2100D.O.C.
DUTY OF CARE.
(THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS PLEASE ENJOY WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN SO FAR... PILLARS FUND) XXXX
Speeding out of a bend on the hyperloop, getting pushed back into my chair slightly. The view engulfing me once more, the mountains and valleys of Kashmir blur past me, blue, red and yellow wildflowers that where once in the background become a multi coloured blur as they shoot past the window. I look forward as we plunge into utter darkness, sinking deep into the mountain side.
Not noticing that the lights of the train have been on all this time, peering quickly upon the other passengers as I adjust myself in my seat; of which there aren’t that many. No one really comes this far out anymore. Shame. Really when it’s this pristine, one of the last few places in the world that really is. Pondering through the blackness of my view, looking back at my reflection, my mood; totally self-absorbed, reminiscing on the childhood I had in this forgotten ancient part of the world. My reflection reminding me how long ago that really was. As we exit the tunnel, my reflection disappears, the last remnants of today’s sunshine intrusively burst into the cabin, making me blink, snapping me out of my melancholy. I need to get home. I need to see him.
My contact flickers into life picking me back up and dropping me back into the present. I get a projection into the back of my retina informing me that the journey has taken me 38 minutes. I could have got to London in this time, I think frettingly to myself. Anxious to get my destination. My stomachs in knots.
Why does he live out here still? I mean, it’s beautiful, yes. But I can’t look after him here, ever since mum died his been going back to his old ways. I mean I do well for myself now, I’m an analysist for Fuji in Mumbai. Living in a modern sky garden complex with my wife and luckily, we just got the paperwork through, so we are licenced to have a child. We have the space; I have the money and his name can carry on, a real honour in today’s environment. Why doesn’t he want to see it? Be secure. Fine the air quality is bad, but that’s the same everywhere, apart from here I suppose. Frettingly, I sink deeper into the rabbit hole, contemplating where’s best to raise my unborn child, in this peaceful scenic bliss or the smoggy metropolis of Mumbai. I’ll tell him about the child licence paperwork coming through, maybe this will sway his stubbornness.
The train reaches it penultimate stop and I see the remainder of my carriage skuttle out; I gaze out and reflect on all the trouble I got into in this city. My mother calling me, telling me to come home as it was a school day. Undenounced to her, I was base jumping of a network Pilon into the valley at the edge of the city, this was before it was all built up into apartment blocks, malls and the hectic silk road city that I see Infront of my eyes today. I search the horizon to see if I could spot the Pilon… no such luck. The setting sun glistening off the glass of this new city, impressive how industrious this part of the world has become. Remembering when I would aimlessly roam these streets, it was just a small market town with truck charging stops, a few old bazars and beautifully dilapidated coffee spots.
My contact engages with my vision, realising that it has more memories from this geo tag. I don’t see why not. I have a few minutes left off this awful journey and I vaguely remember that day; it was an innocent one. It would be nice to see it again, play by play.
The train reassuringly starts to get up to speed again and pushes me once more into my seat, feeling the plastic shell behind the memory foam, I adjust myself again. Honestly what point of paying cooperation Tax, keeping these mega-corps in place and they can’t even update the infostructure occasionally, I hate old trains. I close my eyes and try to relax; the contact does the rest in my head flickering behind my left eye. My mother’s voice plays in my ear-pods;
“Make sure your home today… you idiot’’.
My stomach sinks as I remember the way she would call me an idiot. I sink back allowing the past to take me in. Me and my motley crew off reprobates, baddest boys in the bits, smiling to myself, no let’s be honest none of us where that bad. I mean Aziz did a bit of time for his involvement in the Deep-Web uprising in 2047. But that was when the prisoners given Pure Timol, a drug that slowed the perception of time, a life sentence could be carried out in solitary in a week. I would prefer that, then now, to be a prisoner and work the mining machines on numbered moons around the cosmos.
As images of us climbing the ladder up the Pilon run past my iris, I look around my projected field of vision seeing whether I could make out people’s faces, these people who I have lost contact with and have dropped down my digital social close friends list. We reach the top as we all pull out our hash vapes; I remember gazing at the view and being dumbfounded. It still gives me the same stomach-churning feeling pushing new air into my lungs, the feeling of true beauty. I think back at the scene I just saw looking out the carriage window and how much of that has changed. All the cliff faces that I’m now being shown, are full of new developments and apartment blocks, which are reflecting the sunset and human progression back to me.
