Of Ellipses and pregnant pause.

................................"I’m sorry Ali."

"What? You’re breaking up with me over the phone?"

Four long years of yearning to be together, hating every admission of love missed over the crackle of static ripping our feelings to shreds over the phone line, and we broke up over the phone.

"Yes... I... I have to go...now"

"What!!! Oh hey every dream we built together is dead and I buried them too long before the kiss that was you kissing me and me not kissing back and so bubye, have a nice life I have to go??? Who the hell is this anyway? Can't be Hina, not my Hina..."

" I didn't want it to be this way, we can meet today... umm I’ll let you know when, if you want i mean.. i can see you today..."

Charity. BheeK.’Oho yeh tow sala serious tha, shit now i'll have to see him and pretend that the last four years, the engagement, the bathing his niece and nephew and claiming it to be the most joyous of all events... crying on his mother's shoulder about how my mother had tried to strangle me... feeling his hands all over my body as I succumbed to pleasure that love alone can manifest...”'mujhsay shaadi karo gay na?”;, sitting half naked in is lap, blushing from the ecstasy of making love shying away when he looked at me... and now this last meeting’. All bheek... one last act of philanthropy for the love that was always fun but never true,... no Hina, keep your fucking charity, If I see you now, today... Anytime soon, as long as this heart is still bleeding, my face may be the last thing u ever see, and your crumbling body the last thing I ever see... no keep your fucking charity.

And witness mine.

"i don't want to see you"

"Okay"

"What the hell H, when did u decide we were over, how did u decide I was dead." Not a question, my answer

"Abu had an angina attack... chachu said... chachu asked will u marry him if your father died..."

"Do I need to ask your answer" Bastard, bastard...bitch.

"Ummhhh...nae" Is that a tear I hear rising to your eyes? Or is that my own love dying? "He said then how is it different when he's alive?"

" "

"I... I’m sorry Ali... my brother's here... I have to go"

"Go"

Hitman stands his ground in the arsenal room. My battered PS2 whirring. My controller drops. The analog sticks jerk once. I can hear the birds chirping outside. Over the metal soundtrack of the game. Impossible. But I do, I swear I hear them chirping.

It’s a beautiful Houston day.

I feel my cell phone bite deep into my palm. I raise my hand to see the pain she chipped off it when she took it to Florida so we could talk free between my cell and the one i borrowed from O. I fling the phone against the wall... the bastard doesn't break. Something needs to break. My heart can't be alone in this. I get up. I see myself getting up. How can I be this weak?... how can this be an after-death experience?... how can I see myself getting up? How can this be anything but my life?

I can't walk, i discover. Lean against the wall... wish I could make it to the mirror, see what my face looks like now. Can I see the blood in my eyes? Can I see the love mutated into hatred? Can I see her standing before me... leaning into me like she'd rather never be anywhere else but before this little mirror reflecting our faces, hers beneath mine... her eyes staring straight into the mine reflected, mine into hers... would I feel her hands entwined with mine over her breast? Would I see through the facade this time...? Would I see that even when I held her in my arms all I held was my own emptiness? Would I care?

And then it happened. As it always did at my hardest moments. Indifference. You're bigger than this Ali, You’re stronger than this love thing you have been claiming to be alive for...'koee marta nahin kisee kay liye...' doctor sahib's recollection of some heartbroken girls final words to her cruel hearted beloved... final before the last time she'd give him head,,, ascertain that it is no longer love but lust that drives her to her knees. Koee marta nahin kissay kee liye... but if her father died, it would be my doing. And how could she marry the murderer of her father...how could he call the wedding off because we had slept together... how could I kill him by keeping my distance, if I tried to answer these question I would die. Koee marta nahin kissi kay liye…

I sit back down. Grab my controller. Hitman walks to every shelf picking up all the ammo and all the guns he's programmed to hold, and I unleash his ballistic fury on digital enemies. Digital Hinas, digital dads, moms...digital love undone. Never before had I enjoyed spilling blood as much as I did that day, With the ignorant abandon of a zombie I hurtle Hitman amidst his enemies, every shot is perfect, a head shot every time. Every single time. Cut scene after cut scene the story unfolds... i don't even register the plot, making up my own as I focus my anger. Searching for no one and everyone i've ever wanted to kill. And killing every one. I blitz through the game, unable to blitz through my fury. My regret. I let Hitman do the talking with his guns, my hand guiding his aim, my thumb firing every fatal shot.

