the early early night (microfiction)

01.09.2025

‘I was so tired of life and angry with life that at seven o’clock after dinner, I just went to sleep. I was out cold. I didn’t call up my friend and go out like I said I might. I couldn’t read my book. I missed several messages from friends. It was not like I had not slept properly the last night. It was the first evening of my holidays.’

I finished writing to Alfonso. I wondered what he was doing at twenty to one in the morning. What he would make of my message.

After that deep sleep, which had cured the anger and disappointment that I had felt all day, that empty ache in my stomach, this anger and disappointment that was over two years in age, I felt full of energy and I felt okay. Because now I was away from everyone for a while. I wasn’t away from their unfairness but I was away from them.

I replied to all the friends that had got in contact. Then I reflected on life.

That sleep was a way to process my feelings. It had been an intense day. In life you have to control your feelings somehow. Talking does not help. It does nothing to communicate your feelings. Because other people will not understand and they will not change. You can communicate to them for two whole years and it would make no difference. But sleep? In sleep, everything would be resolved.

When conscious life cannot help you, sleep can help you.

My life was going nowhere. It is your relationships that make your life complete. It was going to be like this now. I had just a few people I could really rely on. No romance.

But I had Alfonso. I could always speak to Alfonso or write to Alfonso. Even at twenty minutes to one in the morning.

your life is quite funny (microfiction)

26.08.2025

In that beautiful suit of his that was from some fine and expensive haberdasher, Alfonso was chortling away to himself in the corner. The smiles were radiant, but so also was that hair of his, that full, thick hair of which I was so envious at my age. I used to have hair like that. He smelt wonderful. Some guy on the street had given him an armful of perfume samples and he was wearing the sample apparently. He had given me one just yesterday.

‘Your life is quite funny.’

‘I’m glad you find it amusing.’

‘Look at all the places that you have gone to find love. Cultural institutions. Acting and improvisation workshops. Volunteering in a play with six hundred volunteers. Clubs for learning. Events all around London. Flower shows. Even a floristry course. You’ve been doing it for three years. All that time, effort, distance, investment. Anywhere but a pub or a bar where you would actually find someone. It is laughable. You are undateable. Nobody cares if you have anything in common with them.’

‘It looks like it.’ What was the point of arguing? He was right. I was going to be alone forever. I had given up. There was no one in my life. I was living in a loveless world. At least he was finding some enjoyment out of my situation.

‘So I guess,’ Alfonso continued, in his casual and cruel manner, ‘that you are going to tell me about how everyone is against you, how everyone devalues you, how much you are suffering and how you do not fit into this world?’

‘It is my usual repertoire.’

‘What do you think went wrong in your life?’

‘Do you know,’ I asked Alfonso, ‘how many medicines I am on? It is a lot. And all those medical problems come from rejection. That is what started everything off. Yet despite the pain and the things I go through, I am carrying on, working and volunteering in all these places. I have a finger in almost every pie. Because I am strength and will. I am named after a god and The Tiger. They look to me for protection and inspiration. The people expect.’

‘You were rejected, so you are sick.’

‘Those problems are going to plague me all my life. Yet it doesn’t stop anyone from rejecting me. They cannot face the brutality of the rejection that I have had to face. When you are rejected by someone you love so much, it is a dagger into your brain and into your heart. That ‘no’ has wrecked me.’

Suddenly, Alfonso stopped smiling. He had actually winced. ‘To be alone is not so bad. You cannot be like them. Therefore they do not like you. Forget about it.’

‘What else is there to do? I am trying to forget. From a mind that remembers much.’

‘You have not tried dancing. Dance. Meet someone there.’

‘The leg…’

‘After the doctor looks at it, dance. You will be fine. Come on, let us talk about something happy and hopeful.’

‘Hopefully I will die soon.’

Alfonso shook his head at me. ‘Don’t be naughty. A warrior hopes for a glorious death in battle. Not to ease his problems.’

‘You want hope? University will start again soon. It will be time to work on a dissertation. The voice of the people.’

‘Yes, the voice of the people. You say that you are it. What do they say?’

‘They say ‘inquilaab zindabaad! Inquilaab saada zindabaad!’ (Long Live the Revolution! May the Revolution Live Forever!’)

‘You believe it?’

‘It is always the time for the Revolution. There will be justice. I cling to life because I cling to that hope.’

‘Hope is a dangerous thing. You hoped for someone for years. What did it get you? Grief. Disappointment. Failure. This Revolution…’

I interrupted him. ‘The tyrant rules. But he will fall. The liar controls communication. But he will be caught out. The idiot teaches. He will be exposed. Corruption and filth saturate the universe. It will be cleansed. The cockroach is the ideal. The ideal will be torn down. Against the say of the rich and powerful, there are the words of the community of the dalits, the community of the oppressed. I am the prayer of my mother, the prayer of the people. It is my destiny. And if I cannot do this work, it shall be done by one in whom the spark is lit. Live for the Revolution. Die for the Revolution. Writhe in torture in hell for the Revolution.’