I pick up my name over the chatter in my earpiece, I think it’s time, the images from my iris cam look down and I pause the projection with a tap of my earpiece, as I recognise the Crescent diving gear with its black reflective sensors and automatically releasing my vac packed shoot neoprene design, I pause to just have a look at all my old gear again. The self-engaging magnetic inbuild harness. The noematic strings that would drop from the pockets and the back to connect and magnetically tie around your legs and stiffen as an electric current pass through it. I wish I had kept it, they’re worth fortunes now. Loool.
I replay and double tap my ear buds to fast forward the build-up to the jump I remember teetering on the verge. My toes just at the edge of the platform, I lean forward, me on this train, my heart still jumps out my chest. The same mantra I use to this day, before I do anything that gets my heart racing, I say to myself to remain EVER PRESENT, 3, 2, 1…. GO.
I remember the weightlessness more than anything else, as exhilarating as the images flashing my iris are, I only remember the feeling of total weightlessness, and all your mind consumed in one action, oh the freedom. Even if just for a second but feeling for a lifetime where loses all meaning. Them are moments that I would live for. To silence your mind as its all consumed in one action.
The train stops and the lights start flashing, end of the line starts playing in my ear-pods. I hate autoconnection, I’ve never fallen asleep on this archaic form of transportation, im not an idiot. I flick my ear-pod again nearly knocking it out.
As I get off the platform it strikes me to see people that look like me again the same sort of gene structure, same sort of cheek bones and noses. Everyone’s so diverse everywhere else, with the homogeneous human being so diverse and nearly everyone’s a mixed race, I always saw race as something of the past, but in fashion now we are seeing a comeback to have lineage again.
I groggily get off the train, taking my ear-pod out for a second just so I could hear the hiss of the doors as the air outside rushes in and repressurises the hyperloop. Time to get to where I was born. Hastily I skip out the station, its changed but my mind racing with anxiety, I don’t take anything in. I step out into the twilight and get a head rush from the cleanness of the air. It smells pure, taking a few breaths to calm myself, the air thick in my lungs like nectar you can almost taste it. I scan the horizon to find transport and sure enough, they’ve got some rent-a-cars adjacent to the exit. I step to the newest one, I mean some of them at the far end are so old that they still have glass windows and windscreens, imagine if someone saw me coming back home in one of them like some sort of Victorian. I chuckle to myself, as put my thumb on the lock automatically paying as my destination has been set from the moment, I set out from my apartment in Mumbai over an hour ago.
the light next to the thumb scanner, goes from red to green and the side of the pod lifts open like old fashioned shop shutters, that new car smell hits me. I sink into the new active foam nanotech seats, and they mould perfectly for my posture, from my biometrics. I feel my back slowly popping and cracking as it gets massaged back into place by the seats. I hate old train seats.
the lights match my mood slowly going from a purply red to calming blue, we set off, I set the pod to transparent mode with a touch of the roof panel so I can see the world outside, I decide to take the 5 minute longer route and avoid the underground tunnels as I want the scenic route. We skate quickly through the city, im glad that some of its old character remains through the city, the old bazars teeming with light and life, refelecting of the glass towers either side that the bunting and lighting hangs. Old shop keepers whispering nothingness into the ears of girls who could be there daughters, skating past the buildings which probably are alive between the hours of 8-5.
I look forward as we break out the finicial district and the city buildings become smaller and the road become wider, I start to see other pods and cars drifting around, its nice that in these more rural areas you see more of a variety when it comes to cars an pods in mumbia its become so that every year the pods are updated buy the council and they scrap and recycle the old straight away as they have a deal with scarab cars. But here we still have people with old personal pods and cars, I haven’t seen an old combustion car in years and I just over took 3. Craning my neck all the way round to see if I could hear the engine. The building where more residential here, I looked up as we were right at the bottom of the valley and about to climb, we turn a corner and start to climb, the road dusted in sand, doesn’t look like anyone really goes up there, the walking track seems well trodden but not the road. We venture out the city walls and I see the sign thanking me for visiting, the old sign used to have bullet holes in, I remember as my stomach flips again, im nervous, I think that’s why I must have taken the scenic route after all the anxiety on how he is and im the one that’s nervous.
