion

Movement lies in the cycles of every day, and in that movement is life. My life. 

The sun’s cycle is one, no less important for its ordinariness. I never seek it out, but I’m asleep when the sun is furthest away, tucked into my comfortable bed. I’m called to wake when the rays sweep beyond the heavy, white curtain that preserves my night, and glimmer against the glass door. There are other cycles, just as present. I’m called to eat, and I do. I’m urged into play, and I do. When the irrepressible energy of the day strikes me, I run and run and run, until I slump, panting. As the sounds of traffic pick up, I find my spot on the divan in the balcony, and I settle down to watch vehicles trundle to and fro. Back and forth. Everyday.

I’m urged too into love. You might think a beautiful thing like love would never be greyed into routine. But the cycles aren’t bad in themselves, because life, and pleasure, is woven into them. When they, my misshapen family touch me, stroke me, it ripples through my fur. When they take into their arms, raise me to heights my legs cannot take me, I am not afraid, because I trust, and trust is love. Their warm, familiar embrace wraps me like a cocoon. They make soothing gibberish sounds. I respond, I say I love you too. On another day, I might climb into their laps as they sit down. Or wrap myself around an overlarge leg, and sleep, breathing in their scent and warmth. It manifests in everchanging ways, but it’s in the cycles that love resides.

 

Sometimes, just sometimes, something genuinely new happens. There’s someone new. Great, big, tall, clumsy, smelly, but someone new and love-filled. His newness fills my space. Where I sometimes sat, and watched the birds fly along impossible paths, he sits, and makes nonsense sounds. But paradoxically, the more he occupies, the more my love grows. He’s a stranger! I should be afraid but I am not. I should shout and warn, but I gibber and cuddle. Perhaps it’s love so great, love so full, I can’t help give back.

The cycles of routine creep, and their loving caress transmutes the novel. When I hear his body shuffle, hanging on to dregs of sleep, I run full tilt to where he lies, and I jump and shout until he’s there where he’s not. When I hear his feet pad along to the kitchen, I feel the morning energy call to me, and where I ran, I now go to him, and ask him if he wants to play with me instead. He’s slow, and he lumbers, but he joins me. I weave in and out, from one side to the other, dodging him. When he’s slumped for hours in the chair,  and when the day’s at its lowest ebb, I seek him out, nudge him and say hello. He says something, but his posture is stiffer, his face crinkled, and I know he’s happy. What’s a new cycle but a cycle?

Then one day, it’s broken. I climb into my new favourite spot, where the sun has warmed the cushions just enough, and where he likes to sit, but he isn’t there. When the bed no longer creaks in promise of his waking, I go there anyway. My legs aren’t strong enough for me to jump, but I feel his presence, he must still be there right? I jump and shout, but he doesn’t appear. His scent lingers in the air, and I follow it into unfamiliar spots. I clamber over uncomfortably high boxes into strange rooms, cautious, alert, hopeful. The scent weaves in the air, tantalising, but never forming into him. The others are there. They’re clumsy, noisy and smelly too, and I love them, each in their own way. But they’re here, and he’s not. I’m busy searching, and they hold me up, lift me impossibly high. The warm, familiar embrace is still there, but the hugs are too long, and I wiggle, uncomfortable. Their words are softer, more soothing. I insist that I love them, but I have to go. They shush me, saying reassuring things I don’t understand. I brush it off as human fickleness. I run and run, and find another trail. This one is faint, and withered, suggestive of older, rarer patterns, but with my focus turned to it, sharpens into a path. I run to the sofa by the boxes where they - and he - keep the shoes they put on. I don’t come here often. Vague anxieties assail me here, and I think of cycles without my family. Now though, the scent of new love was here. It is no more alive than any other, but I’m tired, and it’s a welcoming place, and I curl up to rest. When I open my eyes, I see them watch me, and there are tears in their eyes.

The trails of promise fade, and the new, new routine becomes just a routine. I sleep by the boxes, and where the sun burns sharp, until I no longer do. An unformed thought hovers on the edge of my consciousness. This love, a love so great and surprising that took over my cycles for a period, it isn’t what I believed it to be. Deep in the deepest of my memories, so ravaged by the cycles of time that it bears only the crudest similarity to the now, he was there. It wasn’t an inexplicable connection with a stranger, but a rekindled one with a loved one from a memory. I can almost remember being held in his different, yet same, arms, ensconced in the same, yet different warmth. I can almost remember, but not quite.

