Thought: One hundred and fifty-five.
……………………………………..
I despise her deeply for being utterly characterless, yet love her greatly for her beautiful mind and elevated capacity for thought. I was sitting in a field with such a friend, eating peanuts. I called out to a few street children… “Hey, want some peanuts?” Instantly, as many peanuts as there were, that many hands reached out! Their bodies clad in terribly dirty clothes—naturally, that’s how it would be; layers of grime had accumulated until all their faces looked identical. Just as the mother in the movie ‘Basu, The Little Stranger’ had been startled upon first seeing Basu, I too was startled. Perhaps if they were given at least five thorough soap baths, scrubbed clean, their real faces might emerge. I am an extremely fastidious person; I detest filth. When visiting someone’s home, if I see even the slightest stain on the bedsheets, I’d rather pace the veranda all night than sleep in that bed! But I felt no anger toward them, because their uncleanliness wasn’t their fault—it was either their parents’ or fate’s. After various chitchat with them, I pressed a soiled note into each of their soiled hands (why must notes always be crisp? All my notes are worn—like my life). The soiled faces with their grimy features spoke out with clear, pure, firm pronunciation from unstained hearts: “Thank you!” Instantly, slaps rang across the cheeks of many so-called educated people from so-called civilized society. Even when someone harms themselves to help these uncivilized people, they show not an ounce of gratitude; and when they do, it’s often fake or just a perfunctory “thank you.” Yet how sincerely, how genuinely did these uneducated street children express their thanks.
Child, I don’t know how much of your thirst my money will quench, but you have quenched my soul’s thirst. Today, with such a small amount, I’ve gained the profit of a hundred thousand!
I’m not saying that people help others expecting gratitude. Gratitude brings peace to the human heart and makes one eager to help others. We are an ungrateful race; often ungracious too. The one who bares their chest for us—we plunge a knife into that very chest.
My friend had been silently watching my actions. One thing she said that day has lodged in my mind: “You know, I’m feeling such joy! I used to think nothing was greater than physical gratification. Today I realize how precious mental joy is—beside it, all bodily pleasures are trivial!”
There was a lover. At first I thought he was my lover. Later I understood—he is a lover, but not only mine—he’s everyone’s lover. I tried so many times to make him understand; he never wanted to. He’s paid the price for his actions many times over, yet learned nothing. He has diminished his parents in society’s eyes. People love people, want to have them close—fine, but that doesn’t mean finding several partners every day, having sex, discarding them the next day as leftovers, then finding new ones again, going through multiple abortions, parents being shamed in society, utter despair descending upon life, knocking on the psychiatrist’s door thirty days a month—this may be many things, but it certainly isn’t life.
For all these reasons, I wanted to cut her out of my life many times, but because I loved her so deeply, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon her in that state—it wouldn’t have been right. Because outside her family, I was the only one she had in her life—everyone else was just a passing guest. Without me, she was utterly helpless, completely lost.
After much effort, reasoning with her, bringing her to a relatively stable stage of life (though I don’t know if she’s gotten entangled in those things again), I bid her farewell from my life. The day she truly understood from her heart what Kanchana meant to her life, that not a single word Kanchana had said was a lie—that day she could no longer find me, because I had already removed myself from her life. Several terrible storms had descended upon my life because of her, yet I never once stepped away from her side.
Time always reveals just how faded life’s forbidden colors truly are. By then, it’s far too late……
“My friend, I miss you terribly. The way you loved me—promise me you’ll never love anyone else with such mad devotion. May this dirty, colorful world of lies never touch you again.”
Do my words turn your familiar world completely upside down? You can’t reconcile them with yourself, can you? Well then, listen—let me confound you once more: I love someone, they’re always in my thoughts, and I want to touch them too!—I’d love to see the expression on your face hearing this. Tell me, just because I joke around all the time, won’t you believe a single word I say? But I’m telling the absolute truth. Please believe what I’m saying. I too know how to love, I too fall in love. It’s not just the body—I have a heart as well. And that heart torments me terribly. It says it loves… Take care, you crazy girl.
