Desert Cafe

New Year’s Eve in the City

Anitha Ahmed — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:32:23 +0000

New York City wears an extraordinary scent tonight—a peculiar medley of smoke, sweat, and sickeningly sweet alcohol. The air is lit by a crescent moon and flashing neon billboards—it’s damp with expectation, with aspiration; and with the threat of imminent rain. But the blue-black sky isn’t clouded—it shows promise still for a brilliant, sanguine concrete dawn.
The streets of New York City are a nightclub tonight, a nightclub kept alive by sirens and screeching breaks, honking and music from Times Square. No one’s asleep tonight—young men and women salsa down the sidewalks and spill onto the roads in front of police officers and street vendors, into the alleyways and out of the underground subway staircases. Their excited, anxious, slightly slurred voices whisper and squeal, they scream and chortle—there are so many voices that comprehensible language is inaudible. These million tones, emotions, energies—they dovetail into a harmonious cacophony.
That singular orchestra—it drowns away the music from my battered guitar. I watch my own fingers snap mechanically at the fraying strings, but I have to crane my neck and tilt my head towards the body of the instrument in order to hear the melody. Suddenly, my cheek is exposed to a sliver of white hot pain—flinching backwards into the wall behind me, I rub the tender flesh and discover in my closed fingers a broken segment of my guitar’s E string. With a long, deep breath, I lift the threadbare strap over my shoulder and place the shapely thing back into its empty guitar case.
Overtop the tall, dull, dusty read buildings, I can see it—the tip of the tall metal pole and that illuminated, spike-studded ball it carries—it shimmers like a thousand diamonds in a the light of a sunrise. I press my back against the building wall behind me and watch it flash its iridescent colors. I may be one of few, but I’m not the only one alone tonight.
Pressed between the five-foot interstice that separates two equally mundane concrete buildings, I brush the dust off of my face, off of my exposed arms and feet. Its ten days into winter, but the air is still only crisp with mild cold—it barely bites my skin. Without taking my eyes off the sky, I begin to brush away the crinkles in my dress. Over the din of the surroundings, I can almost hear the white taffeta rustle as I smooth my hand over the fitted, beaded bodice, as I shake out the pleats that run from my hips to my ankles. I raise my hand to my hair—the tiara still clings to my frazzled curls, but the flowery gauze attached to it this morning has been lost to the teaming streets.
The tip of the ball flashes its rainbow. My throat constricts. All at once, my face is warmed by a stream of silent tears.
Grudgingly, I lower my dampened gaze several feet, till it falls upon a window two stories from the ground. It glows orange from the light within, muffled by the blinds that shield the apartment from the public eye. Suddenly, the blinds are lifted, and a shaft of light escapes from the window and lands in a rectangular box around me.
Green eyes and sharp nose, he wears a crumpled tuxedo and a hollow countenance. He struggles with the window pane for a moment, and then slides it open. My breathing quickens, I open my mouth, but I’m incapable of making a sound. Shakily, he raises a cigarette to his lips, and then a lighter—and then his eyes squeeze shut, his body grows stiff and tense, and he thrusts away both cigarette and lighter with an aggressive fervor. They land with a soft clamor on the filthy pavement opposite to me. His eyes fall. In a moment, they connect with mine.
First, his face contorts—his eyebrows furrow and he squints his eyes, his lips part and his head tilts, ever so slightly. And then his jaw falls open—he presses his hands against the windowpane and for a moment, for a moment I catch the right corner of his mouth slide upwards, I catch a glimpse of straight white. And then it’s too much—I roll out of the beam and back into the shadows, crashing into my guitar case. For a moment he stands alone in the frame of the lighted window. And then he’s gone.
Slowly, I lift myself back up, swallowing large gulps of the dank, near-midnight air until my breathing loses its sharp edge and scrambling speed, until I can no longer feel my pulse jump from my heart to my throat in a portion of a second. Crawling back into the shaft light, I tilt my head back up to the sky—only to watch the glistening orb disappear behind the silhouette of the apartment building in front of me. The countdown has begun.
20, 19, 18… I hear, chanted in unison, boisterously, poignantly, from Times Square.
“Anna!”
I jump to my feet. My heel catches the hem of my dress and rips off a swatch of fabric as the adrenaline returning to my veins instantaneously—I turn my head towards the call. It’s him, carrying a hopeful yet melancholy expression, a bottle, and two glasses. I stiffen as he ambles towards me.
16, 15, 14…
“You don’t have to start out this New Year alone, too.” Cautiously, he comes close enough for me to see the moisture that coats his olive colored eyes. “I can’t let you.” He uncorks the bottle with his teeth and fills each crystal glass with an amber liquid. Placing the bottle on the ground, he takes my hand and unfurls my fist, wrapping my fingers around one of the glasses.
11, 10, 9…the chant crescendos into a deafening cheer as it breaks into the final ten seconds.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, inaudibly at first, and then—“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
7, 6, 5…
He shakes his head, bringing a slender finger in front of my lips. “Forget about it.”
4, 3, 2…
He raises his glass and presses it against mine. “Here’s to starting over,” he says.
And all at once, the city explodes with the potential, the possibility, the power of his toast.