‘Has anyone told you that you are the Indian Don Quixote? You are tilting at the windmill.’

‘Not so ludicrous as you think. The windmill took away jobs from men. It was the awfulness of technology which made humanity expendable. Quixote was right to protect the people from it, just as I am right to fight against this society.’

‘They ignore you. Therefore they have slain you.’

‘There are still the words I write. In my mind I am free. In my mind I love freedom. In my mind I am difference. And in my mind I love difference. Amongst the sheep, there is The Tiger. Amongst the people, there is god. Amongst the weak, there is supreme power. The life spirit amongst the dead.’

‘It is not quite clear whether you are dead or not,’ Alfonso remarked. ‘But time will tell. Let us hope it is not too long into the future.’

gifts (microfiction)

25.08.2025

‘I spent yesterday and the whole day today giving out gifts,’ I was telling Alfonso. The first time I had met Alfonso, I had been utterly charmed. But I had also thought there was something dangerous about the man. I thought so now as well, but I was less wary now. I embraced the danger. After all, I was fearless. And he was a man that you could follow.

‘You have always been generous,’ remarked Alfonso.

‘And yet, I receive gifts very seldom,’ I told him. It was true. Nobody wanted to give me anything. Nobody thought enough of me to give me anything. I wasn’t worth it to other people. It didn’t surprise me. Nobody that I loved had ever loved me back. People that I thought were friends were not reliable. Just a thank you for helping or listening – you didn’t even get that. Even family… Everyone always liked everyone else more than me. There was no point talking to other people.

‘Don’t worry,’ Alfonso assured me, ‘they are only material possessions. They mean nothing.’

It was easy for him to say. Although I couldn’t make anybody be my friend or make them love me, I could do one thing. Which was that I would not talk to the fake people. There was no point saying anything to them or listening to their fake words when they did not regard you as a friend or a lover or anything. Whatever the delusional mind constructed about the history of me and them, it had all been a mirage of connection and communication. All that happened there was disconnection and miscommunication. I had just thought them better than they were. They were not good enough to be with me. That was the end of the story.

Alfonso persisted. He asked me what I wanted as a present.

‘The whole point is the unexpected nature of the thing. If you only got what you asked for, that would not make you happy.’

‘You do not look happy,’ Alfonso remarked.

‘I am not happy.’ I said. In fact, I was tired of living. I was tired almost of everyone. I didn’t want to be where I was any more. The good good friends were what kept me going. How rare kindness and fellowship was in this world.

‘And your leg, why has it started hurting again?’

‘Oedipus walked on his lame legs. I am Oedipus. I killed my father and married my mother. You cannot escape from your fate and the stories. The one that is born to fight for the revolution has to be Oedipus. In mind and in body.’

‘Oedipus, Krishna, The Tiger, god himself. You have to choose who you are.’

‘I am all and more. In the old legends they sing about me. I am the hero of this tale.’

Alfonso laughed. ‘We are heroes, all of us. But where is our heroine?’’

‘Where indeed? If any of us knew the answer to that, we would be merry.’

Instead, we sigh winds and stop the tears rolling down our cheeks. We jest without mirth and laugh without enjoyment. Everyone says we are fine.

something happy (microfiction)

21.08.2025

‘For once, why don’t you write about something happy?’ Alfonso looked at me kindly. At heart, he was soft. Despite the sneering, the taunting and the criticism. He had a heart of pure gold and he looked after me. He would spend time with me and always give me advice because he cared about me.

‘Is it only what is happy that is beautiful?’ I asked him.

‘For your persistent reader, why don’t you try and give them joy instead of the pain?’

‘Do you want a moment of sheer joy? I have always been the lover of music. And one time, my father went abroad to work. He asked me what I wanted from there when he came back several months later. More than anything else, I wanted my own personal music player. He brought me the top model – at the time it was a Sony. It was black with gold writing on it and shaped like a little box. It played my Hindi film cassettes and, even better, it had a radio inside. That was happiness. Because music is happiness and family is happiness.’

‘You got what you wanted. Is that what you think happiness is?’

‘Is it not? What else could it be?

‘Things that are unwanted can be happiness. You have told me often enough in life that your life has not gone exactly to plan.’

‘Do you want another moment? A good book.’

‘But were the thoughts of another happiness, or were your own thoughts about the book happpiness? It is harder to arrive at a supposition.’

‘What does it matter what causes the joy?’

‘Because you want to replicate the result.’

‘Happiness was a relationship.’

‘Of course. Get another one.’ Alfonso smiled at me. ‘See, it is not so difficult to have happiness. Just good company, a good book or good music.’