I want, I desperately want my friend to recognize life’s true colors. The world beyond the body is so beautiful. May she have the time to wander through that world a little.
When they’re done using a woman’s body, they discard her like used tissue paper. I’ve named such women “the used.” Everyone knows about this. But there’s another type, and it’s even more terrifying. These women are “the unused”—because they can’t be used, they’re thrown away like used tissue without ever being used at all! Oh, the irony! I wonder then, who truly has value? Only those women have worth who can be used but haven’t been used yet. The whole world revolves around them. Alas!
Thought: One hundred and fifty-six.
……………………………………..
There is no one on my friends list except you. You feel great curiosity to know ‘why not’—that’s natural. The truth is, I don’t like Facebook as a place. Perhaps I’ve grown too old, and so I no longer wish to wander about this garden of illusions like one bewildered. Here people become friends with each other—virtual friends: a friendship whose creation and destruction both lie in the gentle touch of fingertips. Whether a friend is dead or alive, all responsibility for knowing is discharged by a single reaction—such friendship isn’t worth two cents. Then there’s another class of people who come here and transform from male to female, female to male with such ease—no need for the expense of sex reassignment surgery, just willing it is enough. In Facebook chat rooms, shameless trafficking in lies goes on ceaselessly, relentlessly—here the naked display of emotion is more important than emotion itself, and in this game, ‘whoever wins is Alexander, whoever loses becomes a monkey.’ How easily people here experience pain and joy—watching all this makes me laugh. People become overwhelmed by Facebook praise, distraught by criticism. Without knowing properly about someone or some matter, even very educated and responsible people judge like idiots, attacking others personally to derive sick pleasure—truly, sources of pure entertainment are diminishing from our lives, and we seek happiness in gossip and slander. Facebook love’s philosophy is not Platonic but Freudian; though it begins cast in the false mold of Platonic love. Ten people receive copy-paste versions of love poetry from one person simultaneously. Such Facebook love is ‘if it sticks, it’s love’ love. Facebook’s love, separation, quarrels—these are nothing but the stark reality of this unfortunate country’s unemployment problem. Facebook is as much human as it is self-centered. I knew someone who had hundreds of thousands of followers, countless friends, yet when he was in dire straits, the 4-5 who stood by him had never made his acquaintance on Facebook. Facebook friends or followers are nothing but numbers. Facebook renders people impotent—people don’t read books, they read Facebook; people don’t watch movies, they watch Facebook; people don’t listen to music, they listen to Facebook; people don’t write stories and poetry, they write Facebook—the pursuit of knowledge is utterly destroyed. People don’t travel to enjoy themselves, but to post pictures of places on Facebook—they enter the sick competition of capturing beauty not through the lens of eye or heart, but through the camera lens. They don’t eat food to taste it or satisfy hunger—but to upload selfies with food on Facebook. If Facebook were a country, I’d say it’s a nation where rumors are more valued than truth, the allure of popularity more intense than humanity, the acceptability of publicity clearer than action. In that country, even if an innocent poor person is beaten to death like a dog in the street, nobody gives a damn, yet if ten takas goes missing from someone’s wallet, an uproar can be easily created about it. In that country, someone’s helplessness makes the majority of people cruel, thoughtless, and frenzied. On Facebook, the market value of sex is higher than humanity. When new issues arrive here, the last stain of audacity lingering at the tip of conscience’s phallus can be effortlessly erased with soft tissue, urinating comfortably in the ancestral groves of old issues. Endless prayers from Facebook dwellers for someone else’s mother’s recovery from illness, yet their own mother fights death in the next room in neglect, indifference, and carelessness. I see some bastard children uploading selfies with their dead father’s corpse on their shoulders. This Facebook is the abode of all the world’s hypocrisy. Here hypocrites live safely, while the sincere dwell in danger.