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Indian Independence

Anitha Ahmed — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:18:48 +0000

“Vande Mataram!”
Throughout the swarming buzz of sound, the patriotic cry is the only one which resounds clearly–it pierces the pounding of the rain and reverberates in the humid air, into the coat of wet grime which makes the streets slippery and brown.
“Vande Mataram!” They wail, they scream, they hold each other and post the tricolored flags on their doorsteps, on their rooftops, on their cars, on their shirts and hats. They don orange saris and pray in gratitude for their freedom. They pour into the streets they were not allowed access to–they sing in loud, clear voices. Victory, at last.
For a moment, rolling thunder masks the anthems of their tribulation and freedom. The sky suddenly convulses and procures a corrugated sliver of blinding light, rendering the firmament a ghastly shade of white and green. It casts an eerie glimmer upon an empty alley, flashing to reveal a petite silhouette.
Torn paper, broken bottles, rotten carcasses of once-cooked chicken, and wet excrement litter the narrow alleyway–the catcher of all trash haphazardly thrown out of the apartment windows, leaking out of torn, unattended garbage bags. Beneath the thunder and the overwhelming enthusiasm from the streets, the quick, sharp pitter-patter of rodent feet is barely audible as they scamper beneath the litter, causing the pieces of scrap metal to clink together.
Beneath even the noise of the rats, a highly trained ear would be able to make out an incongruous sound–the rapid intake and release of shallow, halting, quick and unsteady breaths. The slim shoulders of the silhouette double over onto knelt, bent legs, which press against shattered glass and leak a thin stream of crimson. The shoulders heave, the demure figure shakes violently. Her slim arms tremble beneath the gossamer fabric of her white salwar kamiz, torn and wrinkled. She holds her quavering hands beneath her bent torso–one clutches her stomach, one presses against the torn fabric which was not enough to guard her inner thigh.
Caught against the handle of a garbage can adjacent to her, a soaking, mint colored scarf flaps helplessly against the wind and the rain.
All at once, the thunder ceases–the downpour halts, like the tap of a shower-head is slammed closed.
“Hindustan, Hindustan!” The cries from the streets persist with an unparalleled fervor. “Vande Mataram!”
Slowly, her battered silhouette straightens. Lifting one vertebrae at a time, she rolls into a seated position, her thick black eyebrows furrowed, her delicate hooked nose crinkled as she presses her closed fists into the ground and stretches out her legs. She winces as she places her bare foot flat upon the filthy ground, as it crunches into labyrinth of feces and sharp debris. Her brown eyes glinting with bitter fury and pain, she snatches the drenched scarf from where it is snagged onto the garbage can. With deliberation, she wraps it’s tattered folds around her head, the tip of her long black braid peeking through the end of it.
Finally, she manages to rise to her feet. She tips her head towards the sky, her face reflecting the obscure medley of the colors it emanates. Her lips part–they move as she whispers silently. Her chant grows louder and louder as she places one foot ahead of the other–walking hesitantly down the alleyway, into the teeming streets.
“Allahu Akbar,” she repeats, with greater and greater resolve, “God is great, God is great.”
Her homeland had deserted her, it had reached into her mind and stripped the flag which rested there of orange. Ruefully, she made her way to the crowd. But hers is not triumph–her battle is upstream.
“Allahu Akbar,” she chants, and quietly she declares, “Long live Pakistan.”

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Resilience

Anitha Ahmed — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 01:13:29 +0000

She sits peacefully in a navy blue wheelchair,
Legs splayed, feet resting on plastic blue squares.
From her patchy head trickles a thin braid of grey hair
Every wrinkle, every sag, displays a life, unfair.

She strides with confidence in a rippling navy skirt,
The silky fabric billowing with a grace far from inert,
She flicks her thick, black locks with a smiling flirt,
Shining molten chocolate eyes, incessantly alert.

In her folded, leathery hands, she holds a paper slip
It’s crinkled like her fingers where she presses it to her hip
Slowly, her clenched fist relaxes its trembling grip
And it flutters to the tile floor beneath her IV drip.

He slips it onto her finger–long, smooth, and slender
A glittering sapphire ring with elegance and splendor
He takes her supple hand into his own, strong yet tender,
With the clearest, deepest intention always to defend her.

