Sattire Attire part XV - Troubled Minutes & Dark Thoughts part III

And so it had come to this. Blinded by rage, maddened by jealousy, distraught by the abandonment of all hope, Sylvester, the hero of this dramatic odyssey, had turned villian. Every morning he would wake up with his world and state in shambles, his mind racing faster than his emotions like a train being chased by a passenger that is unable to catch up. Each passing moment in conciousness was torture; he had to spread the chaos that was consuming him around him.
The silent rioter loitering in the dark was somber, calm and methodic for the first time in days. He walked at a brisk pace, with a presence of mind that enabled him to avoid the puddles left behind by the rain earlier in the day. The rain had cleansed the city. Apt for the deed at hand and a new begining.
The delicate fabric of society that inhabited this city was made up of numerous threads of various races and religions, each as ancient as the other. It was a tightly woven fabric in which the threads were all fading into a single colour, so much so that it would be hard to distinguish one from the other; the fabric had a shade of its own.
But (there is always a "But") the threads are mere metaphors and the fabric was actually made up of men. Men who have darkness in them and an animal lurking inside that is caged. And it waits for that cage to be unlocked; when all social barriers and customs are suspended. When there is chaos. There is an animal in all men. And one just has to pull at one string to undo the whole fabric and let the beast go loose.
Sylvester knew that Dmitri and Fate were not the same creed...
The fog thickened all around Sylvester and he stopped walking. This was it. This was the meeting place. The curtain of grey parted for another figure who approach Sylvester.
"Is the deed done?"
"It is done. And you? Have you taken care of your end?"
"Yes... In a few hours the city will take to the streets. By noon the society's elite and intellectuals will have been lynched by the mob. There will be a curfew by dusk and each neighbourhood will begin 'cleansing' itself."
Good. How will they reconcile with each other after their friends and families murder each other's? Is the notion of love thicker than blood? No. Nothing can be thicker than blood.
"Thank you my friend. I did not realize that it would come to this when we first met each other at the diner."
"Strange as it may seem, but it was your friend who wanted us to be acquainted with each other. I wonder why he was not part of this noble cause?"
"Who? Dmitri?" Sylvester hid the shock in his voice as fog hid his expression.
"Yes."
"Well we must not loiter around here any longer."
And as they turned their backs to each other, they disappeared into each other's past.
Sylvester's walk back wasn't as calm as his walk to the meeting.
"Dmitri's sure to know who's behind this. This idiot will surely boast his doings all over" He argued with himself. An apology was in order then?
"Apologize?! Are you mad? You fully well knew who you were offending and how much. It's not really an apology if before commiting the fault you are aware that you will have to apologize for it after. And the magnitude of it all! You are beyond pardon from mortals, you fool. Your only choice is to finish what you started."
Sylvester half thinking sheathed his bloody dagger and tossed it to the side, and he walked home with moisture in his eyes and mist in his head.

Sattire Attire - More?

There is a story that I have to tell,
A story is only a story if it doesn't end well,
Time is not a healer - truth be told,
Time is just the cost of getting old.

Eat. Pray. Sing.

Pakistan today is not just the victim of the worst flood of the century, it is the victim of a flood of miseries. This nation of God-fearing, pious worshippers is faced with a fresh string of tragedies regularly. The cruel reality of irony could not point its finger and laugh any harder. A question is begging to be asked; why does God not answer their prayers? For even in their worst of times, they seek shelter from Him and beg for His mercy.
After great deliberation, I came to the natural conclusion of the fact that there is a language barrier; God does not speak Urdu. Which automatically leads us to the next conclusion; God speaks English and Arabic. One need only glance over indicators like the Human-Developement-Index, the Unemployment Rate, the GDP etc. of the English-speaking West and the Arabic-speaking Middle-East to be assured of the validity of the hypothesis. The statistics speak for themselves; a R-squared value in the high 60th percentiles if AnsweredPrayeres were regressed to these variables/indicators. Plead from your Lord in another tongue (and try to conceal your accent).
The obsession with religion reaches its peak in the matter of government-issued IDs and the category of 'Religion'. Being the drawing-room rebel that I am, I resolved to take a stab at this ludicrousness the next time I went to renew my passport. But being the drawing-room philosopher that I am, I was lost in my own thoughts and forgot to take the matter up when I recently got that bit of paperwork out of the way without filling out certain categories as I had planned to; "Religion: Pagan". But then again since I can speak English and since I just renewd my license to pray to God, I might as well make the most of it and ask of Him some big favours, comfortable in the knowledge that my requests will be heard and granted.