‘In the moment, I am happy. In a film. In a book. In a play. Acting. Singing. Dancing. Making art. Talking to people’. I frowned. ‘It is when I go home and sit in my empty room and then lie in my empty bed…’

Alfonso frowned back at me. He shook his head. ‘We are talking about happiness. We are not talking about sadness or loneliness or emptiness.’

‘Happiness cannot exist without sadness, loneliness or emptiness. You would not feel it. Only the loser knows that it is to win.’

‘Do you think that only you are sad? Do you think that these people here enjoy lying in their beds at night all alone?’

‘Yes. Otherwise they would have someone.’

‘Life is not as simple as you make it.’

‘All it is is hanging out with someone that you like. That is not difficult.’

‘Says who? Perhaps it is the most difficult thing in the world.’

‘Alfonso,’ I said. ‘It is time for the lonely night. Let us sleep. Sleep might not be happiness but it is at least a break from this tired life.’

russian roulette

09.08.2025

At the most, I had twitched my lips as a prelude to a word. Essentially just the moment before the action. Alfonso raised his finger aloft and intoned, ‘Enough of your vileness about love. Perhaps one day…’

‘There is no now, there was no before and there will be no before me.’

‘That’s the positive kind of attitude!’ Alfonso smirked at me. ‘Stop wallowing in pity.’

‘It makes for a good bed.’

‘The bed is precisely what you have to free yourself from. Your late mornings have started again in earnest.’

‘Do you know what the dream is now, Alfonso? While I am awake, I see myself with a black pistol. It is very elegant and very beautiful. Irresistible. And I am sitting at the table with this little fiend. She is inviting me. I stroke her. I love her. It is a seduction that is hard to resist. And there is one pretty little bullet in this sexy little fiend. I open the gun and roll the barrel. Now, no one knows where the pretty little bullet is. Does it have my name on it like I have its name upon my heart? Who knows. I aim the sexy little fiend at my temple. There is an audience. They watch. They have thirsted for my blood from before I was born. I am what they have to kill to survive. Then…’

‘And then?’ asked Alfonso coolly.

‘That is the thing. At first, this waking dream was that it is all over. But then, do you know what my luck is? I have never been lucky in anything. This society is against my luck. Then, perhaps I get the bad luck. Perhaps I survive. Perhaps there is no big BANG.’

‘It is only a dream. You detest guns. You have told me that they are for cowards. It is against your culture to use a gun against yourself. The dream signifies nothing.’

‘Still, it is a pretty dream.’

‘Get a prettier dream. Put some flowers in it.’

‘The flowers are a tired metaphor and a false one. There is no romance. There is no beauty. There is no life principle against the death principle. There is nothing and no one in this world and there are no flowers.’

‘Pull yourself together,’ Alfonso admonished me. ‘You would let them win over you? You would accept defeat on their terms? In the world, there are flowers. You just have to find them.’

‘I have looked my whole life. Even the flowers are impure.’

‘Purity is a fiction. Hence so is impurity. It is the impure that are capable of holding power.’

‘An impure power or a pure powerlessness? What would you prefer?’

‘You want to bandy words around when you should be living life? Tomorrow you could be the happiest man in the world. Tomorrow, it might be impossible to prise the smile off your face.’

‘Who lives in tomorrow? We live in today. Today has always been foul.’

‘What is foul is your mood.’ suggested Alfonso. ‘Did not even the chocolate ice cream I gave you add a moment of joy to your day? Why did you eat it then? Remember,’ said Alfonso, ‘even the cat that gets the cream is not satisfied with its lot. Remember the Hindu philosophy: life is suffering, life is pain, life is a punishment.’

‘Some are punished more than others,’ I responded.

‘Even when you are sad, that troublesome tongue of yours looks to argue and to defy the world. One man cannot defy everyone else. One man cannot argue against the huddled voices of the world.’

‘Let me die in the attempt.’

‘There.’ Alfonso clapped his hands and a brilliant smile lit up his face. ‘Spoken at last like a man. Keep that wild mind in your head and that wild tongue in your mouth. Keep fighting. Die a noble death. Die fighting. You are the warrrior.’

I watched the smile on Alfonso’s face. What a curious thing a smile is. How do these people smile? And almost all the time? What do they have to be so happy about when there is no happiness in the world? Together, they had all decided to apportion happiness across the world. And when it had come to my share, they had decided to scrimp and save, so that I had almost nothing. I was teasing happiness and joy out of consuming scraps of chocolate, inhaling scented bars of soap and an insane clinging to the cultural evenings around London so that I almost was not sleeping any more.

And yet, there it sat. The smile. Alfonso’s belief in me that I would keep on fighting without any victory. Against all. The Indian man’s belief in The Tiger.