I no longer look, and even the dead trails disappear, not just dead but forgotten. Until all that remains is a look in the eye, a quirky habit, and a promise. A promise of a future that will make the unfamiliar familiar again.

Sharp, Bright

 

Fluttering thoughts Are sweeping whirlwinds

Mundane scenes become Leech-dark memories

The laugh of another Can but be ridicule

Every hurt stings Scorching injury

Sharp, bright feelings cut

but

But a common wildflower Sings like precious rose

The gentle touch of other Caresses endless courage

A palmful of love clasps An eternity of together-joy

Sharp, bright feelings cut

but

In between spacious atoms Colour becomes ultraviolet A blessed world awakens Sharp, bright, gilded grandeur Sharp, bright, intimate pain

The Path

 

I soar above seeking a path Fingers gripping meshing cords

The infinite made finite

Far below, another’s pain burns

I tug a rope, and offer salve

The fire soothed, higher I soar

When new hurt calls, I respond

Again, and again, not to rise

But that the path is clear, and the sky is bright

Fickle luck brooks no calm

Electric arcs cut a strange, dark sky

The fire is lance-sharp, the pain now mine

Far above, another soars free

Their white, bright sky is a cocoon

My grey presses, presses heavy

The other sees, eyes hard and true

And turns away towards pleasure

The storm passes, and I continue

Only the wind steers mindless ropes

The path is plain but it is mine

Mine and mine alone

The call of another hurt grows

But each refusal softens the next

My path and mine alone

My heart soon begins to grow cold

Colder than the mindless wind and mesh

Squeezes tight until there is only darkness

The path is plain but I cannot see.

I reach out for a different rope

Pulling at new possibility

The call of another is a sum

Hero or villain, friend or foe

I heed only those whom I owe

Like the one now slumped in grey

A common grey face that adds up

The fire soothed, higher I soar

Not quite to heaven, not quite so high

But the heart is still for now.

Nervous time brooks no calm

Unheard pain adds to unwanted sums

The heart is gnawed and weary

I tug the forgotten first

Into the murk I sink, the salvebringer

But my heart is full and I soar again.

Crests and troughs bring clarity

That a steady path never showed

Truth lies in jarring motion

To seek the path is the path.

I Am Me

Silence

You and I

Failure

Does it hurt because of the fall?
  Does it hurt not knowing to stand?

Does it hurt because I'm too proud?
  Does it hurt because I'm not proud enough?

Does it hurt that my best wasn't enough?
  Does it hurt because it might never be?

Does it hurt because I have no answers?
  Does it hurt because I might not want them?

Picture This Caption #1: The Beard

New hobby: dream up pictures for captions.

Webs

By a trick of golden light shines
A fine pattern of webs in still air
Million threads locked in soft embrace
A fragile snapshot of surreal truth.

Another trick folds into grey gloom
Musty cobwebs of now dark threads
Until the world is as it was
Still and black and unchanging dull.

But a strand of gossamer vein
Slips and floats to a gentle death
Glowing fire-bright with each moment
Blazing star-like closer to the end.

(The new old silence bodes heavy
Sad butterfly wisps sway in tune
To the fickle call of not there breeze.)

Webs like fingerprints catch the light
Webs too frayed, webs remade by will
But webs that gleam, webs that glitter
Webs that make the pattern of life -
No tricks can blacken their skin.

Too varied to be, too fine to survive
The cost of beauty trumps its worth?
The dark hurt yet remains where
A golden thread faded to vapour.

Now a gentle whisper signals hope
A new thread spins into life
Delicate tips probe and seek
And touch and make new and old
Until the hurt heals and all is whole.

Dream

I slip into a dream and feel alive
Rushing torrents of things that could be.
Wakeful reality wipes the edge away
Off memory poisoned into child's fantasy.
I wish to hold on a little bit longer
Make cold fact of dregs of dream.
Open eyes limit you to a grey prison
And weak limbs refuse to soar
Heart that shrivels, and mind that cowers.
I seek the switch that makes reality fog
And beautiful dream magical truth.