Her large brown eyes are sunk behind the folds of age
But still within them is a fire that can never be assuaged
And with all the strength and willpower she can engage
Her arms push into the wheelchair with a huff of her rib-cage.

As her waist grows in a burgeon of new life,
His broad, strong shoulders shrink in an augment of strife
As if from within he is carved with a knife
He fights not to leave his unborn child, his wife.

The chair wobbles dangerously as she straightens her arms
Pushing herself up to her own unforgiving alarm
The IV drip teeters and shakes, a potential for harm,
But as she works, she smiles–her old face redolent of charm.

Almond eyes meet their like on a tiny, soft head
Which stare fixedly at her from where he wriggles in his bed
But his bones and his cheeks are thick–like lead
The only remainder of a father, now dead.

Her arms shake as she heaves with all her might
Her elbows quake violently with the effort of her fight
With heavy, wheezing breaths she sets her legs upright
In her eyes a fervent passion, laden with light.

In her head, the words are etched like a song
Even though I must pass, you have to stay strong
Never succumb–your health please prolong
Conquer the pain, for the both of us lifelong.

The crumpled slip sings wistfully from its place on the floor
Her failing body emits a pain she cannot ignore
But with a final reminder of the oath that she once swore
She stands tall for a proud moment, with the strength of before.

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The Gemstones

Anitha Ahmed — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:09:12 +0000

I’ve found it. After a full three hours of digging and searching in the same one foot vicinity, the sun is slowly beginning to sink down behind the rolling hills that make up the horizon. It doesn’t look like much—a weather-beaten plastic zip-lock bag so encrusted with dirt and caked with mud that its contents are masked completely. After wiping my own dry, cracked and filthy hands carelessly on the black skirt which I had stood in, sobbing silently, at this morning’s funeral, I picked the bag up gingerly, ignoring the shower of soil and little black beetles it deposited as I lifted it out of its shallow grave and placed it on my lap. Its contents made jingling and clinking noises—with shaky, dirt-encrusted fingernails I pinched it together and snapped it open.

I’ve got to hide these, Jake had said with a conniving smirk, holding the bulging zip-lock bag in one hand, and a little garden shovel in the other, I’ve got to put them somewhere safe, where they won’t find them and try and take em from me! He handed me the shovel and took my small, dimpled hand in his, dragging me down the grassy hills and past the pasture where our two twin mares grazed lazily. They came into my room just last night, he had said with frightful passion, his eyes glinting with a touch of anger, they came into my room and searched my drawers and my closet, and almost found my collection! He held the bag up in front of my face and shook them till he could hear the jingling, the clinking, and smiled with satisfaction. But they’ll never find my little stones all the way out here.
I had smiled eagerly at the adventure, warmed at the pressure his hand lent to mine, and followed him into the valley where the grass came up to our thighs and quivering rabbits darted between our legs and made narrow paths for us to follow. I didn’t have much of an understanding as to who they were, or what they could possibly want with the prized collection he had clasped tightly in his closed fist, but I was young then—I didn’t have much of an understanding for anything.

Now as the sun dipped behind the hills that Jake and I had once raced down with youthful excitement, I overturned the muddy zip-lock bag and let the contents pour out onto the pile of uprooted grass and overturned soil. Round, colorful, smooth and clean, mottled, freckled, shiny or matte, the gemstones slipped onto the ground. I ran my fingers through them, feeling their cool touch against my clammy skin, letting them flood over my palms just as the memories flooded through my mind and the tears began to leak down my face.

The first time Jake went to the hospital he was eleven years old, and I was ten. He insisted that I come with him, to be there to convince the doctors that what he was seeing was real—that he was in danger and that they—whoever they were—were truly after him and his belongings. He saw them with his own eyes, he told me, he heard their heavy footsteps before they came and felt the touch of their cold hands as they scratched his skin. That’s when he pulled out his arm from a striped sleeve and showed me the long scratches on his pale, greenish arm. Try and explain that, he had said. And I believed him—I didn’t know any better.

I picked up the gemstones and clasped them in my palm, and let them slip through the cracks in my fingers. I held them to my face and rolled them on my cheeks. These were the stones that Jake had picked out meticulously—off the ground, out of the sand, at museums; at the little gift-shop my uncle owned and ran at the state park not far away. He had an eye for them—he could catch the glimmer of crystal from far away, and he would spend hours polishing them with the machine that our mothers had pooled their money together to buy him for his seventh birthday. I remember we would take them out and lay them on the carpet in little columns, arranging them so that they formed a gradient in color. But that was a long time ago.

