“Her lies sound beautiful.” Miga was talking to herself, again.
Of course, she would think so. These lies were culled from within our Truth. She has this knack of distilling truth from lies, or vice versa. She’s gifted like that. Miga isn’t what one could call typically beautiful, but the light in her eyes light up the darkest days, and her voice emanates from some secret place. The central character of Miga’s novella, well, mine too since it was a collaboration, was called Tani. I was as intrigued as she was. Tani’s tale was developing and she was turning out to be a bit villainous. The character was spiraling fast, and it was so new, so different from anyone we’d ever created. Whenever Miga and I devised a tale, she lived the narrative. I stayed outside the plot, just in case we lost our way. This has always been our understanding and this way, I could hold the reins tight, ready to yank them when things started to get out of hand. Was Miga turning into Tani? I would watch closely, unobtrusive but alert, ready.
For it was irrefutably real to her, until we closed the story, padlocking the door. She was gifted. She said I was. It worked. I loved this above all, this creative endeavour that inextricably tied us together.
We were best friends. I loved her as a lover, and she loved me back, – only, our definitions lacked cohesion. Yet, it didn’t seem to count. Some days it mattered, when I needed her to need me, as much I did her, but such days were few and far between.
In our teens, when we attended art class, she was possibly the weakest artist. The teacher heaped praise on her creative efforts, which were, at best, passable. The rest of us stayed puzzled. I sniggered – the smartest back-bencher. She even had a hump- not like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, no, not that noticeable, but quite pronounced. She stammered occasionally. She gave in all the assignments, usually before time, never tiring. I was mean, trying to break her consistently.
“Surely, you don’t mean to call this a prairie!”; “Is this the teacher’s portrait? Ugh.” I’d pass by her desk as she diligently sketched.
I must have already loved her then, craving her attention. And in the end, it was I who broke. Perhaps because she was already the sum of a myriad broken parts, and beguiling in all that she was. Her physical failings fell away, as my steady flow of jibes boomeranged. She was her own world, one that had no lien to mine for a long time. But eventually, our threads were knotted and we turned inseparable. Her name was Migala; mine, Yuriba. We were Miga and Yuri to each other.
“Her lies sound beautiful.” Miga was now smiling at the empty street, as if she knew a secret about it that she alone was privy to. Of course, she had her vision, utterly removed from mine. We were sitting out today, guzzling one beer after another, and savouring the last dregs of a quiet afternoon. I heard Zena meow from somewhere within the house. A dog barked, then another, and then the two of them echoed each other’s barks, much like drumbeat messaging. Entertaining for a bit. Then, it went dead quiet again, till we heard the loudest possible crash, and were unpleasantly hurled out of the deep reveries we had each settled into, lulled by the promise of a beautiful evening.
I got up determinedly but all too hurriedly, the half-finished bottle falling out of my hands, spilling precious beer all over.
“Oops!” I straightened the bottle before all its contents flowed out. The smell of yeasty dough in a strong mix of pungency pervaded the air. My mouth tasted bitterness.
“Too late Yuri, it’s too late. They’re bleeding out.”
“What? Shut up Miga, you don’t know everything. We must go find out where, what…..we can’t just sit here with our beers and pretend we didn’t hear that.”
My body responded in light shivers. Fury bubbled up, somewhat unreasonably, at her reaction. Why was she trying to stop me?
I was only human, and my mind was reaching for the worst scenario possible.
“No, I don’t know everything. But ….” Miga broke off abruptly, and then began the humming. I loved her humming mostly, but this wasn’t appropriate and it certainly wasn’t working to calm me! I glared at her in the dim light of the lantern that lit up half her face. Her eyes were distant. I couldn’t see her mouth. I wanted to yell at her to stop but I knew it was futile.
I stalked off, deeply upset. I could hear Miga’s hum getting distant, yet throbbing, almost as if I were carrying it on my person.
With no noise to guide me, I strode forward in the first direction my body veered towards, like a woman possessed ; no screams for help, no siren, nothing. Had I imagined the crash? I kept going. And then I saw it- a white car, on its back, wheels turning at a slow pace. There was faint smoke rising, being breathed in from above it would appear, and blinking lights lending the scene an impression of a discotheque: smoky interiors, strobe lights, the works. Disconcerting.
I started running towards it, panting. No humans, just the car. No blood, no broken glass. The windows were down. The bonnet was badly dented. All four wheels continued to move as if being spurred on by multiple hands, although it was a windless night. I looked about frantically, trying to make sense of it, my head throbbing, Miga’s hum still somehow ringing in my ears, and then..boom! Another crashing sound, and then, merciful darkness.
I woke up in a sanitized hospital bed. Miga was sitting by the side, writing. She always wrote. I typed out our stories, in Word documents. We had a deal. I was the visual artist, who drew the narrative as it took shape, rendering it alive. It was I who painted the scenario, and she filled them with the characters who inhabited it. She had immense talent. She thought so did I.
I blinked as my eyes caught the worn ceiling. An intravenous drip wound its way out of me onto the stand. The crystal-clear medicinal liquid shone in the light that fell upon it. The net curtains were half-drawn. Clearly, I’d been injured because my lower half hurt. I felt a heaviness in my legs, and my arms. I couldn’t move them. It was bizarre. I was in pain, but somehow didn’t feel terrible. I lay there watching her.
I heard myself then, in a sort of croaky drawl, that wasn’t quite me.
“Miga, what happened? I can’t recall a thing.”
She hummed on. Whether she was actually emitting the sounds was unclear. Her head was bowed and unmoving.
She then looked up and smiled.
“All good. You’ll be up in no time.”
