Beautiful Chaos Thread ll - Pt 6 (a), Pg 74 - Page 52

Imy babe. Lemme read you!

December is here...

where is the update

Still waiting for the next update!

Sudsie !

posting rn loves

first of all, i would like to say sorry for taking so long. the hour turned into a week because i blew up a batch of brownies, and then i had to clean up my kitchen. second of all, i would like to apologise for the state of this update. i am in the middle of a one month long existential crisis, thanks to james dean, so this is a little bit...jdgfjhasgdlj. f**ked up. and last of all, I'm going to chop my chapter into three bits because apparently i have a lot to say about tanveer. (this bit alone is 3.1k)😆

and also! this is in tanveer's pov, and in second person. no, don't run away, please. i wanted to try out second person for a long time, because i think it adds a sort of melancholic feel to the text, if you know what i mean?

anything that i think maybe a little squeaky for you or triggering is listed at the end of this part, and theres an explanation of what happened in this part down below too, because this has a lot of metaphors man.

"Dead! An unknown man was found shot and killed in Bhopal, near the National Highway... sources say he breathed his last in the early hours of the morning two days ago... three shots to the heart... left him for dead soon after..."

-

Start with a room.

Let's say you are in this room. Let's say that it's dark, and the fans are on, and the propellers call down from the ceiling like birds. You have one window open but the air is still. You are sleeping. You can even see how you're sleeping from the doorway, where you stand all alone with your heels taken off.

Let's say, for the sake of saying, that a phone goes off while you're standing, or while you're sleeping, it doesn't matter either way. This is another kind of bird to your ceiling fan. It's louder, like a trumpet to call out the dead, and you can see yourself stirring because of it.

Now pause.

Don't pick up the phone just yet.

Freeze the frame, keep this room in the back of your mind. Don't disturb it, don't touch. We'll come back to it.

-

Let's say, for the sake of saying, that you meet him before you meet Asad, at the third wedding of your second father. Let's say you don't know who he is, or what he wants, only that he has this smile that tweaks at something beneath your skin, that it slopes and makes you feel very dizzy, clogging its way up your diaphragm, into your fourteen year old heart. He has brown eyes that turn gold when you look at him at a particular angle in a particular light, and his fingers curl expertly around the glass of his drink, gentle, deceptive. Or maybe not- you wouldn't know. He looks like he wants to have you, and if you give him the chance you know what he'll do to you, because you want to do it to him as well. It's hard not to imagine.

Or, let's say, for the sake of saying, that you meet him at a cafe. Let's say you sit down with your dead mother, or your books, or a splintering Asad, or a bird. Let's say he's taken the table right next to yours, and he's reading the paper with legs crossed at the knee and slouching like his spine is water, like the liquid that's passing through your lips. Let's say the sun falls over his hair, takes a slice across the skin of his throat. Let's say you forget what you're doing there. Let's say you want him. That is the truth.

Let's say- oh, it doesn't really matter what we say, really. This important thing is that you start. You either want him, or you want him. Start in a train, or in an office, or across the burning flames of your older brothers body, or in the dressing room of the building you take your clothes off for money, where you can't touch him because that's just really bad manners if he hasn't even picked you yet. Start in a taxi, or behind a stone wall. Start in a dream, perhaps. Just start.

Let's start with your eyes closed, first off.

-

Having your eyes closed shut is the best place for these sorts of things. Build him up from a first glimpse of him, form his hair, his eyes, his stubble, his smile. Or maybe leave that one out. To be safe.

You can make him talk here, though he already talks too much, only here you can put the words onto his tongue like communion. You can place them carefully and then, while you're at it, push your thumb in, watch his teeth and lips close and no, you're beyond the first glimpse of him now, he has some how wedged himself into you. Day's he'll be circling around your second fathers new wife's house like he's Ganymede and you're Jupiter. Nights he'll be- you don't know where he goes nights, but he's here in your head, and you're keeping him here.

-

Now, let's go to the house. No, not your second father's third wife's house, or the one where you're sleeping. The other one. The one where you carve out the lungs of Zoya and Najma and Gaffur and everyone else. Yes, that one. The door is open, and you are wearing black, and one of your eyes looks like murder, and you can hear Sanam and Seher squealing and Asad laughing, oh Gods, he's laughing, and so is Zoya and Dilshad and-

Good.