The road becomes more and more treacherous as the tarmac stops and I’m prompted to take over manually, I don’t, I know these new pods can do it. Otherwise, it would have just gone manual by itself. As we meander and Criss cross through the boulder field, a mountain slide must have happened this winter and no ones knocked these rocks into smaller more manageable and moveable rubble.
As we slowly make our way up the mountain at a steady speed we seem to have got past the boulder field, the sandy road returns we carry on up the mountainside, the higher we get the lighter the twilight becomes the crispness of the air gets tart and sweet in the mouth, I look down at the metropolises in the distance as I go past the highest point of its buildings, oh how much has changed I think back at myself, the city used to be a small speck form here but now you can actually see it growing with the lights on the cranes swivelling constantly, growing like an ever bleeding scab.
The pod beeps, I turn back round in the chair and have a look at the map, we are 5 minutes away, in this light I still cant see the house. I think that I will be able to see it once we go past the trees, and sure enough the moment, total nostalgia hits me, my family home, not that much has changed, I mean a few things the drone charging point at the top of the house which I put in to get his shopping.
Describe the house a little more…
As we pull in the house seems the same, glass fronted even tough the Iranian drapes seemed to be pulled all the way, that’s so him, doesn’t even want to look out onto probably the best view of the world. Sit in the pod for a moment longer as I gazed upon the house, this house which I lived in and grew up in. It was a strange existence to mist of my friends who lived in apartment blocks in the city and when I was in primary school, I really envied them and their lives, but the more I grew up the more I started to understand my fathers choice to remain here. I gaze upon the old German prefabricated home that my grandfather built, it was a beautiful 4 bedroom, with basement and loft, and platform layered roof that allowed you to in the summer to bring out the old wooden framed string beds and gaze at the stars.
The house was built by my father, it was his dream, he had worked it all out before he got married, it was beautifully done. With a steel prefabrication and glass windows, it just worked. It was in the shape of two triangles, with a draw bridge, with all induvial carved wooden trimmings. The
I look up, the speckles of dazzling white and yellow, the splattering of gods paints brush, they are so much brighter here, at night anywhere else in the world you can barely see them because of the smog. But even here I feel like they’ve dimmed since I was a child.
As im looking up, the door opens, I hear a gruff voice which puts chills through my spine and dissolves the knot in my stomach.
“Yeah, they are getting dimmer, like you I presume”
“Heard you had a fall dad, don’t call me dim”
“Salam, son”
“Hello, dad”
“I’m fine, that bastard robot of yours keeps trying to prod and poke me so I just shut it off”
“Dad, I know you had a minor fall, the robot never really shuts down, I still scans you every time you go past it”
“Get in the house, I have some of your mum’s secret recipe biryani in the oven, hush your gums and eat, skinny boy”
“I’m not skinny anymore dad”
“you’ll always be skinny to me, get in the house”
He moves towards me and I see that his the one that become skinny, he looked more gaunt in the face. It’s always makes me feel some sort of way when I see him for the first time again, after a while that is, he ages more and more. When you see someone who you thought was invincible growing up, age. It always reminds me of the sanctity of life. We hug, he pulls me into the house. Usual small talk about the house ensues.
As I look around the house, I realise how much of a mess it’s become, by the looks of things his turned off all the cleaning robots as well, he got a straw broom though lying in the corner. The broom made by wrapping a bunch of straw together with a piece of string.
“what’s with the broom” I ask as we make our way to the kitchen, I walk behind him, to be respectful and to see if his limping. His not, this puts my mind at rest somewhat. I start to get excited about the biryani, and eye up the oven, I wonder if its lamb or chicken, or both… please let it be both.
He takes a seat at the table “I cooked it just for you, Mrs told me you were coming into town, its chicken and lamb btw, I sent the drone out just after you left Mumbai.
“I’m glad that you’re getting use from it.”
“Another 5 minutes on it, sit with me, tell me how you are?”
“I’m good dad, how’re you? I know you’ve had a fall please let me see if you’re hurt…”
He looks at me in such a strange way, he never really had to say much to communicate what he was feeling, he had such a mastery of his eyes, something which he gifted me apparently, but I’m normally used to giving the looks this one confused me and pause. In everything, just looking into his light brown eyes with a light grey around the iris, just showing his age, but there was something in them today…. like some sort of melancholy certainty.