Sattire Attire part XIV - Do or Dye (it red)

"Some ships are made of gold - goldships. Some ships are made of silver - silverships. But the best ships are made of friends - friendships." - Nonsense from Class IV

"We used to be best friends" Sylvester protested.
"But we ARE best friends! What has gotten into you?" Dmitri said,as if the current state of events were the usual.
"What's gotten into me?! It's YOU who is never here. It's YOU who is no where to be found. It's YOU who never tries to make contact or respond to any efforts of mine either" Sylvester kept his voice low, so as to not attract any attention but the message was clear.
"I think we both know what has changed between now and before..." Sylvester continued, eyeing Fate from over Dmitri's shoulder. Dmitri did not need to turn around to get the message. He understood the problem; Sylvester was jealous.
But he only understood half the problem. Yes, Sylvester was jealous but of whom? In Dmitri's mind everything was nice and dandy; his best friend was jealous of his better half. But in reality and in Sylvester's mind it was not so simple. Sylvester was torn because of the lack of attention his best friend was bestowing upon him and he was distraught because the girl of his dreams was now a girl he would never know amourously.
Sylvester would take a bullet for Dmitri and he quell a storm for Fate (or any endeavour which would involve perishing) but he only has one life to give. So when asked to do both at the same time, would he start questioning his beliefs? Who would he choose and who would he choose to lose?
He had decided,prior to entering the diner, walking up to Dmitri and pulling him aside for a talk, what he would do. He could start a war with his friend or he could start a war with himself. And now that he stood in front of Dmitri, with Fate visible from over his shoulder, his decision appeared to be clouded with doubt.
"What's going on? You look like you haven't slept a wink?" Dmitri enquired out of genuine concern and out of a genuine attempt at changing the subject. It settled well with Sylvester; he needed some more time to think and he actually had not slept well or at all over the past few days. "Yea.. I'm sorry... I'll catch you later"
"Why don't you come join us?"
"I really shouldn't. I need to go." And he left.

Mere Dil Mere Musafir - Faiz Ahmed Faiz

My Heart, My Traveler*

My heart, my fellow traveler. It has been decreed again That you and I be exiled.
Go calling out in every street, Turn to every town,To search for a clue of a messenger from our Beloved.
To ask every stranger the way back to our home. In this town of unfamiliar folk we drudge the day into the night, Talk to this stranger at times,to that one at others.
How can I convey to you, how horrible is a night of lonliness? It would suffice to me if there were just some count, I would gladly welcome death if it were to come but once.

*Translation by Hamid Rahim Sheikh

Latest Addition

As suggested, I have 'moved' the Pengu Suicides series to blogspot.
http://www.pengusuicide.blogspot.com/
Enjoy

Sattire Attire part XIII Angel of dreams & Dreams of deaths

“...dying, in short, continues for a long time after death.” Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

The greatest fear of great men is to cross a path and not change its course; to wither away unnoticed, uncelebrated and unchampioned. But then, in the deepest confines of their hearts, all men consider themselves great. Why, then, only so few can live up to their heart’s greatest desire?

The greater the longing for greatness, the greater the pain after death; it is hard to forget perceived failure when reconciliation is no longer a possibility. So that even after death their souls are unable to come to terms with the finality of death and the eventual exhaustion of all their chances to become mythical and legendary. Indeed, even in death they are bound by chains of failure; failure to live again. But in life chances are aplenty in each breathing moment. And Sylvester was still breathing.