Statistical Hypocrisy

When I went to my best friend’s house to drag him outside for a bit of fresh air, ice cream and gossip about pretty girls, little did I know that I was moments away from having my life turned upside down.

There was no answer when I hammered on the door with a subtle fist, but I was used to that. I walked in through the unlocked entrance, calling out my friend’s name and shouting juicy promises as I made my way to his bedroom.

“Come on out. You know who is doing you know what, and you have to see because you would be absolutely shook!”

The house was deathly silent. I shut up when I saw the glow of a computer screen reflected in my friend’s face eerily, as he sat statue still, engrossed in reading what looked like comments on Facebook.

I sighed loudly knowing that if my hollering at the top of my voice had no effect, my sighing wouldn’t. It was more for me than for him, because I knew what was happening here.

“Are you arguing with people on Facebook again?” I reached the statue in two long strides and smacked it on its back, and out burst a human being that turned to look at me. His eyes were aflame with naked passion.

“Do you see? Do you see?” He whispered urgently, waving a confused hand in the direction of his computer screen.

“What new crusade are you on, my friend? Whatever it is, I don’t care. I just wanted to drag you out to get ice cream and talk about girls. Because that’s what normal people do.”

My friend completely ignored most of what I said, but not everything.

“Crusade is exactly right, “ he said with terrifying enthusiasm. “Go on. See.”

“Am I supposed to be looking at a comment thread on a New York Times article about a pancake recipe?”

“Yes.”

“And…?”

“Take a look at that comment. John Smith. The same people…”

I saw it.

The same people who complained that New York Times only does salads and other dreadful tasting non-food recipes are now complaining that pancakes are unhealthy and should not be promoted. 

My friend’s eyes glinted menacingly. “You see it, don’t you? I see this argument everywhere. Literally EVERYWHERE! And it’s broken. How does John Smith - pff John Smith - know that the very same people who complained about salads are now complaining about pancakes? He doesn’t!”

“He’s wrong. WRONG. WRONG!” He screamed at the flickering screen, and it seemed to flicker more rapidly for a second as if in terror.

I responded with a wordy, “Er…”

My friend, the crusader, turned, gripped my shoulders painfully hard, and stared unblinking into my eyes for so long that I began to squirm, and melt.

“You see, “ he said. “I call this The Statistical Hypocrisy Fallacy. Just because some group of people somewhere on the Internet said they don’t like X does not mean that when some other group of people say they like X, that there is some kind of hypocrisy at play.”

I nodded because that seemed to be what was expected. He released his death grip, and beckoned me over to see another window on his screen.

The same people who complained that it was fat shaming to use fat people in exercise bike ads are now complaining that using a thin woman is not targeting the right audience.

The same players who complained that the tennis season was too long are now playing a million exhibitions.

“But how do they know that it’s the same..” I started off, before I stopped myself. The conversion was already happening, it was too late. My friend smiled at me, validated.

“I tried reasoning with one of them, you know, “ pointing at a four screens long Twitter thread. “I asked, in the most polite way I could, if this man had actually gone door to door, to people’s homes, with printed screenshots of their utterings on the Internet - time and date affixed of course - and verified that yes, these very people had changed their tunes now? But he didn't engage. Clearly, this man was a buffoon and a simpleton.”

I saw the final response from the buffoon. “TROLL!! GO AWAY!!!!111” with miscellaneous colourful phraseology inserted that I am skipping without loss of semantic content.

The same people who said DC was too dark are now complaining that Marvel has too many  quips.

Something in me snapped. That made no sense at all! How does he know it’s the same people? It was such a vacuous statement that was all the more dangerous because it had a vague ring of truth to it. But it was wrong. WRONG! Comment threads and colours whizzed by as I opened window after window - it was the same everywhere, as my friend had said. From travel to relationships to music to economics to porn, there was a John Smith in every comment thread.

A heavy weight settled in the pit of my stomach as the scale of the problem we were faced with struck me with stark clarity. 

“We need more people, “ I muttered under my breath. But my friend had gone back to fixing the world one comment thread at a time. He typed: 

The Internet, despite appearances, is not made of just one person.