The day he left there were a lot of tears—Jake threw a fit. I don’t want to go, he had screamed, You can’t make me go. And his mother had shaken her head and held him to her with tears and heartbreak in her eyes as his father loaded the small car with shabby suitcases, his stature hunched, dejected. The medicines aren’t working, the doctors had said with serious courtesy, the treatment isn’t working. And then they had shut the door on Jake and me and told his parents that their son had to be under constant psychiatric supervision lest he try to hurt himself.
The day Jake left he made me promise him several things. I gave him my word that I would take care of his little mare, that I would make sure to watch out for myself—to protect myself from them. He also made me promise to go out and find the little bag of stones he had buried when I missed him the most—with a ghost of a smile he told me there was a little part of his soul in them for me to hold onto forever. With tearful kisses and hugs, I let him go, and I never saw him again.

And now as the sky changed in color from red-violet to deep purple, and a gentle spring breeze wafted the grass so that it tickled my neck, I held the stones close and tried to feel Jake through them—his laugh, his touch, his sneaky artifice. But all I could feel was the cold lifelessness of gemstones.

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How to Commit Murder

Anitha Ahmed — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:08:49 +0000

You are only fifteen, but your baby sister Jennie is in the next room hiccupping quiet tears to herself. It’ll take a while for you to become sufficiently instigated, given that your hands are shaking violently where you’ve stuffed them under your armpits, and your eyes are squeezed shut so tightly you’re beginning to see purple dots. Go ahead and keep them closed—you won’t need them for a little while. Keep your ears open, though, and listen closely to the ruckus unfolding in your kitchen. Listen to the heavy clunking of your drunken stepfather’s walk, his slurred words and his sleazy chuckle. That alone is enough to send a jolt of fear through your slender arms and quicken your already agitated heartbeat. But fear won’t be enough—tune in to your mother, as her nervous sweet-talk gradually inclines in pitch—as her words transform from shaky to incomprehensible. You hear a soft thud and then a shriek—now her voice is broken, shrill, and plaintive. She is begging. Let your tremulous fingers grow stiff and allow them to curl into the sweaty flesh of your palm, clench your teeth and hold your breath. The anger courses through your blood and makes you breathe faster—you’re incensed. You’re mother has been black and blue since she married that son-of-a-bitch and you won’t stand for it anymore.
But you’re still locked to the little alcove you’ve created in the center of your bed, you’re still too frightened to move—and you’re eyes are still closed. Don’t worry, only a little longer now. Listen to the sound of your sister’s sobs become a little bit louder—you’re stepfather’s laugh grow more and more malicious—and your mother’s hopeless screams—allow all the sounds to mix together and become your own, custom-made monster. But suddenly, you hear a sickening crack. One third of the noise comes to a jolting stop. Your heart skips a good five beats, you’re eyes pop open, and all the breath escapes your lungs. A wheezy string of swears from your detestable stepfather confirms that the worst has happened.
You jump to your feet—there’s a pocket knife in your drawer. Take it out—flip open the tiny silver blade. Don’t pretend like you haven’t been deliberating this for the past four and a half months. Take a moment for the anger to reach its peak, and for the fear to subside. It’s all quiet in the kitchen for a few moments, but you freeze when you hear the unsteady clunk of his boots swaggering towards your room.
“Kay-teeee,” you hear his drunken drawl, “come’ere sweetie, clean up this mess your goddam momma made.”
And that’s enough to make you so weak that your knees buckle and you fall to the ground, pocket knife this close to scraping your tender, bruised flesh. You hear his footsteps growing louder, he’s coming closer to your room. You know there’s no escaping.
But he stops a little short of your room. You hear your sister’s sobs come to a halt.
“Hey, there, Jennie, why were you crying?”
And now you’ve had it—hop to your feet, pocket knife closed tightly in your fist. Walk fast—there’s no turning back. It’s not so hard when you see his long, disgusting fingers scraping your baby sister’s tear-crusted cheek. Your knife finds a soft home in your stepfather’s back. Leave it there, watch for a moment as your stepfather falls to the ground with shock in his hazy eyes and the beginnings of a stream of blood form around him. Take your sister in your arms and get the hell out. No regrets—just resolve.

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The Carnival

Anitha Ahmed — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:08:00 +0000

On a nebulous evening at the corner of town
The vacated carnival begins to close down
And as the jaded workers wander out wearing frowns
The top of the Ferris wheel reveals a clown.

He teeters on the seat with sleazy eyes
Flashing a red smirk as he turns his head to the sky
Twists his caricatured face as he murmurs “goodbye,
Fair-you-well, cruel world, tonight I shall die.”

In his colorful suit and huge mottled shoes
He throws his bulky legs over the edge, into the view
They dangle haphazardly over the carnival blue
The icy laughter replaying in his mind like a queue.

He looks down at the world which bore him such dread
A state of angst past any tears he could shed
Off the seat he slipped, and into his death
They’d find him the next day, in a pool of red.

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