His enemies fall, my enemies fall. I find myself relaxing. Suddenly hungry... don't even remember when I lit up Sara's bong and took the deepest puff ever... don't even remember exhaling, don't even remember setting my head back as the smoke suppressed all the anger all the pain replacing it with delicious intoxication.

'I love you so fucking much' Where'd that come from? The declaration of love that demanded no reciprocation. So true that it shook my being from end to end. For the first time in my life I found myself speechless. I couldn't say it back.. Not yet. To say that I did too would mutilate the moment that she had earned for herself from her fear, her uncertainty, her need to get it out of her system… to stand on that terrace on that night when her previous mistakes were on the verge of catching up with her, she had to say it and I had to listen. Just listen.... But where'd it come from? I wasn't even thinking about her, about what had happened just an hour ago... I was thinking ahead about my revenge about my salvation oozing out of every drop of blood I would make her bleed. Where did that come from? Weed doesn't do this. It doesn't remind you. It doesn't make you sane... its supposed to make me forget. It’s supposed to set me free, not bind me again to something from four years ago that had become the most precious of memories...

I must forget. Where’s that fucking bong...? Where’s that fucking lighter...? Where’s my fucking indifference now? What a time to desert me, I thought. And I smiled... the self righteous prick that I am, thinking not off what she must've gone through to come to this surrender, for her to choose to let go but instead of how cool I was to be playing a video game while my life fell to pieces around me, while my heart suffocated in the sudden absence of her connection to me. I thought all this and smiled.
Wish I could make it to the mirror, see myself smile and maybe I would see what she came to hate in me.

'You think you're always right'

'I am Hina'

'Don’t have to rub it in'

'I thought You liked it when I did'

Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...

Oh, AlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Oh how she moaned!

From love to hatred to lust in a heartbeat.

And back to love.

'We're meant to be, Ali'

Smile she'll never see.

"The more crap we go through, the more I believe we are meant to be.'

'We are'

Smile I’ll never see

'I knew it the day I stood for hours in the snow, sinking deeper without even noticing the cold. I knew Love like this can't be anything but forever'

'I hope my dad liked you'

'Does it matter?'

"Nae, I know I will fight for you, I’ll make him like you. How can he not like someone I love so much.

Pretty fucking easily it seems

And back to hatred.

Where's the damn weed.

I sat in a haze of bong smoke and memories for god knows how long... but when the clock struck six I thought Raymond!

My misguided ideal of married life. That is how I pictured us. Incorrigible me, unflappable she. And our beautiful kids... two daughters and a son. The son whose name we could never decide on... her old boyfriends or my unforgivable enemies... all the good names were used up in our collective histories.

Raymond is on, the weed said. She’s gone, My heart responded. Weed won. Raymond won. I found out I could walk again. Made my way to the make shift candle stand antennae lying atop the TV with the cable line intricately stuck between two bars. Had opted for cable internet over cable TV so we could have web cam sex from across the oceans. The cloud cover outside made it necessary to adjust the antennae for a clear enough picture. I touched it and the cable fell out. One more smile.

Fucking idiot! of all the days it chooses today to bug me, oh well, go ahead test my patience. I re- hook the cable and start adjusting. One gyration too many and it falls out again. No more smiles... I’m smiled out for such an ominous day. One more try I say and then its back to Hitman. One more try fails. I am the hit man.

I swing my arm with such speed that even my muscles are surprised. BAM! CRASH! BAM! Antennae into wall... ricocheted on to TV, screen cracks TV topples of the trolley. The Venetian Blinds set asunder exposing my misery out the window to whoever was there to see. I never thought I would break a TV. I never thought I could. And here it lay, two feet away. No more Hina, no more Ray. Is that what it takes to make a man cry? Not his hopes spit out by a beloved but a broken TV. Thank god it didn't fall on the PS2... I remember thinking. No. That's what it takes to make a man cry. His own inability to realize what has happened. His own proficiency at shielding his feelings so that the sheer ecstasy of breaking his TV but not over his PS 2 can drive the tears out of the dried out well in his bowels somewhere and send them hurtling out the eyes. Closed eyes. Hollow eyes. Eyes that would rather not see anymore. What was there to see anyway? No more Hina.. No more Ray.