But death lingered close by. Overwhelmed by an emotion so potent, he did not know whether it was grief, guilt, anger or jealousy, Sylvester was unable to let his mind rest. And since his body was always in sync with his mind, it refused to rest as well. Sylvester had trouble sleeping. He had trouble sleeping because he feared it. Aspiring-great-men are permitted other fears besides the failure to fulfill their desire for greatness, and Sylvester feared sleep.

To be more precise, he feared what transpired after his eyelids curtained reality from his senses. He feared what he dreamt. He dreamt falling in an endless, dark pit. He dreamt drowning in the ominous depths of an unwelcoming ocean. He dreamt being torn apart by wild animals (big and small). He dreamt being consumed by an enormous conflagration, its origins unknown. He dreamt being stranded in a deserted town and left starving for days.

He dreamt many painful situations, but he failed to dream their end. He suffered relentlessly in his dreams but his sufferings never ended; he never achieved death in his dreams. And I wonder, if any of us can? But what a strange turn of events: a setting of a pseudo-alternate reality and the aspiring-great-man’s fear is no longer his Fear. His fear is now the opposite of his Fear. He fears the inability to die, irrespective of how ceremonious it would be. How must it feel to face death and know that you will live through the endeavour to eventually face it again? Sylvester, though a great-man-to-be, was struggling where both reality and imagination were concerned.

So, unconsciously he feared not dying, and when in his senses he feared an underachieved ending. But of late another thought had plagued his reality and imagination; the fateful woman, Fate.

Why was his longing for Fate so great? He had come across many a dame that had numbed his senses for a few fleeting moments. And having procured the cure to numbness, he had scurried along without any excess baggage of guilt or shame. The fate with Fate would have surely been no different. Was it just the desiring the unattainable syndrome or was it something more? Was it the making of a great love story, which would permit him to play the bereaved lover’s part who has to make the great sacrifice? Only time would be able to tell.

Sattire Attire part XII - Lionhearted, Birdbrained

"We all owe death a life" Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children

A seed is a remarkable... existance; microscopic in size, weightless in weight, a withered past and a future unknown. Every birth can trace itself to its seed. Seeds bloom into flowers, they are fed to birds, reach the heights of great tall oaks, they transform into lions and men - lionhearted and otherwise.

But we humans are sometimes so clever that we manage to defeat imagination and arbitrariness. We have classified seeds so as to predict their pattern; an apple-tree seed will grow into an apple tree, a rose-seed will blossom into a rose and a human seed will take the form of either man or woman - in most cases. But we humans, like apple trees and roses, are not perfect; we did not manage to completely annihilate all arbitrariness and imagination.

Can we fathom whether the apple-tree from the apple-tree seed will bear sweet fruit - or will the apple from the tree descend upon the head of an unsuspecting imaginist, changing the course of human history and thought, and leading to the very murder of arbitrariness and imaginiation that we so adore?

Can we, then, fathom whether the rose from the rose-seed will smell as sweet as its parent -or will it find itself strangled between the clasping hands of two lovers under the shadow of a winged midget fidgeting with its bow and missing arrow?

Or can we even fathom whether the man - assuming that the imagination of the arbitrariness of gender has been murdered - from the human seed be a poet? A warrior? A tyrant? A beggar?

At last we have salvaged some arbitrariness and some imagination, but also something else... some doubt, perhaps? Doubt. yes, some doubt. There always has to be some doubt to strike balance in these matters, as in all matters equilibrium is what settles things.

But the seed of doubt? Oh what a monsterous abomination! A curse of the worst kind; a small doubt that grows day by day, feeding itself on anything that comes in its course. A small growing doubt that spreads into branches, many twigs and branches, and it spreads and grows - and grows and spreads; assidious in its growing and spreading, till in the end it bears fruit; an accusation!

Fed and brought up on truths, half-truths, hearsay, lies and doubt, the accusation is a poisonous fruit that when ripe can kill any relationship the moment it is emitted from the serpent's glands; it kills right before the moment it finds itself on its prey.

