Evening is slowly netting Inuyama. Spiders are heading home to the prickly bushes with red flowers. In the corner of the grey pavement, a cat with mottled fur is curling into itself. A few kilometres away, Yakushima macaques gather around a bonfire and soften the frost on their bellies. Stepping out from the convenience store, I warm my palms on a corn and mayonnaise sandwich and Genmaicha tea. The tea tastes of sweetened toasted grains. I toss it around in my mouth, and remember kaya jam spread on roasted butter from Singapore, a concoction of coconut cream and pandan leaves. I remember roasted puffed rice mixed with jaggery and coconut filings back home.
As the final sediment of sunlight is hauled in, a cackle breaks out from the blue hills. They are probably slow-dancing around the fire. I sit down on a bench. Night traffic is trickling in, stopping in dutiful intervals. The sandwich is cold inside. As it makes its way into my system, I sense how empty I am. Ten straight hours in the dungeon, watching scientists poke around in a monkey’s brain has stripped my innards clean, of hunger, of shame. I think earnestly, I’ll write a poem about the ethical dilemma, and immediately note the pretension. A clean excision from natural experience. Mayo clinches the corn in its viscous folds and thoughts disappear. I get up and walk to a resto-bar.
The sashimi, wasabi and ocha are a detour from my natural palate, a slow learning of a different tapestry of tastes. As I trudge back to my new home alone at night, there it was. That feeling of having been cut loose. If something were to happen to me now, I wouldn’t know that no one else knew. At that point, it had been several years of accompanied, yet lonely survival. Instantly combustible friendships, slow-burning limerences, and one co-dependent purgatory. The physical reality of aloneness, like the clench of lycra, was now a measurable subject. I stretch my figure up a slow-tilting mound that culminates in a housing facility for the great apes. Their hoots echo in the air. Bushes fold into darkness, punctuated sparsely by white beams from streetlights. The hostel I’m staying in is near the housing facility. I hear a slight shuffle and turn around to find that the cat has followed me.
As I enter the hostel, I hum to myself for proof of existence, and she hums back. I’m bleeding in my underwear. The cycle has been reset: dietary changes, elevated stress levels and pure longing. When my periods are delayed, I conjure hypothetical secrets. Familial disease risks, and my partner’s nightly alter-ego. The viscous fluid, now weighing the right tender amount, tugs at my innards. I change, draw apart the curtains in the room and slip into the futon.
I feel the first nudge of the electrode in my brain. Thick eyelashes drooping over my eyes. A metal collar strapped onto my neck holds my breath in a tight strangle. My arms pressed against my thighs. Puddles of sweat in light brown hair. I’m in a plastic container with an overhead hole for my head to pop out. I’m agitated. Repeating myself. The same caws, hoots, and head tilts. I bare my fangs like a mammal viper. The cartographers have removed a piece of my cranium. They unplug a cork screw. I cannot unspool my thoughts from this sensory avalanche. I cannot choose. They access a private topology of my mind. Urine and faeces, the weight travels down my limbs. I loosen up.
White light splutters onto my senses. It’s a message from the lab. Osteoma, recurrent headaches, and a cluster of other symptoms. Gabo is dead. I unspool from my foetal position. I’ve bled through the night. I recited: dietary changes, elevated stress, pure longing. I change, and peer at the window, the blue hills. I gather up the crumbled futon in my hand, and fill up a bucket with water. I put a handful of detergent, soak the futon, and look at the brown discharge. Frills breaking out into the water like planktons. Another message: we are holding the monthly funeral. You should come.
About the Author
Kalyani Bindu is a postdoctoral research fellow at NIMHANS, India. She works at the intersection of genetics, neuroscience, and systems biology. Two Moviegoers was her first poetry collection. Her poems and essays have appeared in Fauxmoir, 45th Parallel, Indian Express, New Asian Writing, Guftugu, and elsewhere. She served as a poetry editor at Variant Literature Journal. As a columnist for White Crow Art Daily, she penned articles exploring various socio-cultural themes.
