victim

Come now sweetheart anguish
how should I invoke thee?
content life is a joke
too convivial for me
where are the dreary dungeons
painfully high doldrums
where can I slump and mope
inject myself with poison
call it merry dope
apathetic boredom!
now that's the place to dwell
inhale a sorry breath
watch my chest swell
in agonizing torment hate this grotesque world
unzip my sack of sufferings that I carry around like a tote
I been done wrong
these regrets aren't my own
slathered upon me by hateful those
who couldn't watch me cope
with the sadness I befriended
for it truly understands my needs
sticking close by me
whispering of cruel deeds
that are inflicted upon my person
by those who say they love me
how could they possibly expect
I'd share their loathsome glee?
Are these tears not opaque?
haven't I already cried a lake?
Is it too much to ask
for a ready hand at task
wiping my face forever
not once stopping to say never
why needs must I always smile
when my head and heart are filled with bile
don't I know what they think?
smirking contempt hidden in their knowing wink
accusing me, if you can imagine
of dwelling forever on a melancholic brink
what would you have done
if your pain was always shunned?
if no one cared about your moist eyes?
after a thousand times of your whimpering cries
washed in permanent shrouds
of sobbing depressive clouds
fools they be presumptuous too
if they can't recognize my martyr halo.

Desert finale

Read part 1 - here
Read part 2 - here
Read part 3 - here
Read part 4 - here
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‘This is her temple, or at least was before we tore it down’ Huram proceeded towards the locked somewhat intact door with Keesan in tow and opened the rusted lock after a few tugs and twists.

The so called lobby where all the worshippers once sat and waited for Seti was piled in rubble from the ceiling that had caved in so many years back. Birds had taken to nesting in the desecrated temple turning it into an aviary of sorts and the whole place was littered with feathers and droppings.

Keesan watched his uncle clear the bigger pieces of rubble and stones from the pathway that lead to the inside of the temple and fashioning a broom out of a branch from an overgrown tree that had canopied the inside of the ruins, he began cleaning.

‘Did Seti curse this village because you banished her?’ Keesan asked sadly.

‘No’ Huram spoke after hesitating for a few moments 'She cared naught for the banishment as long as Gullat was at her side.

The devastation that befell our village didn’t happen immediately after she was gone, but a fortnight later.

After the wells and streams had dried up leaving but a few so as to enable a rather cataclysmic way of life we realized our folly, much too late and only out of desperation and decided the only way out of this disastrous string of tragic incidents was to apologize to our once deity and bring her back.

We were quick to forget the insults we jabbed her with only to selectively remember the adulation we once showered her way, and how magnanimous a heart she beheld that she’d never look down upon us in moments of need; thus it was decided that a few villagers would group together and go to to the desert to find her.

For some reason it felt like an incontrovertible idea and for the next few days we let the positivity of this thought reinforce our everyday life with an unshakeable belief of incoming prosperity, so much so that we almost forgot how miserable our lives had suddenly become and it was with this assured reasoning that a few villagers made their way to the desert to find our goddess.

You can imagine how selfish we must have been, that even during those times of duress did we not learn our lesson and imagined Seti obligated to do just as we asked, requested or begged.

Did we stop to ponder that perhaps she wouldn’t want to come back to this wretched village? Did we even know for certain that she was alive?

 But goddesses we reasoned never die and we were right, for a few days after the villagers had left for the desert that our village found itself staring at a sudden visitor we once loved and abruptly hated.

Seti was back. Her features just as noble if only harsher and accented with a weatherworn truth of desert life. 

Her eyes had not lost their beneficence and seemed to twinkle with a knowledge of our grief. 

She was however alone. Gullat wasn’t at her side, but this knowledge was easily ignored by a surge of ingratiating villagers who lost no time burdening her with their miseries, grief and flung their wailing needs and despair towards her just as they always did. 

Beseeching her kindness once again the villagers cried hoarse with aggravated demands and sobbed a thunder much like yesterday after the loss of crops.

Seti paid no mind to the prostrating villagers at her feet and slowly walked towards her burnt temple. 

This simple gesture of complete disregard and stark ignorance was new to the ever expecting villagers who felt themselves entitled to miracles and it was then that we noticed that our once deity no longer had six fingers on each hand as she once did, but five.

There was a mute bolt of shockwave that seemed to pass over everyone who saw that truth.

Anxious and alarmed I had ventured forward that day towards the temple where Seti stood and asked her of Gullat’s whereabouts.

