Angel Tears

by ananya michaelides

Chapter 2

  Your’s

  Like how the thought of a feather on your belly triggers images of being tickled, the very chatoyant kaleidoscopic light in a rave transmutes every loyal breath into something abnormally promiscuous.

  It is 10:30 pm, and the only legacy I have had so far is that of four full joints of marijuana. Nothing more; though here, there is the whole dope ration that can move the world to a different galaxy, where I'd have the liberty to choose my own Sun.

  Than when I was inside, the music is so much closer to my ears now, in spite of the speakers being far and far away. Dog Hag's "doll" is sitting to my right. She wears a black dress. The dress stops above her knee. She is fulfilling to the eyes. We sit on the pool's staircase, sort of like a fence. Sort of. But we are sitting inside from the fence for now. The pool under is bone dry. Around, just a few couples gone high and making out on the grass.

  I was always uncomfortable around his "doll". She made me conscious. Not because in the last party, she flashed me her stomach to show her tattoo on the circumference of her navel that read, "Put it in here" in Sanskrit. But because she was a fantastic girlfriend. And terrifyingly beautiful. She has short bob hair, and tattoos all across her back and in other places. I have been told, and some are just seen, and some others are randomly shown. Loves Dog Hag like her own child. He loves her very much too, no doubt. But women, being the abstract of illusion, if serve reality to such an ethereal honeymoon, it makes way for everything else to be regarded as a denouement of delusion. See, mongooses and snakes are known to fight like retards gone right. But in a rare spectacle, if they are friendly and mating with each other, wouldn’t that dispel all you ever believed was true? I don’t care about the exceptions.

  'You should get a tattoo, sometime.' Lighting a cigarette and looking bleak into the pool ahead of her, she says.

  I am mesmerised with the white liquid inside the three 2ml glass containers. They are not exactly white. They are more of ‘I don’t care what colour I am’ colour.

  'Yeah.' I whisper. To her suggestion. My voice is not audible, I know. But I don’t repeat it. She is only talking to me, because she has no option. I am her chaperon. She knows it. I know that as well. Her being two years older to me does not matter to the either of us.

  'In case you are wondering,' she exhales a long draft of smoke from her mouth. 'That is called vial.' Nods her head. Perhaps does not like the way it sounds, adds, 'or phial.’ Laughs. The second word sounded better. Sure did. At least to me. ‘He likes to call it 'Falcon'.' Her statement entails.

  'Falcon'? This?' A questioning frown my eyebrows draw.

  The ash on the edge of her cigarette is tapped on the face of her feet - feminine yet raunchily ensconced in a pair of two-inch stilettos. I can’t describe whether they are matte black or shiny black in colour. ‘I mean, it also has another name.’ The stout pudding of ash on her feet is crushed by her slender index and stubborn opposable. ‘Flacon.’ She concludes.

  I hold the "phial" out to her and ask, 'This one is called falcon?'

  A heart-warming smile. I could see the tobacco stains on her teeth. 'No papa! Falcon is what he calls it. The actual word is 'flacon'. Flack-uhn'.

  I inspect the bottle in awe and remark, 'Sounds reasonable. Falcon taking you high, Sir.’ A two-finger salute. ‘Also, pretty impressive. You maintain a good amount of synonyms?'

  'Sometimes.' His doll shrugs her shoulders. Three paws dark in colour on her shoulder blade. Left. The tattoo was in memory of Scooty, her neighbour's Rottweiler that had only three paws, since the fourth was amputated due to bone cancer. Quotes, ‘It is better to know different faces of something under an analogous taxonomy.'

  ‘So all are pretty much fuckin’ the same.’

  ‘Nope. Nothing is similar. They may appear so, at first. A closer look will tell you that nothing is similar. Nothing. I mean . . . check the middle fingers of a pair of Siamese twins, and you will cry to agree. Believe me. You look confused, let me help you. See, vial is something of a bottle in which you pee so that the doctor can test it and tell you if you have the urinary tract infection or not. It is the same thing in which doctors keep all their medical liquid shit in, before they fill it up in their injections and dive it down your ass. Phial, on the other hand is something more of supernatural shit. You have watched ‘Lord of the Rings?’

