The Nature of The Sea

The drowned boy was pulled out of the water just after six. At least, that’s what time I thought it was. It didn’t seem important you know? I mean, the boy was dead. The ambulance was there, pulled up next to the thela walas like a beached jabba the hut type whore with her life rotating at sixty seconds a tic inside the red bulb on her head. I heard it arrive in the comfort of the cane swing of the balcony across the road, where I had been for some time, contemplating the stride of horses in mid flight, as if bolting wildly was going to shake the ignorant scum perched on them. I hate it when people are cruel to animals you know? What did they ever do to anybody? At least their shit you can smell before you step in it.

Amean came out onto the balcony to join me. ‘What’s happening?’ he said, as I felt his eyes traveling from my ankles to the sea puddling feebly across the road at the feet of the reclaimed land across the road.

"Drowning."

"Oh." He took a seat at my feet. Intelligent boy.

There was a companionable silence for a while, broken only by the whisper of that one reality I still couldn’t deny, the sea. There had been shouts from across the road a while ago to punctuate the siren song, but I guess they had realized the dead man couldn’t hear them and the live ones didn’t care.

'So what do you think happened?' That was a stupid question to ask.

Somebody drowned.

"I know, but how."

"Water went into his lungs."

"What was he doing in the sea in monsoon season?"

"Probably trying to impress a girl."

"Poor thing."

"Well, he did manage to make an impression."

Having effectively deterred any attempt at personal conversation I went back to my aimless swinging. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk. It was just that I had forgotten how.

Amean went back in a couple of minutes later. I whistled as he slid the screen door closed to show how unmoved I was by his departure

The ambulance across the road began to move away. The crowd resumed its surging. Sheep. Ever notice how people on the beach begin walking in stealthy rhythm with the sea? The legs stretch, the arm widens perceptibly, and the upturned face points at the sky, as if lulled into the horizon. And sure enough, the people on the beach fell back into their idiot rhythm, camels undulated across sewage sand, and thela walas went back to their rows of swimming trunks. The festivities had just begun, and the next wave of humanity would know nothing about the drowning. That’s what I assumed they were thinking anyway. People are bad bad bad. And somehow that makes me better.

A truck pulled up to the side of the road just underneath the balcony. A man came out from beneath the overhang and walked up to the cab door. He leaned up to shake hands with the driver inside, and they remained that way for some time, in this circle of convenient friendship, till the driver replaced his hand with a slab, the man withdrew, and the sound of the truck engine roared back into life. The man walked inside, transaction complete. I knew it was the next-door neighbor. He didn’t have any furniture, just wall-to-wall carpeting, and strange men used to come and go at odd hours. And I use strange in its broadest possible sense.

By now my stomach was growling loudly, and the weakness had begun to creep up my legs. Amean used to keep telling me I starved myself deliberately, that I liked the idea of inflicting pointless suffering upon myself. Silly man. Why would I do that to myself when I could do that to others? A chorus of vocal half volleys from Dog Island interrupted my reverie.

Dog island was a raised hillock of accumulated garbage and mud in the center of the flooded empty plot next to the building I was in. in the early mornings buffalo and cows were driven down to the sea for their daily splash about in the shallows. On their way back up the hill past the mazar, they used to stop for a brief soak in that plot. The geese berthed in another corner of the plot would hiss in alarm and paddle furiously in circles till their aggressive energy diffused harmlessly through their feathers into the air. Geese make the best guard dogs you know. Even better than the real thing, if not quite as affectionate. But who needs affection when you can have truth. That’s another thing about animals. They never lie.

The volley of barks had grown into a full-fledged vocal assault, tinged with the special hysteria of the stray that understands the transience of life. The purges had been vicious last year, what with the special hundred rupee offer for every dog tail brought into the cantonment board, and this years top dog population understood confrontation was not to be taken lightly.

A man had waded into the communal pond and was trying to push a buffalo out of the pool, but the buffalo didn’t want to go. I wondered how the mans hands felt on that lustrous black hide, tinged an even deeper shade by the scummy water of the pool. From the island the dogs with their rolled up eyes and their foam-flecked jaws did their best to project an image of a marauding army about to unleash its dark forces. They were lovely animals really. All they needed was a bath.

I hoped the buffalo would rise out the water and kick the man in the head so that it would explode like an overripe watermelon and scatter its venomous seed into the air. I hoped the dogs acted upon the promise of violence in their voices and leapt from their garbage castle towards his throat. I hoped the geese would run at him for the rest of his headless, ex-sanguinated life, hissing at him till he blew into the wind like so much confetti.

There was a sound at my elbow and I jumped. It was only Amean. He resumed his position at my feet.

"Amean," I asked him from behind my sunglasses, the shutters that protected my disfigured eyes from the world, "tell me again what the sea looks like."