It is a poison that eats away the insides of the tree that nourishes it until it is spat out onto its victim; expunging either the bearer or the victim from the relationship, depending on whether it manages to eat away the bearer before it is served to the victim. And sadly there is no antidote for it.

Seated there on table 8 Sylvester had finally gained some composure after the day's extraordinary happenings. He was trying to make sense of it all. But something bothered him, as he revised the course of the day in his head. Something had happened near the end of the day that left him a little unsettled and gloomy; doubt had impregnated him. That mysterious man, who only talked in question-marks, had planted the seed of doubt in his mind.

And I am sure that by now we all know that the narrative from here can only take an ugly course. But it is a beautiful cloudless night and I do not have the heart to pursue such a noctural endeavour on such a starlit night. Call it a travesty of justice and abuse of patience if you must but bear with my absence for a little while longer.

Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi

Stab the dog

MMM: The dog snores
Me: stab it
MMM: All in good time. I just need to win over its trust first. Then 'meat infront of a car on the road' will come in play. But zk says you need to chill and get a gf with a dog and then you will fall in love with the dog more than the gf. And then she will stab you.
Me: always count on zk to give the wrong advice. but then again you could stab the gf and throw her infront of the car and then you'll have your 'meat in front of a car on the road' play.

The hate for dogs is not without good reason. Let's say that there was a dog called snuffles. Snuffles was a bitch by definition and otherwise. I was asleep on a sofa-bed, at peace with the fact that the dog was locked outside and did not possess the physical means of rising to the height of the door handle and opening the door. I was wrong.
Oblivious to the cruel prospects that would potentially await me, I was blissfully relaxing under the shade of an apple tree with warm waters wetting my feet. I quickly realized that my feet were a bit too wet for my liking, so I pulled them out of the water. But the water followed my feet whereever they went. The level of discomfort forced me out of my slumber only to be shocked by the sight of Snuffles on the sofa-bed licking away at my feet as if it were a piece of t-bone steak that she would soon devour.
As a result of the shock my impulsive reaction was kick the dog as hard as I could. Realizing that such an act would prompt a retaliation from the beast, I jumped up and threw my blanket on the animal and kicked it a few more times so as to immobilize it. By now I was a sure shot mortal enemy; no reconcialation would be possible. After my sporadic attack on Snuffles I ran out of the room and closed the door behind, only to realized that I had locked myself out. The other two doors that faced me were locked too. I had to spend the rest of the night in the gallery, as amidst all the excitement and shock I had left my cellphone by the sofa-bed side. I was cold and without a means of communication. Stupid bitch!

What's the capital of...

Another one of those nights; sitting senza fine (without aim) on the floor and surrounded by clowns. Usually most things in life should have a purpose, but then such a blatant waste of time would never be.
"What's the capital of Kuwait?" asked Feeqs
"Kuwait, that was sooo easy" answered Tinu, "Ok. What's the capital of China?"
"Sooo easy. Beijing." Feeqs said with overconfidence "I bet you don't know the capital of South Africa"
"Oh it's so easy... I watch cricket you know!" Tinu said as he went deep into meditation.
I knew every single one of the capitals but this game of trying to prove each other dumb was entertaining at first, but now they were naming countries they both didn't know capitals of.
"Pretoria!" exclaimed Tinu to Feeqs smug look. Tinu was obviously the smarter of the two. But I already knew that.
"Ok what's the capital of Argentina?"
"OOOoooh I KNOW this!!! Just give me a minute!" Feeqs said, to my great surprise. He was acting like he really knew the answer.
"Just give me a minute, it's on the tip of my tongue" he said as he started to whispering to himself some indiscernable words.
Tinu stole a look towards me which said 'This is going to be so entertaining'. And so I got ready to brace myself.
"OK ok ok! It's uhhh...San something... uhh.. Sannn... Saannnnn.... uhh.. San Marino!!" Feeqs really did put a lot of thought into it. But really, where on earth is San Marino?
Tinu acted shocked, like we do when Pakistan looses a cricket game that they've seemingly won.
"How did you know?!" said Tinu, almost acting frustrated.
Here I must admit, it was my fault for I could not contain myself any longer. I burst out laughing like a maniac that's broken out of a mental asylum.
"eff you Tinu. I bet you don't know it yourself." A summary of what Feeqs said to Tinu but in a less colourful language.
"Ok ok Feeqs I'll give you another one so you can prove yourself. What's the capital of Tanzania?"
"I Don't Know and I bet you don't either!"
"Oh but I do"
"Yea? What is it?"
"Dodoma"
"HAHA! Dodoma?! You expect me to buy that?"
We didn't even have to look at each other to know that the other hugging the floor and struggling to breathe because sometimes, and often times, Feeqs just manages to get himself into the most hilarious conversational traps. Feeqs stormed out of the room.