  ‘I hate that fucking movie!’

  ‘Yeah, alright. I liked it. Anyway, the phial would be like that of the ‘phial of Galadriel’, where there is a bunch of supernatural stuff filled in it; it can bring in lives or take lives and kindles several such designated supernatural dispositions. And the last, flacon. Flacon is what Jean Baptiste keeps his prize in. The one which swallows him in the end.’

  ‘Perfume?’

  ‘Yeah. Why, you have something against it too?’

  ‘No. I like Perfume.’

  ‘Okay. That is pretty much it. So understand. No two things are ever the same. Ever.’

  Unsure if anything better could be said, I reply, 'Yeah. So what is your name for him currently?'

  Dog Hag and his doll had a million nicknames for each other. Every statement entailed and waylaid a new nickname for the both of them. They had the craziest nicknames. From 'Speakerbelly' to 'Drainsamba' to 'Cosmicpenguin' (which was her name for Dog Hag when the fellow had too much erection under the influence of drugs); they had crossed phantasmagorical orbits to existential reality in their nicknames. In their nicknames they did it.

  'Angel.' The first syllable of the word is dragged sweetly. Her eyes closed. She thinks of Dog Hag. Of course, she loves him much.

  He is a lucky fellow.

  'What is that awful smell you got?' Suddenly the hideous perfume she is wearing gropes my sense of smell. I remember it now. When we walked from the dance floor to this bone-dry pool area, I wanted to throw up then and there. But my shiver of her aura had overlapped the irritation of smelling something that bad.

  She and I were in the circumference of 2 feet for the last 15 minutes or so, and merely because she made me contend for my own breath in her presence, the whole deal about her perfume was made to take the French leave. I think I came back to my life when she called him ‘Angel’. Yes. She is his. I have no business here. I understand that, well. Time and again, just somehow I slip out and would go on to think of her as mine. Or you know, something like that. The wish is painfully unletgoable.

  'You are stupid, you know that?'

  'I manage.'

  'Awful? Come here. Smell it.' Her neck grows tall. An invitation for me to go smell it on her up close and give a second opinion. Some things feel shitty from a distance and they feel even shittier when seen closer; this thing was going to be such. I know.

  To her benefit I walk to her. Bend down. My nose is at her neck. She has a tattoo there.

  'What is this?'

  'Tattoo.'

  The teeth inside my mouth summon my lips and bite it. ‘I mean, what the fuck is it?’

  ‘How quickly you get irritated! Shit! The tattoo?’ Pauses. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you see and then if you already see it what it indeed is, no need for me to tell you.’

  Intellectually I brush my chin. 'Let me see. In the middle there is that snake. To the sides, you have two razor blades.'

  My face aligns closer to her neck, in a different angle. Here, I am farther than I was closer earlier. The smell, that a while ago made me throw up, is docile now. 'Is that a woodpecker?' I went closer. Now I am back. Close to her skin. Just like good. 'And is that?' I swallow a new batch of phlegm. 'A vagina?'

  ‘Save your humour.’ Her eyes red. Not tongue though. Tongue is patient. ‘Let me tell you what they are.' She instructs. Her index finger takes position at her tattoo post. 'What you see on the thyroid cartilage is a lasso - that which was "your" snake. The ones on the external jugular vein on both sides are reeds - again, that which are your "razor blades".'

  'What is a reed? And thyroid cart
ilage? External jugular . . . what? Wha-what? Are you a biology student or somethin’?’

  'Save your questions for later. Perhaps after I am done. Asking questions in haste will cut my rhythm. Then, you’ll miss out on half the bloody fuck.’

  She is just smart.

  'Where was I? Ah. The razor blades. Okay, here. In-between this right reed and the lasso is a baby quail that which you saw as a woodpecker. There was no harm there. You were close about the quail. I mean yeah, it does look like a woodpecker. I will give you that.’ The right hand’s index pokes on the area between the lasso and the reed on the left side, a portion I had missed from my guessing description. ‘You missed this.’ Her reminding is accusatory.