People show tremendous enthusiasm for trampling innocent souls underfoot, and we constantly witness Facebook assemblies of saints intoxicated by the thrill of witnessing others’ humiliation. Even those without rice in their homes or sense in their heads find endless Facebook glory. On Facebook, the wall between face and mask is more fragile and brittle than a house of cards. Nowhere else will you find such naked, shameless practice of narcissism as on Facebook. Facebook is the civilized mask of the uncivilized. Here, educated smart beggars masquerade as poets while delivering news, masquerade as journalists while delivering poetry. Facebook is that cunning platform that needlessly frustrates the worthy while needlessly inspiring the unworthy—Facebook makes the lame conquer Himalaya in a single leap, makes the able walk on horseback. Facebook is the sanctuary of global charlatans. Nowhere else but Facebook will you find such beauty contests among the unsightly. Here the beautiful remain hidden while the ugly are on display. Where a person’s character and acceptability are measured by the number of likes on their posts, one can expect anything but honesty and truth. Facebook is that green-eyed monster that sows seeds of envy, selfishness, anger, malice, arrogance and falsehood in the hearts of all inhabitants of its realm. Facebook is the factory that renders the wise impotent and the impotent inhuman. Whether events occur or not, people on Facebook create and destroy events according to their own convenience and desires. Monkeys dancing wildly while pulling a lion’s mane—only possible on Facebook. On Facebook, swine become venerable, the venerable become swine. Here, ignorant liquor dealers force themselves to teach Bengali classes on Rabindranath. Facebook truly needs to become ‘It’s not free and never will be’—if only to reduce the simian dancing of the water-lily adorned, water-lily decorated, water-lily graced ones!
Reflection: One Hundred and Fifty-Seven.
……………………………………..
: The thief will take those good sarees from the veranda wire. Go bring them in.
: What if he takes them?
: What do you mean, what if?
: The thief’s wife will have a couple more sarees in her wardrobe, and you’ll have a couple fewer in yours. That’s all!
: You don’t need to worry about the thief’s wife’s wardrobe. Instead, think about adding clothes to the thief’s daughter’s wardrobe!
What is Ma saying?
I don’t understand! Is she then telling me to take clothes from my drawer and hang them on the veranda wire for the thief’s daughter?
Or…….damn!
Goodness, what all things I might have said if I hadn’t stopped myself!
When there’s so much to say, one must stay silent,
otherwise truly someone seems to grip something around one’s throat!
Good thing I listened to Ma and put the clothes back in the wardrobe! Otherwise,
the scolding would have started right then. When creatures of Ma’s species tell you to do something, it’s best to do it without a word, otherwise they’ll surely bring Ravana’s beloved kingdom right into the house. Girls are innocent creatures—whether it’s Ma’s daughter,
Ma herself,
or Ma’s own mother!
Sir, are you listening? This little person had one small request. Shall I make the request? You would choose my Eid dress this time. Taking you along to buy Eid clothes—saying that would just become needlessly amusing,
so I didn’t say it. You would choose the dress, the market,
the shop, the dress code, and let me know, I would go later and buy it myself. And yes, within 5000 taka,
I won’t buy for more than that. If you want,
you could even choose a dress online.
I won’t remind you again about choosing a dress for me. If you want, let this Eid not happen in my new dress, then you can forget if you wish, you can simply not choose—that’s your wish. I’m certainly not saying you should go to the market and choose a dress for me. When you happen to go buy something, if you could just take a little trouble……
I celebrated Eid wearing an old dress. I know,
it doesn’t matter to you at all. I didn’t do this for you either. I did this,
sulking with myself,
to remind myself once more that I truly love you. I’m such a selfish creature—how cleverly I keep my love alive!
I had asked for a selfie, beloved. Today is July 28, 2017.
If I pleaded this much with Halley’s Comet, it would kill all fourteen generations of July 28, 2061 and come give me a selfie today, but it doesn’t give a damn.