Let's hold this house in the palms of your hands, and wait. We'll come back to this, too.

-

Let's say you f**k.

Let's say this happens in a dream. No- let's say this actually happens. Yes. Let's say, when the bruises of your new mother's hands turn dark and you wake up clutching your stomach where a high heeled shoe was just minutes ago, he'll skid his way over the tiled floor to you, and then he'll look up with a gun in his hand and the two of you will dodge bullet holes out of the door and through the elegant corridor.

Let's say you'll find a car, and then a bottle, and you're sixteen and he's brighter than the sun, and then you'll find a bed, and let's say that when he goes down on you you'll keep his handgun with in close range. He'll like this, he'll get off on it. He'll laugh, and then you'll come.

In this cheap motel where the ceiling fans scratch like cicadas you'll barter pieces of yourself to him, a kiss and your body, a kiss and your heart, a kiss and your soul. You only have three things. You don't know what he plans on doing with you, but he knows what he's doing, and you want what he does. You'll push your thumb in his mouth to stroke over his tongue and he'll let you. He'll let you. He'll let you.

Let's say this didn't happen.

-

This happens.

I'm in Kolkata, Tanveer. Everything is fine. Did you get away from her on time? How are the bruises?

They're healing. Aren't you wanted in Kolkata?

Only a little.

Don't expire, I like my new job and we're running out of money.

Should've robbed someone richer, eh?

-

Asad's friendship with you jumps from a building, your heart jumps from a building, which of the two will reach the sidewalk first? Wait. Didn't Galileo prove this one? You keep forgetting what's happened and what's happened and what's yet to come.

-

Let's say on the Khan job- the one where you steal more diamonds than you have laughed in your nineteen years of life- you get a knife to the gut for the sixth time.

You can't count on your fingers how many times you've nearly died; you could herd all of your relatives into one room and count all their fingers, and it still wouldn't be enough. If you threw in your sister who died in a cot you'd be closer, yes, but still a bit off, by about ten or twenty. Even with all of your cousins.

Dim the lights, smear the insides of what's left of your vision together, he'll be fighting his way through the bodies to you. Jesus, this could be so romantic, if only knives didn't hurt so much. You'll remember this, later, the sting of his bullets in the plaster, how they shook the walls, how they felt like they'd bring the roof straight down. You'll remember what he looks like, take every one of his movements and slice them into camera shots, one per frame, fifty frames a second, wind the reel up to the very beginning and store it somewhere between your lungs.

You could fall in love with this moment, right here, right now. Dying people are always so sentimental.

-

Let's say-

Perhaps we should just lay our premises down, first. A leads to B leads to C, but if you don't know A, then you don't know B, and C can just go and f**k itself.

Let's say you want him. This is true. This is a premise. Let's say you want his mouth, want to trap it underneath your teeth so you could say that it's something you own, the portal where you could breathe into him all your meanings, and extract every one of his meanings in return. Let's say you want his hands, you want the bone inside them, you want to know that it's solid and that it'll hold up to inspection, to pressure, to the unexpected, to love. Wait, Let's cross the last one out. Let's say you want the planes of his face, his eyes, let's say you want to take a train and crush it, let's say you want to be that train, let's say you don't care which cliff you plunge off of. Let's say you don't have a clue of what you want. Oh, Gods. How can you not know what you want?

-

Let's go back to the room, your room.

The phone is sitting on the bedside table, crying like a stillborn thing. Reach out. Grab the handset.

Great.

Now pause.

-

Middles are always the worst. You don't have to remember the beginning of something, but the middle is always something you know, because you're still in it, because you haven't scraped it off your limbs yet, you could go crazy with how it's always there. You could be at the end and you'll think of the middle, try to rearrange the frames so they'll fit something else.

Let's say we want to fit something else. Take the reel from your lungs, spread it outward again. Is this the place where you fell in love? Cut it out. Cut it out. Burn it up. Clear the smoke.

-

Let's say you f**k.

