Mist Fading

He will agree to let you read some of the stories he wrote after all the coaxing and pledging you will do. There will be a story that will read like nothing you have read in a long, long time.

He was a writer; wrote mostly short stories, shorter than those that appear in magazines and newspapers, barely more than a few hundred words; thought he couldn't carry a story for long.

If you ask who he likes, the first name he will utter will be Kafka. He'll say that there never existed a better coalesce of everything. He'll argue that Metamorphosis is still the best story. He'll underline for you how Metamorphosis has been “plagiarised” by writers like Steinbeck, and point to Of Mice and Men. You will consider that and you will be dumbfounded for a while, and then you will start to see some connections; but you will not be convinced. You will say that nothing from a story completely belongs to the writer. Then he, feeling the need to defend his hero, will get started and you will have to back down.

Any and all intimations that hint at your unwillingness to talk about Kafka with him will be ignored. He will make a point to talk all the same; even if it is Kafka on the Shore that you inadvertently allude to. You will talk about Shore's surreal edge and the magic it carries with it, and then you will see how the conversation meanders to Kafka, in due course. Sometimes, he is too garish, you will say. And he will do the hatchet job; not for you, on you.

You like Kafka too, but it's rather for stories like Judgement, you will argue. Also for In the Penal Colony. You will praise and say better things about him (things that you will not completely mean) and he will be contended, that grin plastered to his fat lips.
He will agree to let you read some of the stories he wrote after all the coaxing and pledging you will do. There will be a story that will read like nothing you have read in a long, long time. There will be another, about a vermin transforming into a man. You will like it. This story will be so close to authenticity that you will take off your clothes in front of that full mirror once you are home and you will marvel at the discrepancies of your pairs of legs, arms, ears, eyes and even your incipient and just-budding breasts. Much like Metamorphosis, you will say. The last thing you will do is smirk at your crotch. Laugh even.

You will ask for more stories and he will start to give them to you, unforthcoming at first. And slowly, that will change.

You will be inspired.

One June evening, you will be looking out your window, the balmy air brushing against and caressing your face. Then the air will take the form of a malevolent wind suddenly, and the azure sky will turn grim and grey and it will rain. The rain, however, will be blue, the same blue the sky had been a moment earlier. Later, at night, you will realise that your pen has stopped working. However many time you fill it with ink and empty it by turns, it will not work. The next day, you will discover that no pen in the world is working.

Eventually, you will end up reading a news article about how all the world's ink is beginning to dry. The first thing you will do will be laugh at it. You will laugh, and laugh, and laugh; and your laughing will give way to thinking about him.

He, the writer, will be worried sick because all his stories will have started fading away, like the mist fading on any given winter morning; slowly, as the sun pushes itself to the fore. You will want to share in his worry but he will not let you. He will rebuff and holler and yell, and you, fiery and livid, will vow not to see him again.

But then, a few days later you will find yourself tapping at his door. He'll let you in, but you will find him in red. You will see that his face has that same awkward grin. It will not take long before you notice blood spattered all over the room. He'll not have his index, middle and ring fingers in the places they used to take in his right hand (he used his left to write). The air will hold until you realise you aren't breathing, and even after that it will refuse to get inside you. He'll tell you that blood doesn't dry like ink.

You will find a styrofoam cup on the table, the water in it red. He'll explain to you the inconvenience of writing directly with the crimson.

You will wish that the sky tear open and your mother's hand reach out and wake you from this nightmare, but when out of curiosity you will touch the brim of red, you will find it as cold as the winter, as hot as the air that went past your face that day before it rained. All in all, it will be as real as everything else.

Back home and you will still find it difficult to come in terms to believe what you saw.

You will visit him a month later, and this time his grin will have taken more of his face, and he will tell you how his stories have taken more pages too. Then once inside the room, you will notice that he does not have his right hand. You will feel your stomach churn and roll, but you will hold back. He'll keep smiling all the time.

You'll tell him to stop doing those things; he will not understand, and you will not try to make him understand.

He'll give you a story and you will run your fingers along the red letters.

They will be as real, cold and hot as that moment passing you by. A paroxysm will seize you by the throat and you will bolt out of his room and return home where, your head aching, you'll zone out no sooner.

You won't go to him for a few days, weeks, even. But one day, you will want to go. And then you will. You will bring a story home with you because it will be long. Because the story will really be good, you will love it. You will see more stories piled one over another on the left side of his writing desk and you will ask for them. He'll not rebuke now; and with each story, you will love the writer in him more and more.

He will not have his left leg the next time you go to him. You will feel an inexplicable tightness around your neck, wrenching and roiling in your guts.

That day, the sky will be mauve and you will love the sight of the sun debilitating, dying, clambering at the seams of the sky. Then, not unlike on that June evening, the sky will start roaring and rumbling and rain will pour. This time, it will be red, the raindrops.

When you will be reading another story he wrote, the letters will start blending with the off-white of the parchment. Upon your showing, he will get mad at it. You will see helplessness glinting off his eyes and worry pasted to his lips and you will try to commiserate and be empathetic, but you will have to leave him alone nonetheless.

And one day, he will stop writing altogether, because he will not have anything to write, yes, neither to write nor to write with. He will stop. Just like that.

- Sharad Duwal