‘It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.’ 

- Murakami 

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My name is Björk and I have trouble with language. I have trouble with understanding too—with comprehension. Come to think of it, I have trouble with most things in life. I think it’s down to my inability to see things for what they truly are. I constantly try to read in between the lines when there is nothing there. It involves a lot of second-guessing too. It does not take much to trigger an over-thinking cascade in my head, which more often than not makes me tumble to the bottom rung of the ladder of indecision. I house Chernobyl inside my head. My head—the size of one brain cell.  

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I live on my own private Idaho. Cradled between a verdant pasture and a boisterous street swelling with lazy bougainvillea and the chirp of cicadas and crickets at night. Every day brings with it the invasion of croaking belligerent frogs and soaring dragonflies, trying to find home in our kitchen’s miniature garden frequented by a multitude of woodpeckers. 

It was just last night (or was it daytime? I cannot seem to recall accurately) when things turned sour with Saira, my friend. She’s a bit of an over-thinker too, and a bit of an underachiever, just like me. A person with such eclectic taste and housing talent of worthwhile proportions—a keen eye for aesthetics and all things artsy, she ended up manifesting the career of a care-giver only. It could very well be possible that it was her over thinking tendencies which rubbed off on me. 

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We live under the same roof, so it’s hard not to get influenced by each other. She can be extremely insufferable to live with. I on the other hand tend to wear people down, so you can imagine how volatile our friendship is. It’s the embodiment of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. I stall her attempts at cranking up the heat inside the house, or at the very least attempt to. I thwart her attempts at ordering food from outside because I hate the smell of cheese sprinkled over every meal these days. Oh, and of course the question of keeping the lights turned on during times of sleep—let’s just say we have our disagreements. 

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Coming back to how things turned sour with her, it really stemmed from a seemingly innocuous question that she asked me.  

“Would you like me to be nicer to you, Björk?” is what she asked me. I thought it was an undeclared act of provocation—of war. Needless to say, highly uncalled for. I had been on my best behavior the entire week, but she did not seem too pleased. Something had been simmering and I think the question was the result of all that pent up rage. It was not just the question itself but the tone of her voice and how she said it. 

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“Would you like me to be nicer to you, Björk?” 

…

It was one lazy morning when things took a turn for the worse. Our home, a Shangri-La of all things young, was blemished by the inevitable clamor Saira would create just before stepping out of the house. It seemed like there was never a time she was not late to one thing or another. She was constantly tugging and fixing the mattress, much to my annoyance. There was a copy of Kafka on the Shore lying at the corner of the mattress which I could sense was bothering her. I think mostly down to the fact that she hadn’t been able to finish it in a month, she wasn’t even close. She picked it up and flung it in a direction which was remote from me, but I am not sure she avoided me on purpose. I think her aim, much like her judgement, is awry. At which point exactly, she looked behind at me for a fraction of a second and said those words with such disdain. 

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“Would you like me to be nicer to you, Björk?” 

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A fire hazard at that point of time would have sounded nicer to me. Perhaps it’s an indication of how often we are at loggerheads, which dulls my senses into the slothful forgetfulness of previous insults. I think she wanted to hear a no as a response to her question which is what she got. Passive aggressive fiends, these questions. I simply turned away and walked toward the window overlooking the only sapling planted in the lawn. That’s what a no would always shape up as—me walking away. She is used to hearing no from me. One would think that saying no would feel like a victory for me, but it never has. It always felt like defeat. She knew that, and much to my dismay, I think she felt a twisted sense of jubilation.  

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As I rested my puny little head on the windowsill I overheard our neighbors—ever noisy, ever chirpy, and never silent. It’s our favorite window of the room because it is the only one, so we would often jostle over who gets to rest there. Those tiny little victories would never last, because the view of the moon and the feeble sounds of various frogmouths and blue-jays would be interrupted by the shrill of our neighbors—their television sets, songs they would play on the radio and worse still, songs they would sing themselves. 