Let's say you go to Delhi, a place of cars and suffocating corners, his address scrawled on a piece of ripped fabric. Let's say you chase him, You're the cat and he's the ball of string, and you're swiping at him. He could open the door and you could push yourself past, whip around and fist your hands into his shirt. You could kiss him, like that. He's so present, he's warm. He could say, sweetheart, and that'll be all and you'll hand yourself over to him again, and again, and again, and again, and again, until all you can think is how this should be real, this should happen, this shouldn't be all in your head.

-

Let's say, for the sake of saying, that somewhere along the line, things changed. You can try and pinpoint the exact little spot where it did, twenty-two minutes and thirty seconds in, freeze the frame, there it is, watch out, but how does it matter?

You could say that's when his eyes lingered too long, that's the moment when he started to call, like you're watching a baby take its first steps or say its first words. The ether's dotted with hopeless moments that no one has gathered or made a catalogue of, little pivots, tiny little burning points. If gravity shifted in spits and spats you'd only notice when you're dinner table falls of the roof. It doesn't matter that you can see all the moments now, you've missed the train. There isn't going to be another one.

-

Let's say, for the sake of saying, that you love him.

Let's say it's not a premise, so you can deny it again later. Let's say, for the sake of saying, that given the chance, you'd pick up the phone, you'd call him, you'd say with your twenty-four year old heart, to hell with this, come over, you'd say, this has nothing to do with the job, you'd say, I'm tired, I want you, I do.

For the sake of saying is for the sake of denial, but let's say it's this, let's say this is what you want.

And let's say, for the sake of saying, that at fourty-two minutes and oh-nine seconds you'll open the door, you won't f**k him, he won't f**k you, this isn't that kind of dream. He could be smiling, he could take all this as a joke, or he could reach through the air and down past your throat to that secret place where you keep that reel and he'll know, he'll know what you're waiting for. Let's say you'll be happy.

Let's say this didn't happen.

-

I'm still waiting for that Siddiqui file. You were supposed to send it to me yesterday.

I'm working on it, Tannu, I'm working on it. I'm going to jet off to Bhopal tomorrow.

Siddiqui is based in Bhopal, you know.

I am aware of the obvious, thank you.

Please don't get shot in the head.

I would never.

I mean it.

Yes, love. I know. I'll be careful. I'm not going to be very long.

-

He jumps from a building, you jump from a building, which of the two would you try and save first? Oh, Gods, if that isn't a difficult question.

Let's ignore it for a moment. Let's try and move on.

-

Let's say on the Siddiqui job he gets shot.

You don't see this. You're not there to blaze with your guns, turn this into another half hearted romance where the windowpanes have all been shot out and the heroine's waiting with her hand on her heart, only this time the hand's there to stem the blood.

Let's say, for the sake of saying, that questions always come at the wrong time, would I save you, would I love you, that sort of thing. Let's say being selfish is always default. Let's say being brave is such a rare thing that a milligram of it would outweigh the world. You could fly to Bhopal, you could take out a gun, you could stand where he slumps and you could empty the chamber, back straight, bullets stinging into the plaster, not yours.

You could do this.

But then you could go to bed, put the phone down, take the daily walk to the bathroom, brush your teeth, check the state of your gums and you should really be getting a new brand of floss, some more toothpaste. You could stick with the things that you know and you might not love them, but they're comfortable. You could sleep and dream and dream and wake and have breakfast. You could find a loose thread on your dupatta. You could let the day pass.

Coward. Coward.

-

Let's go back to the room.

Let's go back to the fans, the open window, the dark, back to you on the bed and you in the doorway with your heels off. Where are we? Ah, you've picked up the phone. Well, bring it up to your ear, now. It's Bhopal.

-

Let's say-

If A leads to B leads to C, and A means you love him, and B means you love him, then C means you're going to get him killed.

This is not a premise. This is something you know. This is an outcome. Oh, Gods, this is an outcome.

-

Let's say he comes back.

Let's say, for the sake of saying, because right now everything's for the sake of something, let's say the next call he makes to your phone is the one you knew he was going to make, Tanveer, I've bought some horrid dresses for you, you'll love them, oh, just you wait and see.

Tanveer, I'm currently stuck in Customs, they think my phone is a bomb, help.

Tanveer, I've run out of cold medicine and I'm hacking up a lung, what do I do.

Tanveer, I'm back.