May I place my hand on your hair (I mean, on your head)
just a little?
Alright, fine,
I won’t.
May I just breathe in your body’s scent?
Alright fine, no need, could you at least parcel me one of your half-washed t-shirts!
Life brings us certain games
where we end up winning by fighting to lose;
the melancholy heart then keeps saying,
why didn’t I lose, why didn’t I lose!
That pain of winning touches life for a lifetime. Is losing—so easy then?
The shepherd boy had to become tiger’s food for telling lies. The shepherd boy still becomes tiger’s food…….for telling the truth. One commits the wrong, another pays the punishment—society has named this
‘justice’.
If your ID were
‘human’ I would hang it by its hair quite often! Why wouldn’t I? Tell me,
do statuses just vanish into thin air? So many statuses disappear somewhere! Or do you set them to ‘only me’? Why do you do that? I know,
your writing,
your ID,
therefore you can do whatever you wish. But when you make your writings public,
they become public property,
and you can’t hide public property!
Accept it or don’t
accept it, this is the truth. Writings aren’t tissue paper that you use once and throw away. A piece of writing can’t be finished with one reading, good writing makes us want to read it again and again—just as people walk back and forth on beloved streets. Each time you walk that street, different things catch your eye,
something new is discovered. That small flower by the roadside that escaped notice the first time,
perhaps the next time it reveals itself with all its beauty and essence before the traveler’s mind’s eye. That beauty,
that color,
that grace—to enjoy it one must repeat the walk along the street. When I can’t find someone I’ve left behind, I miss them terribly, my mood turns sour;
writing is the same. A beloved piece of writing keeps intimate company like a beloved person. When such writing disappears, that’s when I want to lift your ID by the hair,
I mean the creator of the creation. Even if the ID isn’t human, the owner of the ID is human, and he has a head full of hair too! Hmm!
Therefore, good sir, beware!
Since yesterday evening I’ve been searching for a status and losing myself in the process.
Thought: One hundred fifty-eight.
……………………………………..
Un-congratulations! I mean,
I’m taking back that
‘congratulations’ I gave yesterday. I didn’t give it from the heart, so I’ve removed that falsehood from my mind. When I can give it from the heart, I’ll give it again.
(And if I don’t like it, I’ll take it back again. This is the fun of ruling one’s own kingdom.)
I feel like running away from myself!
What a powerful
desire this is! Tell me, why is there no life in the smile of your recent profile picture? Why does it make my valor look so pale? Perhaps your inner self has become lifeless from too much life. It happens.
When something long-awaited finally arrives in life—whether fulfilled or unfulfilled—we find ourselves adrift in a strange, unfamiliar helplessness. Yet this helplessness is not prolonged—it is brief, or sometimes interminable. It is not only fulfillment we await; some incompleteness too is anticipated. Certain incompleteness brings completeness to life. The pain that has been life’s companion—if we were to banish it from existence, perhaps life itself would become incomplete. Such incompleteness is greater than any fulfillment. What society and community view as incompleteness often completes the individual. Rather than living incompletely at every moment, it is far better to become devastatingly incomplete just once. Such incompleteness washes away the shame of all those handfuls of prior incompleteness and makes life whole. The anguish of personal incompleteness cuts far deeper than the pain of social incompleteness. Even if coping with the shock of becoming incomplete demands paying a heavy social price—still, life will endure! When has this society ever valued an individual’s personal suffering? The grammar of fulfillment and incompleteness is not social—it is intensely personal. Rather than dwelling with death at every moment, it is better to show the courage to embrace a greater death once. This opens the path to a greater life. Sometimes the completeness of incompleteness brings far more joy than the completeness of completeness.
If gaining something in life only reminds us of what we haven’t gained, then why don’t life’s losses remind us of what we have gained?
Rather than binding someone for a lifetime, it is more urgent to free oneself for a lifetime—if it means both lives are saved. There isn’t much suffering in suffering itself—the real agony lies in having to accept that suffering with love, with a smiling face and a laughing heart.