The five minutes she spent talking to us were her last words in the village that haunt us to this moment.

Gullat was gone she had said. Not dead but suddenly gone. 

The desert had been most unkind. 

They had found a small waterbody of mostly brackish water that Seti had somehow made usable by treating with cacti and barks of an almost bare tree by the waterbody but water was a sustenance for only as long and soon the need for food had given rise to a greater truth.

The desert was not thriving with animals or insects but they still found some until it was impossible to sustain on chitinous exoskeletons alone.

That was when’.. Huram had fallen to his knees and begun crying on what Keesan thought had once been the altar. He lay there, his eyes streaming with apology and horror for a long moment.

Wiping his tears he resumed brooming bits of rubble and feathers that lay scattered and keesan thought it impossible to imagine this place ever being clean 

‘That was when’ Huram resumed between sobs ‘That Seti offered Gullat her extra fingers to be eaten. She didn't need them she said, and could be a while before the desert yielded them anything worthwhile to feed, but time will change soon she’d assured him and they'd put these tormenting moments of hardship behind them and begin anew. 

Seeing her short of two fingers we knew Gullat in his starving needs succumbed to his hunger and didn't refuse her offer, and the next day when she woke up she found herself alone.

Gullat was gone.

She knew not whether the desert consumed him or if he somehow made it out alive. 

Her heart had torn itself into excruciating grief and so much did she hurt each day in that desert that it began feeling laborious to ache anymore.

Pain had given way to reasoning and she understood that the reason he left was because they were no longer a mystery waiting to be unravelled.

They were to each other layers waiting to be unwrapped and this sudden intimate knowledge of her being was not something he was ready to live with and exist in her presence and so he vanished from her life, because the verity of her as a five fingered woman instead of the six fingered deity he silently worshipped was overwhelmingly real.. and so he is no longer with me she said and with a bitterness to her voice she added “because of you.”

That was the truth of it. She cursed us not because we banished her from the village but because our actions directly resulted in her abandonment by the one man she believed would never abandon her.’

Keesan noticed the sudden flurry of activity outside of the broken temple and saw a few dozen villagers beginning to slowly wipe away the dirt and scrape off the grimy soot from the walls.

The villagers had come noticing Huram clean the temple and so began restoring it, in hopes to sanctify the once holy abode of the miraculous six fingered deity.

‘They’ll never learn’ Keesan thought as another hailstorm approached the village.

Desert - 4

Read part 1 - here
Read part 2 - here
Read part 3 - here
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I think it was a sudden voice that erupted with the malice of nescient ignorance. 

We don't need you anymore it said, and suddenly that thready voice was strengthened to an obstinate rope of unyielding resolve. 

In a span of only a few hours Seti had fallen from grace into a wretched 

quagmire of obtuse thoughts; a setback of the so called virtues of a simple mind’

Huram drew in a deep breath at the recollection of the night and continued looking for a key.

‘But you weren’t one of them uncle. What did you say to the villagers?’ Keesan now wide eyed and sad queried.

Sighing Huram said ‘I was one of them Keesan. I was the one who so bravely spoke against her. Your uncle is a fool.’ and he broke down once again.

The thought of horrors that came next he felt the villagers too fortunate to even be alive by this time.

‘Goddess as she was, not once did she flinch from the muck of accusations flung at her in grim barrage. 

She bore it all, for there was Gullat standing by her side just as unflinching with determined fire raging in his eyes.

Her ever courteous face glowing with the faint smile of honest affection stayed upon her visage without even as much as a moment’s hesitation.

She drew herself up and spoke softly, briefly that she would be marrying Gullat with or without anyone’s permission, for she wanted to live her life as she saw fit on Gullat’s farm, that she’d always be a part of this village helping anyone who needed her help; as a deity however she would cease her services and therefore not have the temple as her abode anymore.

The fires that raged after these final words marked an end to the villagers civility, and end to this village’s fortune.

We told her in no uncertain terms that if she weren’t a deity then neither she nor Gullat would be a part of this village and these words visibly stung her. Shadows drew her face into hurting sorrow of pained questions.

How could this be possible she asked. She were a part of this village just as much a fish were part of streams, as leaves were of a tree, as golden wheat were a part of this village’s soil. 

By this time, almost dawn a few hours away from the eclipse that would shadow our lives and continue to do so to this day, we told the twelve fingered girl that the fish belonged to streams, leaves to trees, wheat to this village’s land, but she didn’t belong to this village. 