  ‘A fucking hairpin.’ I say and turn away instantly.

  ‘Uh’ she points her finger at me. Quotes, ‘That one is a folded cloth, my friend.’

  Friend?

  And the last, "your" vagina is a mouth!' Her laugh is loud and bustling with sarcasm. ‘Yeah. Come to think of it, it could also be a vagina.' Her laugh is harder and persistent. Meaner, to be somewhat precise. I don’t like the way this humiliation winks at me. It is her tattoo, how was I supposed to know what they are.

  I seethe. Discharge, 'Fuck you.'

  'Anger! Take it easy. Man shouldn't get annoyed for misreading something. Chances are if he'd read everything so perfect and correctly, we may never have had news channels or conspiracies coming around. So cool your balls off. It is okay to make mistakes.' Her right hand pours medium crushed granules of ganja into the rizla that lay on the left palm with its legs wide open. Wide fuckin’ open.

  Why does she talk to me like that? Am I attracted to her insulting me?

  Anger, complex, I stare at her.

  'You wanted to know what reeds are? Or you know wha-? You don't need to know what they are, in particular. Because I am only going to explain my tattoo. Moreover, if you looked at it, reeds are just plants. But anyway, my tattoo! It is based on the Egyptian hieroglyphics.'

  Big, my eyes grow.

  'Egyptian hieroglyphics? Don't know what they are? Hieroglyphics was the language of the Egyptians. More like pictographs.'

  'I am surprised at these names.'

  'Why?'

  'Because I am not sure if that is what the Egyptians even called it that. Highrolllipsync or whatever you call it!'

  'That is the point. A goat won't know it is called a goat. Out in the space, the planets may never know they are named what they are named out here. We give them names. We give them emotions. We draw everything for them. They are our description. The world around are our characters. You understand? The world is a fiction. Simple and straight. There is nothing hidden. It is all in the open. Some take the fiction too seriously. Some understand that it is only characters and 'their' dialogues, and some just know it is only a story. So is every other thing.’ Her rizla is licked, locked and ready to be launched. ‘The Egyptians needn't necessarily have known that their language was going to be called as such. As what it is now. I mean . . . would you really care what the tomorrows of tomorrow might call you or name your theories, if you were to be famous or an idealist or something like that?'

  The joint is launched. Thick, dense smoke. The fat cloud of smoke she releases separates her way of life from mine.

  'No.' My answer, flat. It is true. I will not care what the tomorrow may have to say about me, as I do not know if I am caring for this moment, even.

  'Anyway, the lasso, the baby quail bird, the mouth, the folded cloth and the reeds are a word.'

  'Just one word?'

  'Yes. Pictograph, remember? The Egyptians had assigned certain things to each letter or perhaps to each sound. So the lasso in the middle is 'o', the reeds are actually just one letter 'y', but I put them on both sides to cast a design, more so as brackets; the baby quail is a 'u', the folding cloth on the left next to the lasso and before the reed is an ‘s’ and below the lasso is the mouth, which represents ‘r’.’

  ‘It fuckin’ entirely means?’

  'Yours'. Duh!’

  'For him?' I stick my thumb out toward the dance floor. She smiles.

  Why can’t I have her?

  'Do me a favour?'

  'Tell me.'

  ‘Here. Come sit. Next to me.' Her hand slams the ground next to her.

  'Awrite.' I sit.

  I think about the Egyptian tombs. 'Open your mouth and stick your tongue out.' Her order stands high and important as the top part of the pyramid. I don’t know what it is called. I like to call it the cone tip . . . anyway fuck it.

  'Now what?'

  'Do as I say. Put your tongue out.’

  I stick my tongue out.

  'There.' She places a small centimetre of square piece of paper on my tongue.’

  'What is that?' My tongue stretches further to the tip of my nose. The paper is yellow and red. It has lines across and across. There are intricate embossed lines on the piece of paper.

  Its élan on my tongue, just as how I had tasted this communion bread one time.