Shourjo, why can’t I see some of your statuses? What have you done? Have you changed your privacy settings? Haven’t you kept me on your private list? Or am I the only woman-fool who can’t see them? What do I need to do to see your posts? Only tomorrow remains—day after tomorrow you’ll belong to someone else. Tomorrow feels like Eid to me. It seems like for one more day, ‘unmarried Shourjo’ will remain mine. Let me see your posts!
: I feel like hurling someone at escape velocity beyond the Earth. Breaking free from Earth’s pull, they’ll travel far, far away! But yes, I’ll have to grab hold of their shirt corner tightly at the same time. Otherwise, if I launch them at escape velocity, how will I ever find them on Earth again?
: What about that, you crazy girl? Then what will happen to their ‘beloved’?
: Alright! Then I’ll launch their ‘beloved’ along with them! I’m out of it! They can do their thing there in blissful privacy!
: And what will you do?
: Me? I… I… I’ll take care of my love and ‘love’s’ good home. When those two go beyond the Earth, who will look after that cruel devil’s house and household?
: Good home means nice home?
: Yes! Exactly!
: Is there happiness in that? What happiness?
: Certainly!
If I could have had her, I would have gotten her room too!
Her ‘he’ will get her but lose the room, while I, not getting her, will get the room. What happiness indeed!
Though yes,
that happiness belongs to sorrow—a luxurious happiness. Or perhaps,
the sorrow itself belongs to happiness—a luxurious sorrow.
Even if roads were paved with diamonds, human feet would still
walk upon them.
A crown, even if made of iron, still rests upon a human
head.
I’m quite a lost cause
in your life, aren’t I?
Stay well, beloved, but not in that way—
the way where to stay well, one must first be terribly unwell for a time. I know
you don’t worry about this,
yet I said it anyway,
because I felt like saying it.
I want to hurl you out of this world at escape velocity. I will truly kill you. Never in this life will you come even within the hexagonal boundary of my vision. Actually…….
Ah, I saw that childhood half-pants-wearing heroic golden boy. Ehh
what were you wearing back then?
Did you really wear those?
Thank goodness you don’t wear them now! If you did, I would grab you…….grab you…….and make you completely
pants-free!
Reflection: One hundred and sixty.
……………………………………..
Square plastic packets of ‘Raja’ and ‘Panther’ condoms were available for twenty-five paisa. Each packet contained just one. In childhood, we called them balloons. My playmates and I would often buy these balloons from the shop. Extending a twenty-five paisa coin toward the shopkeeper, I would say,
“Give me one ‘fotka’.” Since they were extremely slippery, I would bring them home and wash them thoroughly with soap. Then I would inflate them as much as I wanted. Often, as they grew bigger, they would burst with a loud pop. Sometimes I would fill them with water,
tie them with string at intervals to make colorful water bundles,
creating various designs. I would fill a balloon with air, tie a long string to it, and run around. The balloon would fly and follow behind. Ah!
What joy!
Our childhood was the childhood of Raja-Panther. Two things were terribly annoying. One: Why were they so slippery?
You couldn’t even hold them properly. Even inflating them was troublesome. Two: Why was the end part like that? Other balloons weren’t like this. We would try to blow more air from our mouths to make that part even like the rest of the balloon. Because we considered this strange thing a toy and played with it,
adults would feel a bit embarrassed,
though I don’t remember them saying much. Yes, mother would scold terribly. So I would play with it secretly at home or go outside to play with it. I learned that this childhood balloon was actually an adult condom when I was in my third year of honors,
then! From a younger sister! Alas!
Shame, shame!!
To think I played with this thing openly in front of everyone outside the house in my childhood!
I’m amazed when I think about it now—
we were small, we didn’t understand,
but why did the shopkeepers sell such a thing to children like us?
Age changes so many things. The toy remains the same, only the way of playing changes. Life is like this too. The same life stays the same,
only with the change in perspective does life transform.