She was picked up an orphan and an orphan she was now, destined to live with another such.

Our contempt didn't just end there, so enraged with unrestrained boiling anger were we that we never stopped a naive villager in all his foolishness from picking up a burning log from the night fires that kept us warm and burning the temple. 

A frenzied mob lusts for destruction, their meaningless fury acts as a glue for every indignation suffered by anyone in the vicinity to stick on with a harsh bond. 

Their voices pile up in a rampage of madness until it all boils over to a place of no return.

This could has been avoided had we not been so bind, so simple, so reliant. There was no space for rational thinking, and had we thought about it as individuals instead of forming a cohesive structure of undiluted resentment there wouldn’t be hailstones buried in our soil today.

Even through all this she didn't think of reminding us of her existence in the village as our deity for she never thought of herself such. Just a fish swimming in this villages stream and we sought to fling it out to die in a desert.

She was asked to leave the village before dawn; to traverse the very deserts she was fooling us into cultivating. 

No one noticed the change that had come upon the villagers that night. As former worshippers who thought of no other way to life save devotion to Seti, we had transformed into sudden fanatics condemning our own god.

She didn't need to look in Gullat’s direction for his hands never left hers and thus guiding her they made towards the desert.

Throwing venom over an already burning wound was the norm of that night and a madman flung a bottle of water towards Seti and I said ‘There is enough water for the goddess to survive, but not live forever’ and I guffawed.’  Huram wept covering his face with his palms.

Keesan didn't know what to say.

The next morning the villagers stood to survey whatever paltry little had been salvaged after the hailstones. 

It was just as Huram had said over two decades ago to the goddess.

It was just barely enough for the villagers to unforgivably exist but not nearly enough to live upon. 

‘Is this why there are hailstorms just before harvest season uncle?’ Keesan asked barely hiding his disgust at Huram.

‘Its not just the hailstorms Keesan’ Huram weakly spoke and produced a key out of a fold from his sleeve.

‘Whats’ that?’ Keesan spoke realizing it was the key Huram had been looking for last night.

‘Key to seti’s temple. I had kept it after it was burnt down. Just as a remembrance that we relied on someone who didn’t deserve us. My every act a compendium of foolishness, just like every villager. Would you like to come?’ Huram looked over at Keesan who slowly nodded.

‘Moments after Seti and Gullat set foot in the desert vanishing over the horizon the world darkened and an eclipse swallowed our village.

The villagers still buried in their old fears and weak with exhaustion of night long disparage repaired for their homes and it wasn't until that evening that we began realizing our witless hysteria. 

There were some who thought justice was done and some who thought a bit of leniency should have been accorded, perhaps a small house on the village outskirts to live as beggars would have sufficed instead of letting them out into a desert.

Such magnanimous thoughts. Letting who was once our deity live on our scraps and curses.

Still, what was done was done and it was decided that this wasn't a matter to be pondered over, just as it was decided that the whole madness of cultivating a desert as Seti had asked of us was just as mindless as that woman herself.

Life continued to blossom in flourishing progress which made everyone question their once blind faith in Seti, and then two weeks later we received our first hailstorm. 

Fields were destroyed in agonizing waste and the villagers were distraught but not enough to mar their unconcerned features. It was a setback indeed, but the granaries were to the point of bursting, each house more than well stocked with food and though this seemed like a minor hindrance to slow down the usual growth prospects it was not as serious as to warrant sardonic brooding; this sudden change in weather though was often questioned and just like any ignorant we sought to sooth our doubts with made up logic.

The eclipse often changes the weather we had let ourselves believe, just like that flood from twenty years back. 

A few days later most of the wells save a few dried up..overnight, as did the streams. 

It was by this time the discomposure in the village had reached an agitated point of horror and alarm.

The sudden lack of water had compounded into many a problems from not having enough to drink to running out of water for vegetation and new crops. 

Prolonged continuation of this situation might lead to serious consequences of which we didn't want to think. 

Each problem seemed to be related, and there was just barely enough water to poorly survive. It was then that the very words I spoke to Seti hammered themselves aloud in my ears.

It wasn’t a realization as much as a truth unfolding itself in front of our eyes. The very day that the wells and streams began drying up we all knew in our hearts it was what we did to our deity that she does unto us. 

She had cursed us with the same knowledge we conferred her. 

Contd..
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Read finale - here