He smiled at me. “I’m fine”
He looked around at the house,
“you’re staying the night, right? We have a lot to talk about, I have some things that I would like to show you before.”
Before what I inquire, more interested in getting fed now, my stomach that was only anxious and tight a few minutes ago, is now cavernous and starving. The smell of the food was really starting to get at me. This was home. Something about the smell of the food and the air was really getting to me. I felt content for a second. Like all my problems and life stresses just disappeared as I sit in the spot that I used to my homework at.
The biryani was just as I remembered it, the meat fell of the bone and the rice was beautiful, he even scrapped the bottom of the pot for me so that I could have some of the crispy bits. We spent the next hour or so chatting and catching up. He seemed the same, but something was off, he seemed more grateful, and he wasn’t questioning any of my choices. Nothing seemed to annoy me about this now old man sitting Infront of me, which to be honest was incredibly unusual he looked as if he had come to terms with everything.
Write more about the biryani.
He looked oldest, the oldest I’ve ever seen him obviously, but he seemed to be glowing, his skin seemed radiant, and I couldn’t shake that look in his eye.
We go to the roof so that we could have a look at the stars, I see the new telescope I bought for him unused and the old telescopic one, sitting on the edge always almost about to fall, a gentle breeze just waiting to teeter it off. But he stood near, the railing next to the telescope and looked at me, I went and had a look through the eye glass to see what I could make out. It was vivid,
‘I’ve set it in place, please don’t move it”
Please… he said please… something really is wrong here.
“so what do you think then?”
Think of what?
I said knowing exactly what mars was glowing unnaturally I mean I could see it, aligned with other stars that I couldn’t name anymore, but they seemed dim compared to what mars had become, even now with its mining operations and it lights which I could vaguely make out, the constant dotted line of rockets coming and going.
“You want to sleep out here tonight, ill put the fire on and we can have hot chocolates like old times”
As he said this, my stomach was churning, what’s happening? Why is he being like this… I just don’t understand.
“IM HAVING A CHILD DAD”
I blurted it out, his behaviour was incredibly unsettling apart from the skinny comment he hadn’t passed comment on anything. He was acting like someone who was trying to make his best impression, that wasn’t him. He did as he pleased always. I mean look at where he lives.
I looked back at him to gauge his reaction, the realisation that it was me that was nervous about telling him all the news. He looked happy but there was a twinge of sadness in his eyes I clocked it the moment I turned around, but he disguised it quick enough. He looked at me and as quick as he could he came and embraced me,
“I’m glad that you’re finally taking me up on the offer of living here and raising a child without that dastardly paperwork”
“I’ve got the paperwork dad, I’m not sure where to raise it”
“I knew it habibi, im glad none the less, the house is yours anyway you know this, I built this for you its yours”
We stood there for a while leaning on each other, Im not sure how long we stood there for but it could have been any time between 1 and 10 minutes. It felt good when he let go of me his face was wet as was mine,
“you know I disagree with getting a form ftop have a child, its very demeaning to humanity in my opinion we have had this conversation though haven’t we.”
“yes, yes we have”
“but its what you have to do. You have to the state wont allow you have a child otherwise”
He gestured with his head,
“come down stairs with me”
He walked down, and the smell of biryani hit me again, I said that I was going to go grab some more, whether I could go grab some and then he told mem to go meet him in his room, he never invites me into his room. It’s a sacristan and sacred place. It was, indeed, he rarely ever let me into it as a child, it was one of the biggest rooms in the house. It held everything in it which I found fascinating, it had the heirlooms and all the gold plus the safe, it was the room where my mother used to paint. It had the best view, right on the top deck, I had half this view, the rest was the rocky hillside.
As a kid I would sneak into this room as much as I could and just watch the sun rise or sun set especially as my mother would paint int there, she wouldn’t mind I would, fall asleep under there bed and wake up in my own, magically.
I slipped into the kitchen and went to the pot that was on the stove, the arga that they had here was always something to behold. I enjoyed watching them, just live, they nattered as they nurtured me, they always made feel like I was there friend and that I could interject with anything that was on my mind. They made me feel like I wasn’t one there child, I worked through all the things which bothered me together and never gave a set answer, letting me to come to my own conclusion.