Now, listen, you had said that having sex with as many people as one wishes, with mutual consent, is something you fully support. The question is: does this apply after marriage too? I mean, can two married people, or one married person, have sex with someone else—do you support this as well? I mean, can you, even after marriage, have sex with someone else if you feel like it? Does marriage then bind only the mind? Not the body? Is there then no such thing as committed relationships in this world? Or is commitment purely a mental matter? Why do you think this way?
You might say, “I’m not harming anyone.” Does that mean one can do whatever one wishes as long as no one is harmed?
What happened? Why are you staying silent on such an important matter? Answer me, I say! This won’t end well! I need to know about this! Where are you? What are you doing? What are you busy with?
There you go again, vanishing into thin air… No, there’s no point in keeping you alive anymore. You’ve lived long enough! Now I really must kill you.
Well, if I wanted to do it—would you? What happened? Are you there?
If after marriage you can sleep with anyone you both desire, then your ‘someone’ can also sleep with anyone they fancy. What? They can’t? And you must have complete support for that too! I mean, according to your theory, since they’re fulfilling a desire of their heart without harming anyone in the least, you shouldn’t have any objection. Or do you think differently about them? One rule for you, another rule for your wife—such rules cannot exist. Therefore, I’m definitely assuming your answer is ‘yes’—meaning your wife has received an unwritten ‘yes card’ from you regarding extramarital physical relationships with anyone. Just as not all marriages have love, not all love has marriage. So is marriage then a kind of social habituation where two people must live together? Or, in those marriages where love exists but there’s no strict commitment to monogamy, are the threads of family bonds purely mental? Don’t those threads break? Are they that strong?
If you wish, you can send me your answer in voice as well. If your philosophical lesson can’t be explained in few words, and writing so much hurts your hand, then no problem—I’ll take responsibility and listen to it myself.
Often it’s easier to write something than to say it. What people wouldn’t say even if beaten to death, they send in writing so casually! Since you’re not writing, that’s why I suggested sending voice. I can’t talk to you on the phone, you don’t give me that opportunity. Please take a little trouble and record your answer!
Tell me, is hearing my voice truly so difficult for you? Even for two minutes?
Thought: One hundred sixty.
……………………………………..
Throughout school I always came first in every exam, so the headmaster would beat me with a net! When others made the same mistakes, nothing would happen, but me… everyone does this! I got punished my whole life for doing good work. Still, like a shameless person, I kept doing good work, and still am.
The girl was dressed up head to toe in red and black. Suddenly she saw a gorgeous car on the street. No one around. The red color of the car matched beautifully with her dress. Black sunglasses on her eyes, ready for the photo, her friend just had to click, and suddenly from nowhere the car’s owner—a dashing type of guy—appeared in front! (Oh, fate!)
“Excuse me… miss, wouldn’t it have been better to take permission before clicking?”
“Hellooo mister! I felt like taking my picture standing right here on the street—so I’m taking the picture. Whatever’s behind me—elephant, horse, cow, car, whatever—it’s their business that they’ve placed it here! It’s none of my business! Got it?” Saying this, as she walked away briskly, the girl heard… “Hmmm I just like it!”
The girl also turned her neck and said, “Same to you!”
Before the boy’s broad smile could spread further, the girl bluntly said, “You means your car!”
Ahhh! Now the boy’s face was worth seeing!
The girl above is me. I felt like telling you the story, so I did. If you had once come before Nilufa as some other boy, then you would have understood what kind of thing Nilufa is!
In the agony of such extreme, shameless filth
The vast sky cracks every day.
Again, in some strange, mystical shamelessness
Every day those cracks heal too!
Oh shamelessness…!