Truth! I pulled a chair for myself, pulled up the comic book thread, and sat down to do God’s work.

Obsession: Part #2

(Read part #1 here!)

Strangely enough, the consequences for his meltdown were not as dire as he had feared. He was banned for a month by the Player Council, but it was soon forgotten. Perhaps if it had been Girona that had reacted that way, it would have been more of a scandal, but it was roguish, temperamental, handsome Scolo. Tennis needed personalities, right?

Even the journalist who had asked the question was not immune to his wiles. He remembered her face distintinctly. Shock, initially, at the unexpected violence, but then there was glee. Yes, glee. He distinctly recalled the hint of a smile breaking out at the corner of her lips, out of place in the confusion and anger and fear on the frozen mask of her face. Scolo knew that most journalists craved the chance to truly eviscerate someone, to impale someone with acid barbs and no fear of rebuke. This was her chance, and not only could she do it without worrying about payback, but this would probably even shoot her into tennis journalism’s stratosphere. 

So, Scolo did what Scolo did best and pre-empted her by offering to do an exclusive scoop. When she agreed, and when they met and he saw the cold, tight outlines of her face, her folded arms and distant expression, he knew he would have to turn up the charm to change the narrative. But this was just another game he knew he could win. The journalist was tough, but she was no Girona. Scolo mixed genuine humility and contrition, with flashes of humour and rakish charm. When his eyes weren’t downcast with shame, they stared directly into her eyes as if in naked confession, until he watched the journalist’s defences melt away. A couple of weeks later, there was an article in Tennis Week: ‘I forgive you’, and a lengthy defence of Scolo’s behaviour, arguing that heartfelt attempts to better oneself must be appreciated, not mocked.

His tennis life fell into a familiar routine that somehow felt less satisfying than it used to. Forehand drills, wins over lesser opponents, trophies, backhand drills, everything seemed to meld into a single monochrome image. The only thing that sharpened his focus and infused his life with colour was the thought that he was the only one who knew about Girona’s cheating, and he would be the one to bring him down. 

And yet, he managed to keep his obsession with Girona in check, or so he thought until something happened that would reignite the flame. The day before it happened, Scolo was talking to Coach about Girona’s chances against Patel. 

“Styles make fights, “ Coach said. “And Patel’s style is hard for Girona. Which is why he has a two match winning streak against him.”

Scolo did not even look up as he said, “This time though, Girona is going to win in straight sets. Bet on it?” 

The next day, as he warmed up in the locker room for his own match, he saw Girona for the first time since the meltdown. Before he could even make sense of his own emotions, Girona had smiled and waved at him politely. Scolo fumed. It was like he had never even been called a cheater. How could someone be this equanimous? Perhaps it was the drugs, it had to be. Girona probably felt eyes on him, because he paused in the middle of rummaging through his kit bag to nod at him.

Scolo, perhaps to distract himself from his black mood, looked at Girona with fresh eyes. He was tallish, but below average for a tennis player. He had good posture, but it wasn’t impeccable. There was the hint of a slouch, imperceptible for anyone but Girona who had an eye for this kind of thing. A thick head of hair was conservatively parted to one side, but liberally gelled to survive the rigours of a tennis match. He was handsome in a conventional, athletic way - with lean, angular, well defined features, but Scolo felt that there was an openness, an amiability to his face that made him less attractive than a surlier aspect would.

Then Scolo did something unusual: he finished his warm up and sat down in the lounge to watch Girona’s match. Was this the action on which his destiny hinged? Perhaps it is natural for human beings to seek, especially in the wake of an inexplicable catastrophe, a sharply defined moment in time that, even if not quite an explanation, at least separates the before from the after. The truth is rarely that simple. Anyway, as Scolo watched Girona quickly turn the tide against Patel, winning four games in a row to take the first set, his mind drifted away, jumping from thought to thought, as he distractedly scrolled through his social media feed.