Tanveer, I love-

Wait. Let's cross that last one out.

-

Let's say he comes back and let's say this didn't happen, it didn't happen, it didn't happen, it didn't happen, oh God.

-

Do you have any idea what time it is?

I've an indication, yes.

It's two in the morning.

Did I wake you?

What the hell do you think? I have a flight to Hyderabad at eight tomorrow- today. I have to be up in three hours. I got to bed only two and a half hours ago.

I'm sorry to intrude on your beauty sleep, sweetheart. I have confidence that you'll survive the ordeal.

Are you drunk in a bar somewhere? This is ridiculous. Is this even about anything important? You're alright, aren't you? Wait. Nothing's happened, has it?

No, nothing's happened. I'm perfectly fine.

Then why-

Just wanted to call someone.

You could've called that someone in the morning, you know.

I know. No calls before six. I know.

And still you don't listen. You never listen to me.

Oh, darling, I'm always listening to you.

-

Let's go back to the room.

Let's put the phone down.

Let's say you go back to sleep again, two and half hours until you get up, and then the small plane to Hyderabad, and the airport croissants, and the cracked departures board blinking and blinking at you. Let's say, for the sake of saying, because right now everything's for the sake of something lost, let's say you pick up a newspaper in Hyderabad two days later, because news from Bhopal always travels slow.

Let's say, on this paper, that you scan the headlines then go for the crossword. You get stuck. Five letters. Starts with P, ends with C, with an N in the middle. Oh, Gods. You don't know. Let's say we are at sixty-nine minutes and twenty, and twenty-five.

Let's say thirty seconds until the next train, and let's say that at the forty second mark you give up, you flip the paper closed, then flip through it, and then you see Bhopal.

Let's say-

Well, there's not much to say anymore. Close the paper. You've missed the train now. It's gone.

-

Dim the lights, smear the insides of what's left of your vision together. Go to your desk. Keep the window open.

A leads to B leads to C leads to D leads to nothing. Don't wait. Don't stop Don't slow. Don't blink. Don't think. Don't dream. Don't know. Don't love. Let's say this is a train, let's plunge off the cliff and not think about it. Let's say you met him, let's say you f**ked him, let's say you dreamed him, let's say, let's say, anything that you say don't admit it, clutch the reel in close. Let's say you know what you want. Let's sit at the desk and take out a pen and you could press this pen to a blank sheet of paper, and the ceiling fans will caw at you like birds, and you could write a story, you could write your story, you could write this story. You could write.

Go on.

Let's plan out the middle now.

-

warnings: illusions to underage, references to prostitution.

what you just read: so, i was thinking the other day (like, 5 months ago) that tanveer is so f**king evil its horrifying, how can one person be so f**king vile without something happening to them before?

and then i came up with story. i had 1k written before already, and it had a completely different story line and it was in third person too. but then james dean happened, the existential crisis happened, tears happened, and i sent a terribly long pm to faru which i still am embarrassed about, and she comforted me and then i was like boom. comfort. tanveer. ???? and then i started my bc chap all over again.

the base line of this part is that: tannu has a f**ked up childhood. dead baby sister, dead older brother, dead mother, f**ked off father, abusive new parents. she meets a guy when she's young and she fancies him. she doesn't know that he kinda maybe fancies her too. they meet, and then do shady stuff together i.e. stealing from rich people.
You know how in tv shows and in movies, when the guy is dying he calls his loved one? that's what happens when he says //oh darling, i always listen to you//. but tannu doesn't know this at the time, and just goes to sleep. two days later, when she's some where else about to do bad things, she picks up a newspaper, and you guessed it, it says that a guy was killed. which is her guy. the crossword word is panic.
when the text reads //oh gods, its an outcome//, it means that tanu should've known that everything she loves gets killed.

this entire part is about what happened and what /should've/ happened.

ITS ALL GOING TO ADD UP WHEN IM DONE HERE, I PROMISE.

i dont know if there are any airports in all the places that i've mentioned in this part. lets just call it creative license perhaps?

i hope you liked and please tell me of any errors and such, i know there are a billion <3

(if you still are confused- and its okay, my prose is confusing even to me- tell me and i can explain!)

Mineee

Reservations for my comments :)

Third reading now.