An Unstained Painting Knife

1

Those two shaky flesh-missile heads pushed its way through the air to brush against my lower pectorals but my pec-delt tie-in kept out of the way of the pointed corollas, with a swinging motion of my shoulders (not lack of lust, just manners) like in a regatta, the port tack boat gives way to the star-board tack boat, while taking a turn around the buoy beating the element ‘wind’.
The two pointed corollas resumed the journey, after missing my chest briskly. My heart skipped a beat. Chivalrously, I looked back to have a look at the glutes maximus. She tripped down as she was lost in the ego-satisfaction of being gazed at by another male. She rolled over to lie on her back; the driver’s right foot failed to press against the brake.

The huge tyre ran over her hips, crumpled her pelvic bone. Seeing the rich auburn tinged clotting blood on a tuft of pubic hair, my masculinity shrank; disgust; but this shrinkage is unlike Buddha’s belly.
The wrong ideas, anti-erotic or otherwise, injected into the passive head of a girl brought up in a vaticanised malayalee town pains me considerably more than the flabby nature of their midriff. According to sermons, the pelvis is said to be the headquarters of Satan in human body. The girl believes that if something badly injures her genitilia, it will not pain her because the accident squeeze the Satan out of her. But when the huge tyre ran over her, the concept of Satan disappeared…only ‘pain’ remained, purely biological.

2

Martin the mariner, who is an amateur magician, came with a war-hammer (which is a prop for the college ramp-show). He made a sprinkling action with his hand above the injured girl’s pelvic bone with an immediate healing effect. The on-lookers were amused.
But the magician was not satisfied. His hands slipped into the girl’s back and harmstrings
and she was lifted up…the elegance of a powerlifter.

3

From the top-most floor of Medical Trust Hospital, my retinae received the light rays from the most panoramic view of Cochin harbour. A huge mother ship roared a siren, probably an audio-signal to the navigators’ community but she terrified the small ferry boats and they steered clear of her body-territory.
The shrieks of that bedded girl were drowned in the bustle, in the murmur of the quick-stepping nurses, the frantic-looking nurses…

4

Martin sat down, facing the doctor. I stood just behind him like a lieutenant, overcame by admiration and jealousy. The surgeon shouted at me, “Who told you that the pelvic bone is broken?” I mumbled something. Professional ethics urged the doctor to calm down.
“She is perfectly alright,” the doctor told Martin, “The only fact that disturbs us, the tuft of pubic hair on which the blood is clotted. Either we will rinse it thoroughly using some advanced cleansing liquids or we will crop it off. That we have to decide. ”
Martin’s young strong face made a serious approving nod overpowering my smiling foolish face.
“But why there is so much debate over some life-less strands of…” Martin was confused.
“Hey…hey…don’t take it that way,” the doctor interfered, “The controversial tuft of pubic hair is of so much erotic importance. It will serve as a fringe over the clitoral hood.”
“I don’t understand,” Martin said.
“You are not supposed to…” the doctor said, throwing an irritated glance at my smiling foolish face.

5

The bedded girl gave out long cries instead of sudden shrieks. Two of her friends came to see her. One is the legendary Venus de Edappally and the other is an equally brilliant body, heavenly. Both struggled to resist the outbreak of a tear-shed, the yelp, the proverbial maternal concern.
I had been tired of the merciless accusing stares at me; what did I do? Girls, they either back-giggle at me or they stare at me accusingly, their nasty feminine eyes spitting fire. Enough and more provocation for a retaliation, think of ‘deflowering’ (despite my distaste for the bio-mechanical insertion aspect of the male female union) a meaningless forced coitus, 14 seconds of duration; but I have to restrain myself, being cautious of cruel festivities, punishments…
…being undressed and flogged in the public, a war-hammer striking against the testicles, some blobs of seminal pulp oozing down my inner thighs…a deep moan…no…and hundreds of Malayalee well-wishers deriving sadistic pleasure at my expense…never…
But Venus de Edappally looked at me neutrally, rather affectionately, no...neutrally, concealing deep inside the accusation. I rarely looked at people in their eyes those days but unknowingly my eyes exchanged a glance with that of Venus de Edappally and immediately returned to floor. Through the corner of my eyes, I saw her face going pale. Still, I don’t know what on earth does that mean? A sudden emotional variation displayed on the most meaningful face in the solar system…
Martin got up, gave a couple of solemn smiles to the girls and left, carefully, without a word, to attain everlasting admiration.