In an instant, he was alert, because he noticed soft light spilling from a nearby doorway. It was Girona’s private locker room, and he had forgotten to lock it behind him. Almost before he could think, he was up on his feet and inside the room. Rifling through open bags, and unlocked cabinets, he looked for anything that could prove that Girona was cheating. Working himself into a mad frenzy, he was halfway through a particularly large drawer, when it occurred to him that there might be cameras. It was too late to worry about that now. The most he could do was rearrange everything so that they would have no reason to look at the camera footage. He continued searching, methodically replacing everything he moved, not pausing to think about what he was really looking for, afraid that his nerve wouldn’t hold.

Suddenly, he could hear footsteps outside the room, and he had only a second to put away the bag he had open, before Girona swept in, flushed, breathing heavily, and happy. 

“I knew I could.. “ He paused, confronted with an unexpected sight. “Scolo..?”

“May I help you?” Scolo scanned his face for hostility, or suspicion, but he couldn’t see anything. What could he possibly say? It was hopeless.

“I… dropped a ball I was warming up with and it… rolled into.. er.. your locker room.”

“Did you find it then?” Girona asked, without the slightest trace of sarcasm. Scolo nodded and shuffled out of the room, wondering if his excuse was better than he realized, when he saw Girona’s coach standing beside the doorway. Naked hostility was plain to see on his face. He knew Scolo had been up to no good, and his lips moved as if he was about to say something, but he held his tongue. Girona had moved on, there was no point making a scene.

Back in the safety of his locker room, Scolo let out the breath he had been holding for a long time, and unclenched his fists. He probed his mind for fear, or second thoughts, but there was only a burning determination. He had not felt this alive in a long time. 

Scolo began to be polite to Girona. He struck up conversations every time they passed each other, and Girona started to open up to him more and more. No one else but Girona would even entertain the idea of considering a professional rival a friend, but he laughed again at his naivete. (So the drugs didn’t make him immune to his charm.) Even when they played, and Scolo inevitably lost, he managed to do the hardest thing: smile gracefully and congratulate his opponent. 

There were dinners and parties. At one dinner, Scolo was with Cara and Girona with his girlfriend, whose name he couldn’t remember. As Girona narrated one anecdote after another, he could see Cara begin to warm to him. After all, everything she knew about Girona was through Scolo’s eyes. The fake amiability, the drugs, the cheating, the drugs, the smarmy oily falseness that she expected just was not there. All she saw was the most successful tennis player in the world sitting in front of her, without a trace of pride, treating her like an absolute equal, narrating embarrassing stories from his childhood. Scolo stayed silent for a long time, as he could feel Cara’s eyes on him. Perhaps she didn’t believe him anymore. 

Scolo stopped taking Cara along to parties. He told himself that it was because he was only using the parties as an excuse to find out Girona’s secret. But why did he not tell Cara what he was doing? He saw the unasked question in Cara’s eyes all the time. The truth was on the tip of his tongue, but he could not bring himself to say it out loud. 

“I’m sorry, Cara,” he muttered like a chant in his mind as he hovered from one glittery person to another at one such party, making his way to Girona’s bedroom. This was the first time he was at a party at Girona’s place, and he was not going to let an opportunity like this pass. He spotted a few kit bags by the window, and started to make his way to them, when he heard a voice call out to him.

“Scolo, lost again, looking for the bathroom?” It was Girona. Resisting the urge to turn sharply, he looked back to see a friendly smile. 

“Yes, yes, of course! How silly of me, must be all the wine I have been drinking.”

Remarkably, every time he snuck into Girona’s rooms and found nothing, his resolve only strengthened. As everything else in his life began to fall apart, this mission - and he had begun to see it as one - clarified into an almost holy one. 

His form suffered. It wasn’t just Girona he began to lose to. At this peak, he had a presence that repelled conversation as he strutted through the locker rooms. He spoke to no player, and no player spoke to him. That fort he had built around himself began to crumble, as whispers of veiled concern impinged on his conscious mind. They thought he was crazy? He would show them they were all wrong - WRONG - when he found incontrovertible proof of Girona’s shame, and they would bow down in front of him. He redoubled his efforts. Sometimes, he walked into Girona’s private locker room without invitation, and while his back was turned, pocket shower gels, vitamin pill boxes and the like. 

One day, he received an email from Coach that he was quitting. It was as amicable as it possibly could be. They had a great run, but he had taught him all he could, and now he needed something different. A brief white hot flame of fury rippled through his body, but then it was gone. All this meant that he would have to finish his mission sooner. He began to nudge Girona into hosting parties at his place more frequently. 