The Solitude of Emprors

The one who stays within the limits assigned to him is a man
The one who roams beyond these limits is a saint

To reject both limits and their absence:
That's a thought with immeasurable depths.
- Kabir

Quotes of the day

It was late at night, at an hour which the simple Suzies consider ungodly, when roads are devoid of cars and the scenery devoid of pedestrians. Contrary to popular belief, it is the most spiritual time of day. But for some reason the McDonald's drive-thru had a line up. That did not bother the characters in our story though; Tinu, Feeq and Biro.
After much debate they had finalized their order. A big mac meal, a big mac meal and a big mac meal. Oh and there was an apple pie.
They had finalized their order far too early though; they were still 3 cars and 10 mins of service behind.
"Don't forget my apple pie!" Feeq reminded Biro in his usual irate tone.
Feeq can be summed up in three simple words: Angry Young Man. Angry with life, money, women, friends, friends (the tv sitcom), the Tunisian government, any government... he was angry with coffee and he was angry with tea.
When Feeq wasn't angry he was staring women down. They didn't have to be pretty. He would just stare them down. It's not as creepy as it sounds; like an alarm clock that rings every morning even if it's a Saturday, Feeq would stare at women, even those that looked like men.
As fate would have it Feeq turned around to look inside the McDonald's and he saw a couple of girls of African origin. And then he decided to bestow on his friends some great insight: "You know these Nigerians, Kenyans, Sudanians..."
"Feeq, it's Sudanese" corrected Tinu.
"What? Yea, I know. Anyways, these Sudanians.."
"Its Sudanese, not Sudanians. Say it after me: Soo-Daa-Knees"
"Sudanese. There! Anyways these Sudanians..."
"Man, what's wrong with you?"
"What? So, these Sudanians..."
(Tinu to himself) "WHY do I bother?"
"...are SOOO Fucking Dumb!"

we don't need no Valetination

Pick up lines courtesy our heros, Beavis, Butthead and me

"Why don't you get out of my dreams and into my car, baby?"
That didn't really work. It didn't work because the girl did not have a sense of humour. She was blonde, so I did not expect her to have any common sense either. All she had was nonsense. Which is exactly why I was drawn towards her. But I think the reason why it did not work was because I did not have a car and I don't think she thought the car was a metaphor. Which is what I was hoping for.
A metaphor for what though? On second thought, I think this was as far as I could have gotten with that line. Thank God she wasn't mildly smart enough to assume a metaphorical car.

"You need a man in your life, baby. And like, I need a woman. Let's like get into each other's life or whatever"
She said that she already had a man in her life. I told her that my life's pretty much free and she can step in whenever she wants. Her man ended up stepping ON it.

"I'm not trying to pick you up. You're like too heavy"
Some words kill a girl's sense of humour. They are heavy, fat, huge, big, twilight, bradd pit and 'that bitch'

"If you're really hot, I bet I can cool you down.."
This is where being cool comes in handy. But if you're not cool and if you're hot then you're screwed because 'If you're really cool, I bet I can hot you up' is not correct English.

"Hey that burka/niqab/shuttlecock looks great on you"
This is great because you're telling her that you appreciate her inner beauty. But when her outer beauty is under a bukra, it becomes the inner beauty. And when the inner beauty is under the burka, it becomes the inner-inner beauty. In fact, all you're really appreciating is the work of the burka-maker. But you don't really need to worry about that, they haven't really figured that out yet.