Finally, I slowly made my way to the mirror. Leaned over the sink and looked up at myself. The hulking beast of a man with tears trickling down his eyes. And that godforsaken smile. The smile at knowing who and what I really am, and what I’m capable of, that smile she loved and hated at the same time. The smile that very well could’ve ended it all.

I need trance.

I thought

Man on the moon

Ressurrection

Sandstorm

I needed trance

Needed a flash back

Of my first pill

Of my first time smelling the Houston air as something less than putrid

Of looking up at the sky scrapers and feeling like they would bend down to hug me

Of the red bull can sending electric jolts through my veins, blurring my vision, making my heart an extension of the woofers in the club

Of beautiful women, barely dressed, dancing like there's no tomorrow, of men with glow sticks moving with such speed and dexterity that the whole universe seems to be in their palms. Building a new cosmos from their neon lights for everyone to come live in.

Of Vicks inhaler blown in my eyes by the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen.... of getting a massage from an equally exhausted and equally unknown stranger whose embrace remained platonic and yet more intimate than any I have ever had. She saw thru my soul and I thru hers and all the while Darude played on. The lights bathing us in a million colors at once, we close our eyes simply unable to keep up with the happiness exploding in our brains any more. Holding each other, synchronizing our hearts to the DJs beat. A face moving so fast right before my eyes that i couldn’t even make out the features even though it was so close that I could feel every gasp cool my senses

I needed ecstasy.

I needed Hina.

I walk in to my room. She lives on my wall. Smiling, laughing, her eyes glistening with her emotions. Pictures taken only for me... only for me. I wonder when I will take them off. Not tonight. Can't even look at them.

I switch on the computer, my head already swelling with the need for a high. I take another hit while XP loads. I log in and Damn! Got to change my wallpaper. She and I , the picture is titled... Bliss and me... her beauty magnified by the look in my eyes... disbelief of having been this lucky. Disbelief now… at having lost it.

Properties>desktop>browse>e:>my pictures>Wallpapers>Babes> Naked strangers back on my screen... but no one is a stranger, every face is hers... every women from Heather graham to Aishwariya Rai has her eyes, her lips her nose... every pose embodies one pose i never got to see her in. So my desktop remains barren for now.

I move to the music

Turn the volume up all the way, to hell with the black lady living on the second floor. She can call the cops they can find the pot, and tomorrow in the papers she can read, "terrorist from pakistan apprehended in drug possession charges" Justify her decision.

Blackie must not be home, her pictures would be bouncing off the walls, the tone moves faster, faster, my pupils dilate, and I’m back.. Back in Boaka Bar, that stunning bar tender I flirted with all night, kissed her hand when she said she had a boy friend. Thank you yellow alligators.. Never before has rejection been this savory.

Never before has a flashback been this sad. I put my head down on the table next to the keyboard. I put my soul in the dustbin next to the broken antennae.

“I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel”... Johnny Cash. Where’d he come from?

Within me is a cornucopia of so many feelings that I can't even begin to sift through them to see which one to hold on to. I'm empty. All off a sudden... feel like basanti the day when she ran out of gas on hwy. 59...coasted all the way to a shell station, 5 bucks in my pocket. Enough to get me to 610, take the exit for Bellaire, drive to where Bellaire becomes Holcombe and Holcombe becomes the road to a memory. A memory that no longer belongs to me.

It lies buried in parking spaces, in lustful vengeance against tyrannical mothers and fanatical fathers. I screwed it up. I couldn’t be perfect. I couldn’t keep up with her changing tastes 12000 miles away. My fault mine mine mine . And so is the loss. All mine. I’m taking it all, Hina. The pleasure and the pain. The curse and the blame. I bequeath you nothing. I never existed for you as anything but a recurring nightmare. I will make sure that you never see me ever again as anything but a mistake, a stinging regret.

There’s no nobility in it, it’s just my masochism. I hate you but I can’t hurt you. I hate myself more so I will hurt myself more. You’re free. I’m condemned. I need you to hate me.

I turn off the computer; run to get my cell phone, flip it open and dial the only number I remember.

One last time.

*Any similarity to persons living or dead or dying is purely coincidental. More or less. The name's are fake so give me a break. The situation portrayed above is almost fiction 'cept to those who know better and you ain't one of em.