Did you eat these things?—in childhood we used to eat them—for twenty-five paisa he would make rings, which we called kotkoti. And watches, flowers—I don’t remember their exact prices, they must have been more than twenty-five paisa. When the man would pull out those things from a cloth-wrapped section at the top of the bamboo pole, I would stare at that cloth bundle with greedy eyes and think, who knows how much is in there! Gosh, how much money would all that cost? Perhaps my father doesn’t have that much money! Today, suddenly seeing the picture on your wall, I’m remembering those old days so much—that beautiful time when I was small and foolish. If I find that man somewhere in this grown-up time, I’ll definitely have him unwrap all the cloth from the top of the bamboo pole and see exactly how much is in there! Listen, if you see them anywhere, you must buy everything for me! And if you forget to buy, then I’ll crack your head open with that bamboo pole! Hmmm!
If I could bite at least ten times in different places on your body, I think my crazy toothache would subside! I’m sure it would.
Those emotions that people dismiss as futile at the end of each day, drowning in their own distress—
it is precisely these feelings that keep humans alive, offering companionship through much of life’s journey. The wretched creature called human is just like this—what keeps it alive and gives it company,
that very thing it considers worthless!
I feel like asking for a photograph of you,
but if I ask and don’t get it, my mood will turn terribly sour and along with the toothache, a headache will start too. So, let it be…….
Hello excuse meeee……..! Don’t think that I’ve assumed that just by saying it this way, you’ll jump up and give me your photograph!
Huhhhh…….hihihihahahahahehehehehohohoho……….I’m thinking, let me spend my life just doing this hihahehe. What do you say?
I can’t?
Do snails still climb up that damp wall beside the bushes today?
Do they gaze in wonder,
understanding nothing by choice?
Auspicious inauspicious afternoon—the auspicious part is yours, the inauspicious mine—as always.
No reply. Alas! Busy with some beauty again! This time I won’t just push you into the pitcher,
I’ll throw you straight into the well!
Even one photograph of mine would struggle to breathe among the crowd of so many others with you,
while everything around me is alone, meant for your photograph—where even a thousand of your pictures would keep breathing freely, keep breathing…….
Just give me one photograph! If you don’t, I’ll catch lizards,
cockroaches, mice, frogs—everything—fry them up and feed them to you with spider chutney! I’ll kill you and turn you into a ghost, absolutely. Photographhhhhh? Why won’t you give a photographhhhhh? Let me get hold of you once,
then you’ll see!
If you push it too far, I’ll come straight to your house and
take off ‘everything’—hey there helloooo! Don’t get so happy!……not mine though, your
‘everything’……!
Why does this boy treat me like this?
I understand,
you don’t really ask for my photograph because you truly want to see me. That’s why you don’t feel like giving one, yet thinking your request is genuine
(or deliberately believing it’s genuine), my heart grows restless to give you a photograph. Life has been flattened under the constant pressure of this duality!
Hey ghost,
heyyyy! Can you take a selfie? Give me a selfie…….I’ll give you an old banyan tree. Absolutely promiseee!
You really don’t want to see me,
so why do you ask for my photograph for no reason? Fine then, go—you don’t have to give your photograph.
Rain is busy,
beloved is busy,
sorrow is busy—sunshine is on holiday,
I am on holiday,
happiness is on holiday.
Thought: one hundred sixty-one.
……………………………………..
Human love—makes humans deeply helpless.
Human unlove—makes humans deeply helpless.
Love, it shouldn’t be like this…….
The sharp smell of gas from the kitchen, through the dining room toward my room…….
And here I am, lost like a madman in someone’s profile,
absorbed.
I put rice on the stove, then forgot about it.
The rice water spilled and the flame went out,
but the gas keeps leaking…….
If I hadn’t noticed that sharp smell of gas and had turned on the stove right then,
I don’t know what would have happened—perhaps I would have joined the rice in the flames,
or something far worse.
I only know this:
how utterly trivial the feelings of another human soul are to me!
How does one live, alas, when the person dearest to them feels nothing at all?
I long to see you, to know what you’re doing, where you are, whether you’re eating properly. And if you were to tell me these things, the world would truly turn upside down. Then people like you would walk on their heads with their feet pointing skyward. They’d look like orangutans! Hahaha!