The way that we live now, reflect the way that we have flats and apartments
But what I had now, in front of me was a beautiful Varinder with everything from the valley down to the city, it was incredibly beautiful even now in the twilight the sky that sort of blue that you could just drown yourself in. I remember looking through the window and allowing myself to fall into the view, it was changing constantly the best way to look at the world as it was
Look at the world like a clock, the cogs that are straining to turn need to be regeared and reset.
He pulled out a box from under his bed, it was tatty and frayed around the edges, yet it seemed to glow, the way that he held it, like it was the most valuable thing in the world. He gave it to me to open, I was apprehensive. Just by looking at him, he seemed like leaning on this moment in time, I opened it and it full of ratty scraps of paper.
What is this dad.
It’s the things that we hid from you when you was a kid. It’s the story of how I fell in love with your mother.
This was something which I waited my whole life for, they would tease everyone with the story on how they got together, they would make up fantastic scenarios, riffing with each other, adding to each other’s nonsense with more nonsense, then when they burst into laughter. I always presumed that they met one of the seedier dating apps, or worse than that he was a natural and wasn’t aligned with the algorithm and didn’t want to tell anyone.
But he showed me the first thing in the box, and I saw that it was a picture of him and my mother, they must have been around 21 and 22 they were in jumpsuits, both with shaved heads, my mother looked so skinny you could see it in her face, she was beautiful though, so young. Again, so skinny, I couldn’t get over it. She was never like that when she was my mother in my mind, they were both cuffed it looked like a prisoner of war. Both shackled, which looked like heavy chains on the feet and cable ties on there hands, they stood glum, but they had a glint in their eye. They looked alive at the edge of death. It was a rather beautiful pic, the next 10 minutes pasted as a blur as my father showed me the rest of the box, it was surreal.
He pulled out a blue light that scanned his forearm and a tattoo came up, it was a vintage QR code not just a modern micro codak, he scanned it a number came up on the reader, then it, it blinkered out.
“Sit on the edge of the bed, son.”
He looked at me with so much passion and pain, he always had passion in his eyes but never pain. He never showed himself when he was hurting, but he wasn’t himself today he was powerful in his vulnerability. His eye was making me well up and I didn’t understand, you never really do when something grazes your soul. The only time that I had seen him like this was when mother died and that was only briefly, he had promised that he would remain strong on her death bed, and he would never let her down. It’s one thing that you could on, him sticking to his word when it came to anything she desired.
His voice trembling, “so we raised you muslim, you know this”
“the religion of peace, yes dad I know”
For a brief second I felt a lecture coming on.
“yes, son. But there was a time when people didn’t think this, they thought the worst of us, they thought that we; a religion of violence and when the world started to crumble, they looked the other way when the old powers, shuffled us into camps, they did it so quietly, the internet wasn’t what it was now, it was a basic place with no verifications or laws in place that would prevent people from lying on major news broadcast websites. Information wasn’t quantified and put into easy digestible data packets, but a story was wanted, but a culture of formulating narratives for gaining power allowed the news to be all jumbled up into propaganda. Malicious narratives towards Islam held up by lies, the population in the West believed these lies, even though the wars had been raging in the middle east by peacekeepers that stood for a system of propagating peace and defending liberty, freedom while going to war a constant circle of violence over commodity like oil, diamonds, gold.
Civilisations that had been standing strong, humble and quietly, quite cities that had stood for millennia, where obliterated leaving the Arab lands course bare and starving old civilizations like those in Yemen, disintegrated into dust due to famine, in a world where we could have fed everyone, but alas like animals they starved. They didn’t understand that in a capitalist world the only thing that we go war for is commodity. And to looking after each other is what makes us human, people in a land of a overfed obese society that was bursting out of its buttons, clothes that where ill fitting on there obsene bodies, no care for bod
I was 17 living in Xinjiang I had just got my diploma in engineering I was about to go to the mainland and start to work on building new ships, but my parents the word devout Muslims remain developed till the end…’’
it was at this moment that my father broke down, I didn't know what to do for a man who I had seen not express any real grief this was something I couldn't really handle I broke down too we hugged each other for a while I told him it was okay, I'd never got to know the story of my grandparents, on either side, so I quietly listened as he carried on
being a Muslim not far from here was seen as breaking the law, but the land that we lived on that was ours had been a Muslim land for hundreds and hundreds of years it was the land of my parents and my parents parents we had beautiful architecture customs and food we had quirks in our culture that would make someone in this modern society smile and smirk. we had beauty and yet we also had depravity, we were not a rich nation but a happy one. We lived in our means and when but then Chinese people started to move into our land and purveyed there customers we gave its no mind, for our land was in their borders they had every right to come and live with us in unity we thought. but then things started to change, they believe the lies of people using a religion to discriminate I'm grasp power. this is nothing new it happened to the Jews a century before.
