Fiction: A researcher devoted to ancient manuscripts sets out to decipher a madman’s diary

Such nights occur very rarely – perhaps only once in a span of fifteen to twenty years. Tonight is one such night when the distance between the moon and Earth is drastically reduced, and the moon’s radiance is unusually intense. Overcome with panic, I am squatting here in the confines of the inner room. This condition of the moon is set to persist for approximately four hours – and these hours will weigh heavily on the world. The possibility of devastating storms and earthquakes looms large on the horizon. Silence reigns supreme within every household. Footfalls are heard not even in the street. Everyone is gripped by fear. Each engrossed in their own prayers. Even so, who is not aware of the injurious effects of the moonlight, such as discomfort, high blood pressure, depression, and an overwhelming impulse to commit suicide?

Squatting down on the floor always brings me a feeling of relaxation, or, as it seems, I have grown accustomed to it. When my kneecaps, calves and heels go numb, it’s as if the Earth’s gravitational pull gets defeated by them. Then I lose no opportunity of humiliating this void Earth.

In a corner of this dark room lies my mother’s drum. Quite frequently, I feel the urge to beat it loudly. But in the next moment, I realise that the time for that act has not yet come. One should play a musical instrument only after being able to transform oneself into a melody, which I still can’t. There is a ventilator in the rear wall of this room from where a corner of tonight’s menacing moon is peeping in. The long tail of a chameleon remains stuck to the frame fixed around the ventilator. Behind the wall stretches a street, and from the left bend of that street runs another street which terminates in a dead end. A dry well stands over there. People keep dumping garbage and abandoned carcasses of stray dogs and cats in this well. These carcasses putrefy over there. Will tonight’s menacing and furious moon revive the dead water source within this dry well? Will it acquaint the dark well, which is now brimming with waste, with the ebb and flow of tides? I have no idea. I am not at all scared of this night or this moon. I am not alone here. I have someone else with me. I am, in fact, terrified by a pointed white bone jabbing at my heart as I sit here. This has been troubling me for several days now. This bone seems to be piercing my heart. And from the evening until midnight, I have either been squatting within the confines of this house, or moving from one place to another, sometimes on the dilapidated steps of the staircase, sometimes in the mud-courtyard and sometimes inside my bedroom.

Outside this room, my father enjoys a deliciously peaceful sleep, snoring on the verandah, while in the adjoining room my wife will now be tossing and turning in her bed. But I am not alone here. I have someone else with me. It has been constantly following me since time immemorial – who is it? Suicide? Yes, indeed, it is Suicide.

Suicide has been steadfastly following me. She has always been with me. I have seen her with me since I reached the age of discernment (when did I reach the age of discernment?). However, I believe it is inaccurate to say that Suicide has been consistently following me. It would be more accurate on my part to say that she was born with me, as my inseparable shadow and timeless companion. I must acknowledge that though she was born with me, she is far more beautiful than I am. This isn’t unusual, as everyone’s suicide is far more alluring than they are. A thought or concept that is rare and is hence beautiful is undoubtedly superior to the small or the large intestine. What else is a human being other than their small or large intestine? If a human being is something other than these undesirable things, I am not aware of it.

I often find Suicide sitting before me, a smile flickering across her face. It is a compassionate smile. Rarely does her smile betray any trace of a sneer; it happens only when my shamelessness and stupidity become intolerable even to myself. Suicide’s smile, with its steep curves and sharp corners, always rests upon a cool, limpid lake. But the lake is not of natural origin. Suicide has painstakingly constructed it herself, breaking through huge, towering mountains, skilfully lifting the debris of massive rocks with her industrious, adept and sincere hands.

However, my treacherous shamelessness and deceit consist in the fact that I have always ignored Suicide. I have never given her the attention she deserves. Moreover, I have often strolled towards her beautiful lake with a certain disdain and indifference.

Though I encountered and endured many misfortunes and peculiar humiliations, I confronted them brazenly. It was like water off a duck’s back. I transformed myself into a pitcher with a smooth façade, on which nothing could settle. The world is but such a place. It is absolutely hollow. Utterly void of all possibilities, the world contains nothing. I feel intensely that I did not come here of my own volition. I was poured into the world like water from a discoloured earthen jug. And now I am continuously growing turbid and murky here. Everything else, aside from growing turbid and murky, remains beyond my control. “The impurity from the body flawlessly merged with the clay.” It seems to be a line from someone’s poem. It may be a line from my own poem. None but I could conceive such an absurd and nonsensical thought.

The myriad fictitious tales that circulate about the world hold no modicum of truth. The teeming throng of people, their relationships, class conflicts, social injustices, armed conflicts, love and hatred, terrorism, political and economic disparities and so many other nonsensical things – they are all mere dreams seen by the human beings of another planet on this desolate plane of the Earth since time immemorial. They are the upturned pictures suspended in this world. They have been making dedicated efforts to improve this world for thousands of years, but their truth amounts to nothing more than a futile obsession. It’s like throwing daggers at the pictures suspended in the air. I have come to know all this not just out of the blue. However, I am not a Sufi, Wali or Dervish. To be frank, I am a foul and malicious coward. For the cultivation of Jñāna, intuition and for gaining insight into the world, I never looked for a forest to wander in, a cave to retreat into, a leopard skin to sit on, or the Great Names of the Almighty to invoke.

The reality is that a cold sweat has afforded me this intuitive understanding. This cold sweat spouts from the unfathomable and incredible depth of my body, from the dark, subtle and fibrous recesses running through its pores.

The cold sweat spurts in a manner that makes me feel as if my very existence, with all its hidden potential, is bursting forth, tearing through my skin and breaking my bones. It is a form of destruction. It carries a peculiar odour, somewhat similar to the smell of blood. This cold sweat adheres to no specific time, season or day. It bursts forth without any warnings in every season, whether the freezing cold of winter, the rainy season or the oppressive humidity of summer. At times, while in a standing posture, I sense a scorching gust of wind brushing against my chest, arms and shoulders even in the midst of winter’s icy grip. Then, deep beneath the sweater, the delusive approach of the cold sweat is heard. The sweat unexpectedly loses its way within the intricate labyrinth of winter. I slip my right hand beneath my sweater and reach it under my vest, attempting to catch hold of the melancholic bead of sweat right near my heart on the left side. Although my hand fails to grab it, yet its dull colour, like some unseen colour of a butterfly, leaves its traces on my finger.

I always have a sudden premonition of the impending arrival of this sweat, exactly as the worms and insects residing inside the Earth sense an imminent seismic wave. Even during the oppressively sultry weather, a mild dizziness swirls me like a forlorn whirlwind around the Earth in the dark gust of an unseen wind. My heart and pulse quicken in that moment, as if engaged in the grandest race against all the clocks suspended on the desolate walls of the world.

Excerpted with permission from The Book of Death, Khalid Jawed, translated from the Urdu by A Naseeb Khan, Ekada/Westland.