Whose photos are keeping you so busy? Oh my!
Is my darling drowning in an ocean of pictures now?
Finished looking at a thousand photos? Now won’t you give me a selfie, just one—or at least half of one—I mean, just show me your face!
The girl always kept strands of hair in her mouth and would bite them with her teeth.
One day the boy, unable to contain his fondness, let slip
that he found this terribly endearing.
Hearing this made the girl very happy.
But—after that, the girl never again, not even by mistake, put hair in her mouth.
Why? Can you tell me?
(If you can, I’ll release some flying cockroaches inside your mosquito net while you sleep at night.)
Just let me get my hands on you once! After that,
if (the hair on your) head, cheeks,
ears and nose get displaced, whoever does the displacing bears no blame—
all the fault lies with the one
it happens to! Hmmm! I feel like grabbing you by the scruff and dropping you right over Niagara Falls. Please please please don’t go to sleep without giving me a selfie. Sir!
Good sir! Your honor! Where are youuuu?
No! Even if I wanted to, I don’t think it’s possible to save you anymore! You’ve lived tooooo long!
The way I keep saying I’ll kill you, kill you, everyone will think I’m a militant and a savage!
Oh dear!
Why do you want
my ‘hot selfie’?
You have so many—what will you do with mine?
Look at theirs instead! If I keep sending mine, it’ll just get buried under a hundred other photos,
and you’ll forget that you even asked me for a picture!
You forget about me. Don’t you! What?
You don’t forget, you say?
Aren’t I right? (You’re thinking,
what a fool!
How can I forget someone who isn’t even in my thoughts?)
How carefully I’ve hidden away my ‘you’s,
and the ‘I’s that I gave you…….alas! Let’s not speak of them!
Am I even worthy of staying close to you? It’s fine!
Why does my darling look so angry in this photo?
Or are you tired, haven’t slept? Or perhaps
all that ego has accumulated in your mind?
Let me give you some advice. Take a big leap!
All your egos will fall away. Then,
take another ego-free selfie. Jump off the bed! Oh, how frustrating, you won’t believe what I’m saying!
Just because I’m mad, are all my words mere ramblings?
Just try taking that leap and see what happens!
Extremely, extremely, extremely strange—not you, me. People have at least some shame. What kind of creature am I?
Just send a selfie!
I’ll look at it and fall asleep. What happened? My dearrrrrrrrrrrr…………..!!!
My voice is already like a boy’s, and all this shouting and calling for you is making it even worse! Later, no girl will fall in love with me! What will happen then?
You monkey boy! Look how this damn baboon is treating me! You devil brat!
What harm would it do to send the photo? People get sleepy,
people get hungry,
people get the urge to pee, and I’ve got this terrible craving to see your photo—really, really badly!
Send it, send it, send it!
Why do you ask me for such things?
I’m afraid of myself—if you ask, I might actually send it despite my reluctance. I know,
what you want to see,
if I send that, then you’ll
want the ‘V’—let’s say I give that too!
But darling,
then what else will you want?
What else is there even left?
So, something that must stop just two steps later, why not stop it right here!
The desire that brings an end to all desires,
wouldn’t it be better not to have such a desire,
right?
Whaaaat? Isn’t that right?
What happened?
Answer me!
Didn’t I speak correctly? So?
Why are you silent now?
If my teeth break from grinding them furiously in rage, then I’ll take all your teeth! Then what will you do? Without teeth, you won’t enjoy kissing any beauty in this world! Only the toothless can’t find peace in kissing. What’s the point of kissing if you can’t bite? I’ll turn you into a completely toothless person!
You don’t need to see my selfie, sir. I’m spitting out thick phlegm from my nose every minute! You surely won’t like seeing this!
And this three-day toothache has made me look like someone who hasn’t eaten for days during a famine!
You can’t even stand me,
how will you bear my sickly appearance?