There is a line of forest on the hills.
“Let me down.”
“What will you do here? There’s nothing here.”
“Fuck you let me down.”
The ground is weaving patterns under my feet, playing tricks on me’s this earth, hot like burning coals, the hills are dancing, in the shimmer black birds with forked tails are darting. With some part of my mind I recall that this is the eighth day of Nautapa, then shame hits, plus despair. All whom I loved are gone, lost to me forever, distant is that city of disaster, its streets and alleys I knew so well, a far off and hopeless place, I will not go back, I won’t, never will I return, if I am dying let me die here in the open like a beast, or else let me live here, far from people, never again do I want to look on a human face. I’ve kicked off my kakadus. I’ll live as an animal, alone and free as an animal should, no master I’ll have, no work, no duty but survival.
“Survive, will you?” The datura speaks, sitting coiled inside my gut, “you have eaten thirteen of my dark golis, O Animal, now you shall see what you shall see.” The flames climb in my throat but can’t exit, full of nothing I’m nothing full of flames, in my ear the datura sings a song:
thou art an animal fierce and free
in all the world is none like thee
in fire’s forge thy back did bend
my bitter fire be thy end
“Vas te faire foutre!” Hopeless, friendless, alone, ill I may be, but I’ll not be bullied. “Fuck off!” I’m trying to speak, but my voice is a chirring cricket that hops from my tongue and is lost.
It is late afternoon when I enter the first trees, thorns, dry grasses, twigs snapping under my feet, howra hoora cries of birds, japing greenly go thus trees through, oh I’ll discover my true state, die or live, animal returning to its truly home, four feet have I my eyes are stars my nose is snakes that lick their nostrils, dream lipless dreams, the sun above is like a mouth roaring out flames, the skin of my back is frying, a rod of fire is my throat, each breath is a fire-eater’s gush of flame, Farouq you thought you were so great to walk across a bed of coals, try a stroll in my gut. Naked, I lie on my belly drink from a ditch and bite the sonofabitch sun, I feel like my own father whom I have never known.
Down inside me voices are speaking making no sense seems the plant season so rare it floats, pimpish stuff in there, pimpish, leave where it’s, ça fait un peu boui-boui, this is our kingdom
Shady is the forest but under its trees is no relief. I am searching for other living things, none do I see, coloured like the back of a shrike’s the forest, browns and fawns, grasses dry, dry thorns, dry trunks, its leaves are suffering in the heat’s fierce fetch, not just in me’s this agony but in the world. Where are you, animals, let me introduce myself? I stop and listen, nothing’s there but stirring of leaves. This ground is strange to me, gone beedi wrappers, orange peels, plastic, here are bent grasses, twigs in patterns and piles mixed with old leaves on the forest floor, shapes that curl and spiral like twists of a stair are seeds. Here’s one beetle-winged, I am looking for signs left by hoof, paw, belly of snake, nothing can I find. My nose discerns only the scent of parched earth, my only fellow beings are these silent sufferers rooted in dust waiting for rain.
“Silent, say you?” sniggers the datura, “then wait for night O Animal. Let night come, you shall hear what you shall hear.”
“What, are you still here?” The sickness is squirming in my guts like a snake. “I do not think that you will kill me. I am stronger than you, I will defeat you.” The datura gives such a buffet of pain I go staggering my legs and arms give way I am biting the bitter soil.
“I’ve not yet begun,” says the datura.
Comes night plus a falling moon, caught in tangles of branches above my head. “Should we show him?” asks a familiar voice. “Yes, show,” says another.
“It will be wasted,” says the first. “A great fool, he’s.”
A tear drips from the moon’s eye and lands on a branch. Lines of light spread in all directions, racing from tree to tree, till all the trees of the forest have silver edges, their voices are nothing I’ve ever heard, like deep flutes filled with water. “Show the animal, show him what he really is.”
A light appears on the forest floor, glow’s spread till it’s all around me.
“Ha ha ha, so much for kidnapping, what would you like to chat about?” whispers he ex-of-the-jar. “Datura and moonlight, not a good cocktail, and this is just the beginning. Can you imagine what’s coming?”
“My own death.” Waves of sickness are pushing up inside gut heaves throat yawns jaws gape, up comes nothing.
“So Khã,” says he, “let’s talk. What shall we discuss? Death and life? This and that?”
The nausea is bucketing through me horrors and griefs in my belly are rioting up comes nothing. “Don’t torment me, Khã, thirteen dark moons have I swallowed and I am going to die.”
“Are you going to die, my dear?”
“I think so, Khã.”
My mouth opens a cobra slides up out of my throat its body fills my guts its tail dangles out of my arsehole every muscle in my body strives to expel it, up comes nothing.
“Just so, it’s time for the Zippo,” says my mate, his first head. “Click whirr whoosh, do the needful kindly.”
Adds the second, “And oblige.”
A datura is growing in my gut pushes forth leaves and flowers out of my mouth and out my nose. “I don’t have my Zippo, Khã, I have lost it.” My tongue wags furry as a dog’s tail.
“Then snap your fingers,” says he. “It makes no difference.”
A flick of the thumb, a whooouf of blue flame, a violet flash. My little two-headed friend is no more.
“You are handsome bastards,” I tell the two tall angels that shimmer there in the moonlight.
“Don’t we know it?” they laugh, and give me friendly glances. “Free, at last, thanks to you, Animal.”
Trees are writhing in the darkness I call out are you in pain, it’s me who’s dying. We are not in pain we are dancing. What, dancing with joy? We have no need of joy cry the deep flutes of the trees, we are in need of water and so are you O Animal. Find water if you want to live. Where can I find water on this dry hill? Go down, go up, your choice. My feet are raw with blisters, I can go no further. Then lie here and we shall wrap our roots around your bones. I need my bones, friends. Lie here, die here, we are no friends of yours, soon you will have no need of your bones.
You are an animal fierce and free
you shall see what you shall see
que ta chair devienne sèche we shall
feast upon your flesh
Above my head a monkey sits on a branch, eating a fruit it’s, spitting seeds onto the earth, the fur slides from its face, revealing the skull beneath, its flesh drips in furry glowing blobs, all bones is the monkey, one by one the bones fall and lie shining in the moonlight, earth opens a brown mouth sends out a green tongue it becomes a tree gobbles the monkey’s bones, tree grows tall, shining fruits appear among its leaves, a monkey sits on a branch eating the moon.
Now it’s fury, I’ve jumped up and yelled at the trees, “Keep your cut-price visions I’m not impressed putain con, who do you think you’re dealing with I’m not just any animal I’m THE ANIMAL have some fucking respect or I’ll climb up and wank on you, you don’t scare me.”
“Plus you don’t scare us,” say the trees, joining branch to branch they’re, dancing in a ring, each tree leaping to the next quicker than eye can follow, ugly selfish demonic beings they have become, they reach down and rake me with thorny claws. All the night I cannot sleep for fear of the trees which will devour me if I sleep, grasses push sharp needles into my hands and feet, coiled in my gut the datura is rolling on its back laughing,