I knew where my father was going with this I started to tremble not my parents no, surely not my parents
He looked at me with the pain and with something behind his pain it was like a strength and iron gate closing round his soul protecting it his eyes narrowed and hardened and there was something in me which realised that he needed to say these things.
I squeezed his hands and he carried on.
my father was taken to account first they called him re education centres they said that they were to integrate us into the Chinese community a couple of years past and more John Chinese people startedto move into jingyang our beautiful mosques were destroyed our way of life became frowned upon and then legal and these couple of years me and my mother and my brothers and sisters didn't hear a word a letter or a message from my father every time we go visit the camp that they had built on our land we would get pushed away by the police or worse.
In a year so much in change my boy remember that anytime you have any hardship just remember so much can change in a year miles are home with my mother looking after my brother and sisters but the knock on the door it was the police they had come for my mother I knew that they were about to do in speakable things to her and I was nearly a man and I was not allowed to say anything or do anything but this wasn't the way that my father raised me and I thought so by protecting my mother in that instance I too was taken into a camp alongside her.
They hit me over the head and injected me with something and when I woke up I was wearing that jumpsuit my head was shaved and I was sharing a room no smaller than the living room with 20 or 30 people. I cried I cried for a day I asked where my mother was they said that if you were lucky you could maybe see her refusing the same compound I then asked where my father was and the people in the room started to look at each other in a shameful way. they told me that I was lucky and he was in the compound still, mournful man who looked about 75 in age said they would take me to him in the morning, I remember being so grateful to this man.
he started to squeeze my hand back, there was something stuck in my belly, as if someone had dropped in and rolled down it I was stuck in this moment in time my breath was slow my face was wet my eyes staring at the tattoo. I couldn't look at him in the eye.
So this man he said in a lighter tone was one of the funniest men you could have ever hoped to meet I didn't know that yet and the morning he got me up as we slept together on the floor there were bunks but most of them were shared and he told me that it is easier to sleep on the floor, he actually said if I remember correctly to what keeps me so young. But in the morning I helped him up by his elbow and he started to whisper directions into my ear about which hole to go to Full breakfast we were taking a big risk by doing this but I needed to see my father we were wearing orange jumpsuits and then the whole way he told me to roll down my top half and then to roll down his I did so and then he told me to carry on walking down the hall way. I ended up in a place where it smelled so strongly of sanitizer the man here looked frail and weak and gaunt but the hole where we ate breakfast looked the same everyone here was wearing tee shirts and yellow trousers we kind of blended in by rolling down our jumpsuits the old man pointed action in recognisable bold man sitting in the corner with a group of other bold men. Then I saw him his eyes well fixed on the table in front of him he wasn't looking at his food it was like he was looking through his food I left the old man in the centre of the hall I run to him the gaurds barely batted an eyelid, I got beside him and shouted father my naivete would cost me.
