Indra Sinha - Animal's People

“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,

The sun rushes up in hot smokes of red and green, gargling in my throat’s a new fire of thirst, tongue’s thuggish, bitter as a pheasant’s heart. Mouth agape, I climb in the forest, turning in circles, from waterless agony is no escape, to it is no end. I think of Zafar whom I poisoned, strange dreams I gave him, plus pain, yet even while dying he forgave, if I meet his ghost it may not be so kind, spirit of Zafar I’ll say, I too chose this death. The ache in my guts has a familiar edge, burnt in sharp blues and oranges, I know this beast that stalks within, it’s my old enemy hunger, gradually its shape clears, thirsty I’m plus so hungry I could eat anything, I tear grass, chew bark, berries, dig up roots plus mushy things and gnaw them all earthy. I’ve ripped the petals off flowers and munched them.

Starving hunter creeps on all fours across the forest floor, dry twigs avoid, make no sound, I have spotted food, a lizard sunning on a rock, its little legs pump its fat body up and down, it has plump cheeks, a fine and meaty tail, I find a stone, fling, thud, lizard’s off rock flying, I’ve only caught it in the ribs, it’s lying panting its mouth open, a dent in its side, mine now, but the lizard’s skittered away in damaged panic, me on it like Jara on a rabbit, it’s wriggling under my hand. How to kill it? I can feel its heart jump, lizard eye’s glaring, just bite its head off bloody, you were not made for roots, think like a tiger, let red lust close your eyes, unhinge your jaw prepare to kill.

“Don’t eat me,” cries the lizard, “I’ll tell you something most important.”

“Sorry, I am too hungry to spare your life.”

“I won’t taste good. If you think datura’s bad wait till you taste my venoms, boy you will wish you’d never been born.”

“Already I wish that.”

“Nothing it’s compared to the wishing you’ll do if you eat me,” says the creature with a sad look in its eye, like it’s lost hope of saving itself.

“Go then,” I say, releasing it. “I am sorry I hurt you.”

“A broken rib may mend,” says the lizard, “but your nature you can never change. You are human, if you were an animal you would have eaten me.”

Night comes, no food nor water have I found, moon’s thinner as if it too is starving, it’s a night of still air in which a chouette is calling, hoo hoo, I rest my cheek against the hairy bark of a tree and hear its slow thoughts, climb, hand over hand, into the branches and sit there, Animal alone in his kingdom. Grief comes to me, all my rage and fear empty in dry coughing sobs. I call to my fellow creatures, “Brothers and sisters, the lizard’s wrong, I am one of you, come to live with you. Show yourselves.” None come, but there’s a rustling, it’s the lizard whose life I spared, she says, “Hey Animal, soon you’ll be a shrivelled old sack, I will creep into your dry carcase and lay my eggs around your heart.”

The voice takes you where it wants, not where you want to go. It tells you there is no deceiving, what you see you shall see, you have chosen. The voice tells me things I couldn’t know, shows me stuff I don’t want to see. If I could open a window and run I would but no escape there’s, the window opens inward, to the visions and uncapturable beauty. The trees are tusked in Siva, I vomit rainbows, when I dung I make the earth. The voice inside me says, to enter a temple you must bring only yourself, this is why, Animal it’s right that you should starve.

“Where shall I go, where shall I look?”

The voice inside me says, whichever way you turn, this is the way.