But Coach leaving was nothing compared to what happened next. When he got home after another tame training session, Cara was waiting to speak to him. She firmly rejected his protestations of tiredness, and said it would only take a minute.

“Are you cheating on me?” She asked without evident anger, gently, too gently, as if dealing with a mentally ill person.

All his frustrations, all the pent up anger, all his failures converged for a moment into an act of madness. Scolo screamed at Cara, and before she could react, shoved her to the floor.

“SHUT UP!”

In an instant, his anger was extinguished, and there was shame and guilt. Painful, stomach churning amounts of them that he knew would take a long time to dissolve. That was before he saw that Cara was bleeding from a cut on her temple where she had struck her head. 

Cara left the next day.

There was a brief moment of introspection. His behaviour had been suspicious: not talking to Cara anymore, going to all those parties, returning late at night, and not saying a word about what he did. It clearly must have looked like he was reverting to Playboy type. All he had to say was anything at all - the truth - and Cara would have supported him. But he hadn’t. And now he had another party to go to. 

There was one cabinet he hadn’t searched yet. That had to be it. 

At the party, out of the smoky darkness, a gold bedaubed vision from heaven appeared in front of him. For the first time in a long time, he really took in the sight of another woman. He admired her supple, athletic form. The dress hugged parts of her body, revealing and hiding at the same time, hinting at unexpected curves. She was speaking to him. He responded, she laughed a practised laugh, and in a heartbeat they were kissing. 

Girona was there. He was saying something.

“... you want to do this? Are you sure you want to do this, Scolo?” Concern filled his face.

Scolo didn’t say a word. He pushed away the woman sitting in his lap, picked up the lamp by the side of the sofa, and swung hard, as hard as he could at Girona. The woman was screaming, he was screaming, the nature of the noise all around them changed. But he missed. Girona, agile as a cat, skipped out of the way, shock and betrayal on his face.

And that was it. Scolo’s long and brilliant career was over that instant. After a lengthy ban, he returned to playing tennis again, but he barely won a match. Someone pressed charges, but he lawyered up and got away without jail time. Cara did not report his attack, but he never heard from her again. Occasionally, he would see her perfect face on advertising hoardings, and he would smile for her.

__________________________________________

He was nervous, but not for the reason he expected. There was no doubt in his mind that Girona would have forgiven him for the way their friendship ended, none at all. Instead, he wondered what he would think when he saw the broken husk of a man Scolo had become. He tried to puff out his chest, and walk straighter, but that messed up his gait, and he looked clumsy. Sighing, he untied and tied his shoelaces one last time, and walked into the locker room.

Girona was practically unchanged. Of course he must have been, given that he had not stopped playing, but the sight still took his breath away. The tennis player is the perfect athlete, and the athlete is the human being pushed to physical perfection. There were more lines on his face, and he wasn’t as lean anymore, but the contrast to his own withered form was as clear as night and day. Intense nostalgia flooded through him and roared in his ears like thunder. He could see concern briefly flit across Girona’s face, but it was wiped away, and he smiled and said something, but Scolo could not hear a thing. 

A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. 

“Before we play, “ said Girona, “I want you to have something.” Then he pressed something into the palm of Scolo’s hand. It was a bright, blue pill.

“What is it?” Scolo asked robotically. There was a strange expression on Girona’s face.

“It is an implant that resets your memories. I have used it all of my career to forget the sensation of losing.”

Scolo did not say anything in response.

“My problem was always mental. If only I could forget the sensation of losing, I would be the perfect player, I thought. And then I discovered this. It works by… “

“... you were right all along Scolo. I’m sorry, I really am but I suppose it doesn’t matter now anymore.”

“Then why tell me now?” Scolo asked dully.

“Because I want you to find peace.”

And Scolo knew right away that he did find peace. It was like a physical weight was lifted off his shoulders. He knew, and probably Girona did too, that he would not report this to the authorities. All he wanted was to be right, and he was. It had cost him everything, but he was right, and he knew he could finally move on with the pieces of his life. He smiled at Girona, genuinely for the first time in his life, and walked out alongside him to play the last tennis match of his life.