He recognised my voice or it was nearly the same as his I helped him and my arms went completely around from the first time in my life they had never gone around him before but I had grown and he had shrunk he looked so gaunt I didn't know why I didn't understand why it was at that moment that two guards crunched us both on the head
I woke up in a smaller cell with no windows just being the old man I told you to wait tonight to go slow said the old man align said I didn't hear him he looked at me like he knew I was lying and said it's okay why does my father looked like that
He looked at me with pity and he went on to explain you have very few choices in this place my son your father took a noble one the Chinese would pay for organs and your father had two kidneys which he wasn't using so we decided to sell one the man smiled what do you mean I said I mean just that that's barbaric
He did it so you on the outside have a better life for more time hard I think that's why the Chinese officers were at your house today you got upper handed I couldn't let them do that to my mother I said diligently they do that to every woman now on the outside don't you know the old man looked to me with the eyes of some innocent child and said I have daughters
I quickly changed the subject and said what do you mean he sold the kidney who needs a kidney Chinese officials rich middle class people I live in the cities the old man looked grateful for a change of conversation but we sat there in silence for a while well I mustered up the courage to talk again I asked him how long do you think we're gonna be in here he looked at me smiling I said as long as it takes I'm quite about my mother it was something I've been thinking about jury my silence starting my seat with these scratch iklim soles on I hated him ******* shoes
Is your mother a skilled worker he asked I said yes it seems to us I'm a good one which he was he would mend my sisters dresses in my trousers all the time and people in the village would come to her to do the same and so dresses for eat the old man looked at me and said she will be treated well she will be fed well but will be used on the production line making trainers for on the biggest companies that this world has I couldn't believe my eyes what do you mean slave labour in this day and age aravin Internet the world won't allow it the world has allowed it look at you right now sitting here the power of the Chinese your life means nothing you are one boy other countries now quake from the Chinese
As my father talked about my Gran father he got out the box a small carved eagle I couldn't tell what wood it was made out of but it was staying dark it was beautiful small tiny could fit in the palm of your hand
He starts to smile the old man was so funny you don't seem to understand I loved him smiled back what do you mean he would make jokes about the darkest of times and say it in such a way but we wouldn't think to ponder on the subject that's a great goal to have anyway your mother oh your mother your beautiful beautiful mother I remember those eyes solitaire he was another prisoner but she was kazah in origin she would bring me my food when I was in isolation with the old man it was her job she had that rolly I would spend my days lockdown there mean him asking the old man how best I could talk to her the old man would tell me to give us something I said what can I give her nothing look at me look where I am he pulled a bit of wood off the window sill and he used the coughs that they would cover us with whenever we wanted to go out for exercise and he started to carve we stayed in that style just the two of us for a year
I watched the old man got a week he would crack me up with stories of fights and his family and I will tell him stories of mine we would sometimes prayed together which was forbidden he would teach me poems and I would urge him to exercise I loved him I thought about my father my mother my sisters and my brothers a lot they told me not to he told me just to understand that there there and that would be enough I didn't hear his advice I was still thinking about them at night he could sleep I could never I didn't understand how easy could close his eyes and just full straight to sleep
on the summers day I remember the light shining through a window in the hallway I could hear your mother's car coming down I still hadn’t said a word to her I took my normal position standing eagerly at the door just for a glimpse the old man would have conversations with her and ask her about the outside world I would smile at her awkwardly the old man had a doctors appointment and walking past her was a guard kids jangling in hand he opened the door and she waited expectantly outside he smiled at the old man and stupidly he said a salamalaykum in front of the guard God smacked so hard I lost it I lost every sense of where I was and I lunged at this man I took the handcuffs and wrapped them around my hand and charged I pulled in I pulled him until my hands were red the old man pulled me off I took the handcuffs from my hand and put them on his and pushed me down by the time the other guards had come when I realised what happened he had taken the blade that was the last I ever saw of him I was taken to Jen row population mother the everyday we will mixed I saw her collecting the trolley in from a canteen at lunch I saw her going into her South her room every time she saw me she smiled Norwood small awkwardly back it wasn't till winter until we could probably talk and the exercise yard conversation didn't come freely anymore for when you're that scared of saying something you don't talk my only friend in here I hadn't seen because of a mistake I was made and I thought your mother would judging me for not saying anything and letting the old man take the blame.
I whispered aslamalaykum tour saying anything religious and being over heard could get us both into serious trouble but that was the reason I said it it took us to a place where we weren't she smiled at me something which he did every single time I saw her my Gran father told me you are a good boy going to be a good man she said go Gran father the old man he told me to call him by his name so the gods would never realise they could see his granddaughter ice put my head in my hands realises that I told him how much I liked her I told him everything about her face how I felt every time I saw her and he always gave me advice talk that I never did until now.
