Anatomy of the Retrograde

FICTION

This is an experimental cross genre narrative. The protagonist has a fragmented conscience and is contending with amnesia

#57, 5:15 AM-

I fill my room with curtains bought from the thrift store, a handed down leather couch that doubles as my bed, some second-hand books, sunlight, the footfall of pedestrians walking on the road outside and the incessant bickering of the couple downstairs. I fill my room with things I can conquer, or at least, pretend to. I thought it would be easier, after Yaka's betrayal, to find a place for myself, however morbid, however ephemeral. Yaka would have thought otherwise. She would have chastised Temson for finding this shell of a room, so small one couldn't twirl without hitting the wall.

*

#58, 9:00 AM-

Yaka had the habit of ransacking through my belongings, probably because I owned things-clothes, books, shoes, aaita's wrist watch- an inheritance, which my khura had let me keep when he left me at the orphanage. On one such expedition, she discovered my mother's black and white Polaroid and gasped. Forever smiling, my mother looked shyly at the camera, adjusting the uroni of her sador, the pleated mekhela tucked neatly around her waist. It was my only memory of her, the sole keepsake I could salvage from the family albums before khuri burnt them all. I did not know then, that it would be the last time I held the photograph without feeling the guilt of jinxing her memory.

*

#59, 1:30 PM-

When I met Nnogkrih last year, he was working at the district magistrate's office as an attendant. He looked calm and was obedient, unlike his ungrateful teenage self. After my affidavit was finalised, we went out for a walk. I filled him with little details of my life, the one I was sharing with Yaka after moving out. I told him about our shared interest in art, our plans to rent out a small space to create and sell them. I told him how, after he left, Yaka was inconsolable. Every night, I would find her in my bed, weeping and cursing him between her sobs. And I had to calm her down, assuring her how it was better that he left that he was meant for the world, unlike most of us. Nnogkrih smiled at that. He said he thought I was the one who wanted him there. That was the reason, he had assumed, why Yaka showed him my mother's picture. "I was mean to her", he shook his head, sighed and continued, "I told her that the lady in the picture was beautiful, while she was not. When she ripped the photograph right in front of me, I realised how serious she was. She wanted to hear the opposite".

*

#60, 5:00 PM-

Nnogkrih and I went to Ms Dersling's funeral together. "You know, I really wished it was you", he whispered to me as the pastor delivered a final tribute to the orphanage's dead director. I shrugged, dismissing his silly innuendos and reminding him that Yaka would not be pleased. "Really? After what she did with your mother's memory?" he retorted, aware that I would not dismiss her sadism. I shook my head, no; she was the only person who took care of me, even if her concern ran the risk of going rank.

That night, I dreamt of my mother. She was begging for her life as they tied her to a wheelchair. I hurled stones at them, screaming to stop hurting her. Through the haze of my mind, I saw the spectres grow in size until they resembled two sneering effigies of Yaka and Nnogkrih. I woke up, panting for air, just to find Yaka sleeping peacefully beside me. She looked small, conquerable. Since then, the distance between us kept on festering, like an unfixable wound, when at last it became unsurmountable too.

*

#61, 8:30 PM-

Last winter, after cherry blossom, Yaka eloped with a man from the North. She left me a letter describing their meeting at her Jorhat workshop, their Victorian courtship and his eventual proposal. He was rich enough to put her out of misery, she wrote. She apologised for the predicament she put me in, yet promised to help me set up a new venture when I got back to her. But I did not get back to her, not for another seven months. As late as May, I found myself in Jaipur, boarding a train on borrowed money. Yaka was unrecognizable. With her debonair fingers, she caressed my face. At a diner, she fed me on her joys.

"What did you do to my mother's photo?" I asked, my eyes fixed on the blue of her iris. She took a moment to collect herself before pulling out the creased, faded image of my mother from her enamel purse. The picture was a memory quilt sewn with adhesive, wrinkled from all sides. "No", I screamed, "This is not my mother!" I snapped at her, accusing her of being a traitor, of misleading Nnogkrih, of tainting my remembrance of Maa. My outburst triggered her to break her polish façade. Without it, her selfish, unruly persona looked formidable. "On purpose", she pointed a finger at my face, "On purpose I kept him away from you. How dare you get the best of everything?!" When I suffered, she felt needed. She felt seen.

*

#62, 11:45 PM-

Temson dropped by to make sure I was managing well. He was actually here for his money, which I forgot to pay even after being reminded thrice. The thing is, I have become a little forgetful. For example, I do not recollect what happened between my confrontation with Yaka and my coming back, or why I refused Temson to look for Nnogkirh. This is why I am at my desk often, scribbling elusive fragments from my past that would flood my mind episodically. This is why, a minute ago, I smothered the back of a photograph Yaka convinced me was my mother's, and wrote over it, "Maa's photo. Only memory".

*

By: Anannya Nath

The writer can be reached at nathanannya@gmail.com

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