Six hours

TW: substance abuse

These days Ashu recounts his life to himself like a countdown. But the closer it gets to one, the ombre of his memories fade to white. Six hours ago, he went for a quick walk to get some fresh air. Five… he ended up at the liquor store in between Wang Noodles and Charcoal Kabob, picking up four airplane bottles of Smirnoff by the register after avoiding the larger gleaming bottles. Four…while he was still sitting on the curb outside, the cashier joined him for a smoke break and shared a bottle of rum. Three…he walked another half mile to Jimmy’s Pub, the kind of joint where time of day was irrelevant to the regulars and to Jimmy. Two and a half hours ago, he lost a coin toss to another regular and asked Jimmy for a round for everyone. Two hours ago, Mandy’s name throbbed in his head beneath Garth Brooks singing about his Friends in Low Places. Two… he texted her… but what? One hour and forty minutes ago, Jimmy kicked Ashu out for punching a regular who’d asked him why ICE hadn’t deported him yet. One hour ago…he isn’t sure.

Now, Ashu is headed back the way he came six hours ago. He pictures himself as a floating head, the rest of him swathed in an invisibility cloak. The icy air seeps into his thin track pants, a sharp thrust of reality reminding him his legs are moving, even without him knowing. He isn’t dressed for the Northeast windchill, because six hours ago he had just gone out for a quick walk. He feels something leaden in his thin jacket and takes his phone out of his pocket. Dead. His eyes, blurry from more than the cold, wonder if he had imagined texting Mandy, that maybe even the bottle knew nothing good could come from it. He walks without knowing when he started or when he’d stop, but his legs don't seem to mind. The inky blanket of the night is the perfect cover for aimlessness; save for the silhouettes of trees long bare from the season’s havoc, he is alone. The crescent moon hangs high and haughty, and Ashu pictures himself as the cow that jumped over the moon, light on his feet, and for once doing something improbable.

His legs stop. It takes him a few seconds to realize they are responding to a sharp crackle from the woods to his left. He squints and searches for something vile but is greeted with dense nothingness. His sister would ask him how he walks alone at night in the woods; aren’t you scared? But Ashu has never feared ghouls or carnivores or serial killers. What could be darker and meaner than his own mind? What could threaten him more than his own sanity? Why look over his shoulder for demons that ravaged him from the inside out? Another crackle. He braces for a quick end; he can’t endure the contemplation of a slow release. Crack— a flash of amber, and a small fox scurries past him and into the night. Ashu’s legs resume their motion while his eyes search for life and his mind contemplates death.

Now he is past the thick woods, and the filigree of bare trees gives way to the towering silhouettes of houses; the only kind there are in suburbia—extra-large and sanitized. Yellow lights illuminate lives inside, curtains pulled back, secure in the ambit between neighbors. Out here, space isn’t a premium; it is a birthright. Distance is deliberate. Ashu only vaguely remembers living in Mumbai as a child, in a one-bedroom apartment where the entire family of four slept. Neighbors would come over unannounced bringing the leftovers of whatever they had cooked that day, staying for chai and gossip. Children would disappear for hours among the dozens of stacked apartments, and no one worried; someone would deposit them to their parents at the end of the day. He yearns for that kind of closeness now, for relationships that don’t need to be questioned, for the claustrophobia of commitment.

Ashu now stands behind the house he recognizes as his parents’ neighbors’. The grandmother of the family, whose dog Ashu walked occasionally, stands near the window. Her four grandchildren who flank her on either side, have been homeschooled and have never lived anywhere but in that house. Ashu envies them—their lives compact with contentment, for the innocence that comes with not knowing any better. He stands still now, hoping the shadows cloak him, and watches as the family gathers around a table. The father, a burly military veteran, is at the head, smiling faintly as he looks down at the table. Ashu thinks he can hear faint tinkles of laughter in the hush of the shrouded woods. He can’t see what is on the table, but he pictures it to be a glistening turkey sticking its legs off the plate like it is tanning. Ashu has only ever celebrated one Thanksgiving in his life, and it had been with Mandy’s family. Their house had been redolent with cinnamon all day, as the family ladled cups of hot cocoa and cider and sat around the fire in the West Virginia mountains. Ashu had emptied whiskey into his cocoa to dull the feeling that he was never meant to be there. Mandy’s mother had complimented Ashu on his English, asking how it was so good. Mandy’s father had asked him how he could believe there was more than one God, why his religion worshipped elephant and monkey-faced statues. That night, Mandy told him he had to convert to marry her. But he wasn’t religious, he told her; he wasn’t converting from anything, and he couldn’t suddenly believe in a God he never had.

Ashu starts another countdown. Twenty-four years ago, he would hide behind his mother’s pallu, the long drape of the saree behind her back, feeling her love for him radiate like heat, peeking out into the world, feeling unready for it. Sixteen years ago, he sat bleeding, tasting metal and grit, wishing he knew what it was like to want to fight back. Ten years ago, when he asked someone for directions to his first college class, he was told to go back to where he came from. That night he had his first beer at a fraternity house. Three years ago, he met Mandy—Mandy with the sunny hair and freckles that danced on her face like art. Five months ago, she left him after he had too many tequila shots at her brother’s graduation party—Mandy, for whom the world fit just right. What happened after was like broken glass, jagged and strewn. That’s the thing about countdowns, it could get him to where he is, but where does he go now?