From the moment I started talking to her olden smiles made so much sense she had a grandfathers humour and she made me feel more intelligent for talking to her day in day out we would whisper nothings about nothing we would dream about a life we would have if we ever go out the things we enjoyed when we were 3 she told me about her painting and I told her that I enjoyed to run I said to her that I was better at sports than I actually was she said things like I would be handsome if I was allowed to grow a beard not saying that you're not handsome now of course and then laugh I would be so stupid and quarter beautiful every single day for it was the only thing that I knew to describe her but she would come up with intelligence comebacks everyday on our fourth year in the camp together we're both 19 we were both 21 and 23
From the moment we saw each other on you proma I walked into a room her face would turn at the moment she would walk into a room my body would turn to hers it was obvious we were in love with each other everyone knew from the other inmates to the gods but they tried to separate from many occasions they gave us different jobs from other side of the complex I knew I would climb a gate to get to see her I'd be in isolation for a week if they caught me but I was still doing every single day until I got caught he would sneak me extra food which I would give to my parents until they died her parents had died before and her Gran father was the only one left in there we were all each other had and we were all that each other ever needed until you came along obviously…
I was sobbing all the nonsense that my father had ever spoken about meeting the love of his life this was the most compelling story I looked up at him for the first time since he started speaking he was smiling staring at the photo his face was nearly dry now mine wasn't mine was far from dry he bought my tears and gave me a kiss on my forehead we sleep on the roof tonight we're going to watch the stars I didn't say anything for a very long time start like I didn't have questions it's just that they seem so insignificant the man who had raised me and his wife he had given birth to me both had kept this for them I understood that now four I think that they had each other and kept each other going through the hell that they witness
the story of the camps was something that can't be forgotten this was something that was repeated to us in our history lessons over and over again we are taught now to be open and to embrace each others differences I just don't understand the SoC before but this wasn't one of the main principles where anything not holding on to this would be acceptable.
I watched my father for the rest of the night he made little or none conversation and when he did it was about nothing but he kept the eagle in his hand it was so beautifully carved. Twisting it around, fiddling with it, it represented freedom he came to tell me, he gave it her as they would dream of flying out of there. I loved it, I remember playing with it as a child, it always intrigued me, my parents where always so precious with it. I remember they would always have it out during their anniversary.
Write about falling asleep under the stars
Over breakfast he made his usual spicey egg burrito, I ate it with the left-over biryani. I remember wolfing it down I was hoping to go back upstairs and sneak a look at a letter which I had glimpsed on the side of the box. I had seen this letter before, but I could never read it, it was in Urdu, we were all educated in English and if we ever needed to translate anything we could just scan it, but I remember trying when I was a kid and because the handwriting was so terrible, my scans couldn’t ever make it out. Times have changed though, I’m sure my iris cam can probably get it. It was my mothers handwriting, I recognised it, it was so bad, I remember laughing how bad it was every time she would try to jot something down I would make fun out of her. It made her insecure, but as a kid you just find it funny.
Dad was going to use the pod and head to the shop and grab a couple things, I told him just to use the drone as I was still worried about him being frail but he just smiled and said he wasn’t dead yet, and he needed to get out the house and see what was going on with the world, look at the same faces and maybe some new ones. I didn’t seem to care to much he seemed well enough to go and he wanted too, he was my father I said to myself, not a toddler, he should go. I did deliberate and dither for a good 5 minutes in this time he had activated the pod and linked accounts, got the bags and was ready to set off. I forgot that he was brilliant with technology, he just didn’t like to use it, this is something which is taught in schools now to not be reliant to on tech, by the time had come to these conclusions and smiled he was already out the door, I waved him off from the door and told him to be safe. He told me not worry and he would be home soon.
The moment the pod set of I saw it as my opportunity to set off and sneak upstairs, I got into the box rather quick and saw the letter it was dusty, broken and set off with so much dust. It was so stained, I opened it up and my contact flickered into life, the words started to fly off the page:
Orange needs glazing full read through required chapters. Set.
The letter read:
Things in the box.
Dad pulled out a photo that was a photo that was
Qr code
A carved bird.
An old letter. On toilet roll. Wrapped in cling film.
I flicked through the photos of them in jumpsuits and both with shaved heads. They couldn’t have been more then 21 and 22. They
Even in times of total depravity, you see the beauty of humanity shine through occasionally.
I could take my eyes off the letter once I stopped reading it, it had engulfed me, it had more then captured my essence