6

The conspirators were waiting down the hospital, as per the ‘strategy’ of the middle game. A pair of cadmium orange Suns were reflected on my sun-glasses which obscured the criminal eyes that studied the Cochin harbour, just habitually.
A pump from the bottom of my adrenal gland equipped me to the Degree One of Alertness. My hands shivered, but that’s okay. I ran down the stairs.
Martin was violently abducted and was tied to a street-lamp post. Abiding to the provisions of Geneva Convention, my companions slapped him only occasionally. I stood before the terrifying eyes of the victim. I looked at the General Secretary of the Area Committee and he nodded. He wiped his fore-finger across his throat. I understood. I pulled out my ‘painting knife’ and gripped it as per barbarian methodology and raised it exploding my anterior deltoid muscle flap and was about to…
“You too, brute,” Martin asked.
A shudder ran down my spine. The painting knife fell down automatically.
“I’m sorry, Martin,” I said, while my hand picked up the painting knife. To the trowel-painting-device, the thirsty but thought-provoking prop in this symbolist act of the play, I said, “No…no...not again!”
“I’m sorry, Martin,” I repeated.
“You don’t have to be,” Martin said, as we unfastened him, “Are you in the stupid yankee habit of saying ‘sorry’ for anything…or are you really sorry when you say sorry…”
Martin fell unconscious. We ran away.

7

A sea-faring centurion was riding down the streets of Cochin. He stopped when he saw a crowd, forming a circle. He pushed his way through them to see his friend Martin’s body lying, abandoned. A deep yelp escaped the throat of the centurion. Rage overcame him and the regime of aloofness he had imposed upon himself bursted off in time and such was the ‘conversion of the centurion.’
He, the tall dark muscular hairy angel-faced perfectionist stood over his friend’s body which was not actually dead. But the atmosphere and setting, the misc-en-scene tricked him. Two droplets of saltiest tears oozed down his chin and at the top of his voice, constraining a sudden weep, the sea-farer addressed the crowd,
“Friends, Malayalees, Countrymen;
Lend me your ears…”
“Peace! Ho!” the citizens whispered, “The centurion is speaking.”
Pointing his big forefinger down, the centurion cried out in agony, “Here was a Martin. When comes such another.”
The citizens drooped down, their knees stamping the tarred road and they cried, “Oh! No! Revenge. Burn, Fire, Kill, Slay! Let not a traitor live…” the crowd cried in unison, methodically.
It was not easy for me to run all the way from Pallimukku to Fort Cochin beach, without rest, never looking back. I jumped onto the deck of a yacht, INS Tharangani, probably. I stood at the bow, my right hand hanging on the jack-staff, my shoulders heaving in relief.
I looked back and three motor fishing boats closely followed the wake of the yacht, their relative velocity far higher.
I undressed and my eyes met the sun, setting behind the monstrous Arabian sea. . I jumped into the sea my body immersed slowly, absolutely weightless into the greenish grey waters of Cochin (with Cadmium Orange tinges). Fourteen seconds after, some where deep down the unknown depths of this terrific nasty space in our planet, I made the last convulsive movement to survive.
A deep-sea diver laughed her heart out seeing me down there. “Kya problem hai?” She asked me. “ Mouth Mein Paani Jaa Rahan Hai!” I said. She asked me, “Paani Nahin To Dhoodh Jayega Kya….” We laughed, together.
She kissed on my throat, “Breathe, slowly,” She said and I did, Wow!
It’s heaven….. the sweetest sensation that ever chilled my lungs -pair. She kissed my throat, again, “Com’ on, Try again,” she said. And I did and I was made to adapt my arms and legs as fins and tails, so that I could learn ‘snorkeling’ very easily.
Five amoebae winked at me and their nuclei split, a mark of parental affection.
Her hands slowly gripped my belly and her fins started propulsion!

                                                                                      Fine                                                                     November, 1999