"I would like, do homework or something, for your love"
She's probably done her homework. Or doesn't plan to do it. She'll always have second thoughts about YOU doing her homework. Anyways, is it really worth it?

"Hey, are you one of those chicks who goes out with guys right off the bat? Because that's what I'm looking for.."
You've got to keep using this one till someone says 'yes' and then it will work automatically. The premise just sets it up so nicely for you.

"I wish I was in the bomb-squad, then I could defuse you... cause you're a sex-bomb"
extra chees-E. But we have a winner if you ever want to commit suicide.

A fable of old (1)

This story is about the anceint tribes of Dirka. They occupied the territories between the two great rivers, which were one, of the world. The rivers had the same origin and the same end, but in the middle they strayed from each other. Like two lovers matched in heaven and then set on their separate paths at birth until their destinies brought them together.
But that was not what was peculiar about the rivers. Legend has it that one, Gurchak, flowed upstream while the other, Gurcham, flowed downstream. The land between them was called Dirka or 'The eye of a Whirlpool'.
Each river served a divine purpose. Gurchak, the river that flowed upstream, was used for fishing or fish hunting. The fish, swimming against the current, was strong and was good meat. It is what these tribes of warriors fed on.
It was forbidden to fish-hunt in Gurcham, for the fish flowing harmlessly with the current were considered innocent. Gurcham was for disposing the head-less dead.
Dirka spread far and wide. With mountains, forests and gorges abundant. The people of this tranquil though, did not lead a tranquil lifestyle. They were warrior tribes who seldom made peace. During peace they prepared for war.
This story is about one such war between the Dun and the Hur and Mok tribes. Tribal custom had it that the daughter of the Chief was heir to the throne in Dirka. She was the law maker and law enforcer. Any man could aspire to be Chief. But in order to become Chief, he would have to bring to the Queen the head of the Chief of another tribe after having killed him a hand battle.
It ensured that the best warrior was always leading the army. And it provided the Queen with a man more manly than the last. This practice did not usually result in war. But not always.
The daughter of the Queen of the Mok tribe was probably the most beautiful woman in the land. It seemed as if the heavens had conspired to mock the earth by sending to earth a woman whose grace far outgraced the mountains, whose eyes would make the sun blink, whose face the lakes would be reflected in, whose voice the winds would fall silent for. And for whose hand, the Chiefs of all other tribes had doubled their ration of fish from Gurchak.
Her mother, the Queen, was old and would not last another two moons. And so the tribe of Mok would soon need a new Chief.
Rumours of her beauty spread throughout the land. Many men came to confirm these rumours and to win her hand. But the Chiefs of all the other tribes had been eating alot of the fish.
One young man, son of the Queen of Hur, though was resolute.
On the day of her crowning, a young man brought to the (to-be) Queen of Mok the head of the Chief of Hur, his own father. The tribe of Mok had gained a Queen and a Chief in one day after loosing her mother the night before.
The Queen of Hur, though aware of the peculiarity of the situation had embraced her new position of seeking-Chief and at the same time, due to the inter-marriage between the ruling households of the Mok and Hur tribes, she declared a treaty and an alliance between the two. History was made in Dirka.
How, then, did the war begin between Dun and the Mok-Hur alliance?

Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi

Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi Pepsi
Coke sucks!

Bread, Cloth and Shelter.