“But what happened?” I insisted in the drawl.
“Nothing much. The car blew up in your face.”
“Woah! Nothing much you say. How’s my face?”
“As beloved as ever.”
And with that, she returned to poring into her leatherbound notebook, scribbling away.
It was annoying. Miga was asking to be coaxed to give anything of concern, away.
I tried to push myself up on my elbows, but slumped right back. Too weak.
“How long?”
“Two weeks.”
I took in this bit. I’d been in this bed for two weeks. Severity on a scale, would be eight at least. I was glad I had no clue because I couldn’t see myself coping with two weeks of ‘bed rest’, injured and strapped. I smiled at Miga. At least I had her.
The girl finally got up from her chair, and walked toward the windows, drawing the curtains apart, “Better?” she asked without turning her head.
“Yeah, somewhat. How’re you?”
Without responding she gently glided out of the room. I was puzzled by her nonchalance. Wasn’t I really here? Or had Miga lost her hold of the material world, like she does? Was I simply a character of Miga’s new story now? Who’s to tell.
Soon afterward, the doctor came along, flanked by two severe nurses, which was enough to confirm this reality for me.
“How are we today? You’re looking fresh, Yuri,” quickly looking up my name on the Patient Sheet.
They studied the chart hanging at the bottom of my bed together, and consulted. There was a lot of whispering.
I didn’t appreciate the secrecy.
“Would you tell me what’s going on Doc, and when do I get to leave.”
“Well, not for a while. Do you have anyone we can call to discuss further steps?”
“I see,” I took in the fact that there was more going on than Miga had divulged. I had no family anyway.
“You can tell my friend Migala when she’s back; she’s probably getting a coffee,”
I said pointing to the empty chair by my bed. My arm was hurting. I felt sore.
“Migala? I’m sorry but no one has been allowed. On searching your handbag, we found nothing to point us to family.
There was no mobile phone either, so….”
One of the nurses coldly shredded my sanity. Then why was there a chair?
My head reeled and my hands went clammy. Had Miga not been around? Who drew the curtains?
And then the humming was heard. My eyes shot to the door, my neck twisting.
Here she was, she’d enter now. I’d show them my best friend, my lover, my everyone.
All heads turned toward the door.
“Do you hear that Doc, that’s my friend’s hum, that’s Miga.” The croak had gone. There was a surety to my voice.
The Doctor smiled benignly. I hated that. As if I was an idiot who imagined stuff.
“This happens after accidents as severe as yours.”
“What happens?” and I held my breath because Miga was about to glide back in. She was no illusion.
“See, your lower half was badly burnt and your head sustained injuries. You could be…you are in a state of shock.
However, if you can muster the strength, do share anyone’s number, name, anything at all. You are going to need help.”
The light was dimming. Clouds probably. My eyes were tired. Miga had not reappeared. I was beginning to succumb to the doctor’s claims. Maybe I had wanted her by my side and conjured her up. This wasn’t a story. She would return.
Maybe that day, when I went to examine the origin of the loud crash, she had followed me. Maybe the fire had consumed us both.
Maybe I wasn’t here at all. I don’t know. The whole room went dark.
I woke up in agonizing pain and was being towed off somewhere. I saw tiny tube-lights dancing and humming above my head. I was a dervish.
“Doctor, she’s going, do something!” I heard Miga’s pleas. No, it was someone else, a kind face looming large above my eyes.
Her bellowing voice was concerned about this body of mine. What about the humming that continued to sear my soul?
“Miga, Miga, you there?” and I felt her hand press mine in response, her beloved hum in my ears, a favorite song.
Was this remembrance? Or the death of it?
Three Years Later
I walk away from the library, with a slight limp that has now become a part of my gait. Over the years, I have found my peace. I took up piano lessons. I found a job at the library, the one Miga frequented. I read out to children. I play simple tunes to their whims on occasion; the pieces Miga used to play for us and hum later, I have yet to master. I don’t see her anymore, nor do I have conversations about the stories we wrote. She breathes inside me now.
There was no one quite like Miga. She died of cancer, in my arms. I have a a distant memory of it..I have tried pushing it down for so long that even now, after years of having started the truth in the face, it still does not feel quite real. But it looms in the corner of my consciousness and that is enough to keep me rooted to reality.
I remember enough to know she didn’t suffer long. By the time we discovered her pancreatic malady, it was too far gone. My world without her, went dark; I was devastated. There were friends, well-wishers. People who tried to help, people who told me I wasn’t alone in my suffering. There were many of us out there who have known loss far too closely, who live their everyday with unimaginable grief in their bones. Did it comfort me? Did it help that this dark place was crowded, and that we inhabited a world bereft of those who defined us? No.
Instead, I crafted a way out of my grief by writing Miga back into my reality, – like she never left. She lived in my head and she talked to me about the stories we wrote, and she hummed to me, leading me through life, like the beacon she was.
She lit up my world. I couldn’t live blind, could I?
But it has been three years since that crash now. Three years since I learned to live with Miga’s loss all over again. And this time, I did not refuse the help I got. A kind lady, my therapist, held my hand and taught me to refashion the tapestry of a new life, looping Miga into the weave without needing to see her because this way, she was me.
Today, I published the last anthology of stories we had worked on. The library has stored copies, and the publisher says it has great promise. I’m pleased. Now everyone can read her too, and allow her to light up the world. This is a true dedication, a physical memento of our love.
That fortuitous night when I followed the loud crashing, Miga had directed me there by trying to stop me, knowing I’d would. It was perhaps the only manner in which I’d free myself and start over.
I have, my Hummingbird, I have.
Illustration : Trina Basak