To be content as a peasant is to lead an honest living with the void of wanting more. But what is it that man wants more of? More of house, cars, money, electronic gadgets etc. So, if there were no palaces to begin with, would man still desire a palace?
What dreams would a man, who all day dreams of a huge palace, dream?
The peasantry serves the man in the castle. So if there are no castles, the peasantry serves no one.
His ideas, naturally, appealed only to the peasants. In a world where there were only two kinds of people, those who were with the Nobleman and those who were victims of his tyranny, this was a dangerous development. For the peasants outnumbered the Nobleman and his cohort of sophisticated employees.
One of these sophisticated employees termed this peasant and his followers as outlaws and enemies of the state. But this fool was too blind to see that the laws of nature override the laws of man. And the laws of nature clearly state that all men are equal. The peasants no longer considered themselves peasants and they no longer considered the nobleman noble.
Once the mind becomes aware of this truth, the laws of man can throw no veil over it. Such was the state of affairs and it was rumored in the courts that a rebellion was at hand.
And so from the laws of man, life was transitioning towards the laws of nature. A state of equilibrium was being achieved where peasants no longer considered the nobility of Noblemen and the Noblemen no longer tried to subjugate the peasantry.
But as it so often happens in life; it moves in circles, from disparity to equilibrium to disparity. Tis almost a man-made phenomenon 'the circle of life'. There is an addition to the Nobleman's cohort of sophisticated employees, and at the same time, there is a subtraction from the peasantry. This returns to how things were balanced in disparity. The rebellion is no more. But the peasants remain peasants and the Noblemen keep their nobility intact. Only the fate of one peasant changes. The peasant who started it all. The one that stopped dreaming of palaces and started dreaming of something else.

This Charming Man

I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "It's gruesome that someone so handsome should care"

Sattire Attire part XI: Be aware of the ides of October

‘Some men are so great that they can be unmade only by themselves.’ Shame - Salman Rushdie.

And he sat there, preoccupied with damage control. A date with Fate was unlikely, thanks to Dmitri.
"You are close?"
Sylvester turned around to see who'd said that. He'd been too distracted by the tense atmosphere in his head to be even minutely aware of his surroundings. The man seemed innocent, mild mannered and... well he was a stranger and it's okay to tell strangers anything and everything because you may never meet them again.
There is annual gathering in town in which people conceal themselves under white sheets with two holes for the eyes, much like ghosts in pop-culture. They gather around the oldest tree in the oldest park and read out their most intimate secrets in a slow droning voice. Each year their numbers increase, the secrets increase the secrets become less and less articulate among the horde of voices. Secrets mingle and intertwine into one loud, undecipherable mumble. They all know that if they cannot keep their secret to themselves, that if they have to say it out loud, they wait for that day. For they know that on that day anything that will be said aloud will be lost in the wind.
Some people like to listen. They stand around trying to listen to the secrets of one white sheet or another. They keep moving on until they find an interesting story, or one that has just begun. It is their way of keeping secrets for people they do not know. An hour before midnight on the ides of October the people of the town know where to go if their thoughts are stifling them. In the whole year there is one hour of honesty and trust. People come and they confess, profess, listen and understand. They empty their hearts and begin filling them up again until the next year.
To their more difficult patients, Psychiatrists recommended the ritual.
Sylvester was one of the whispering ghosts. Years and years of standing in front of the old tree and revealing his most inner-self had emboldened him, and he began to trust strangers. He began to trust strangers more than his friends. It was not because he did not trust his friends. It was because he knew that his fears could never be used against him if they were not known to be his.
And so, there he was without his white sheets with holes and he was talking to a stranger.
"You are close?", he had asked. Almost in a way that depicted doubt.
"No, we just met a couple of minutes ago. I don't even know her last name" said Sylvester in a dejected voice. He was looking at his shoes now.
"Oh but I wasn't talking about her. I was talking about him."
"Oh! Yes, I would say so." As he said that he looked up in the direction of Dmitri and Fate. But they were not there anymore. He then turned to look at the man next to him. He was not there anymore either.
Sylvester felt uneasy. Not because it had not worked out with Fate. Not because Dmitri had ridiculed him in front of Fate. Not because the strange stranger had doubted the friendship between Dmitri and him. But because, for the first time, Dmitri had parted ways and not him.
Dmitri was too bitter a man to feign pleasantness with Fate. Sylvester's mind was going where he did not want it to go. But there was nothing he could do to stop it and October was three months away.

On Bakra Eid by the Poet (with takhalus) 'afsos'

Pait ki faryaad hai tau aani jaani
aur guzar jata hai din baghair peeyay paani
magar afsos! saalon ki baat aur hai
keh saal mein aik hi din milti hai biryani