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The single enduring memory, and perhaps also my first impression of them, was a bunch of children running into a field verdant and alive, with paper windmills in their  hands in an attempt to stand at the edge of some strange euphoria. It felt eternally distant yet near. My memory abruptly shifts next to the sight of those children, crouching behind hemlocks and ferns, hoping they would hide them from the gaze and pleading of their elder folk. A perennial back and forth between the elder folk wanting them to eat and the children refusing. And after a lull of neither peace nor complete  

surrender, this group of children reveal themselves from behind the plants and vanish into their house.  

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All seems lost now, what remains is a distant memory of that idyll. The only comforting sound we would ever hear from them for quite some time now was the sound of them fighting. I could never understand why abrupt bouts of laughter and exasperating giggles would creep in those fights. Fight ferociously, like feline animals I’d keep telling them inside my head.  

Saira had quite a few run-ins with them. I, in my rare moments of exultation and deriving pleasure from her misery, would be overjoyed about most of them. My German friend tells me they coined a word for it—schadenfreude. I remember one particular night when she could not get any sleep all through the night because the children were busy lighting firecrackers till the wee hours of dawn. She would never stop trying, and they would never really listen. She tried everything, from coaxing them to pleading with them to chiding them but they never caved in. I don’t think they did it on purpose just to take a swipe at her, they could probably never bring themselves to shut up. Just the boisterous enthusiasm of children which leaves nothing in its wake. 

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I later learnt that it was a family of young children without their parents—who had passed many years ago in the most bizarre plague. It killed all the adults seemingly and spared the young ones. I lost my parents in the plague too but my parents were younger than most adults out there which felt odd to me. It felt a little unfair at that time but I think it helped me cope with the grief. I was so taken up by the oddity and unfairness of it all that I did not get time to grieve. 

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Looking back now, I would rather grieve than struggle with bafflement. I am someone who finds it hard looking beyond myself even in the most extreme of situations but I must confess, I did feel a little something in my puny little heart which is just like my puny little head for those children. Saira remembers their names but I keep forgetting, it’s four of them and the youngest always wears white. That’s all I know.  

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I remember a cold winter day when I decided to go over to their house and take a good look at them, possibly meet them. They barely paid any attention to me, offered me no food or drink and were rather happy to see the back of me. I remember when I was leaving I heard a faint murmur, one of the little ones commenting on my sullenness and then another, chiming in with a giggle. All at my expense, I felt humiliated and I was furious. The humiliation caused me to run at the top of my lungs, run back to Saira. Although I hated every bit of returning to her, the comfort of ordinary but familiar people and surroundings was more important that day. I don’t think I have felt so incapable and small until last night, and that is when Saira asked me if I wanted her to be nicer to me. And what followed. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Before that, I would like to tell you what I know about Saira. I could be wrong on many accounts (although if you ask me I don’t think I am).  

…

I have the memory of a goldfish or worse, but there are certain moments that remain etched in my memory. The plague was one of those. During the rare moments when I am happy, I think of the plague as having been inflicted on us years ago. But every grey morning when I wake up groggy and disenchanted with the world, it feels like just yesterday. 

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I remember the plague but I don’t remember my parents anymore. It’s comical, perhaps tragic too what my memory reveals and what it conceals. Not all of it is unpleasant though. I remember when I met Saira for the first time. I was taking a piss like every other piss in my life and there are plenty of those. It is then she came from this bronze alley made of stones, which looked like they had been there for ages. I don’t like to be disturbed in the more peaceful moments of my life and taking a piss ranks right up there as far as peaceful moments go. She just stood there, an arm’s length from me. Mind you, I have extremely short arms. It was disconcerting to say the least. 

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Does she even realize I am taking a leak, I asked myself? Incensed, I looked at her and she was not paying me the slightest attention. The flustering intrusion of her attention turned upside down, and it was her lack of attention which started bothering me instead. 

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She gazed at the moon with her ever prying eyes. I had heard a lot of whispers about people being mesmerized by the moon, and I would ignore that talk as just a passing fancy, but this was the very first time that I saw it for myself. She was engrossed and not even a tank would have caused her to budge. 

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The moon in all honesty did not look all that great, which is what I maintain still and it causes plenty of friction between us. I hinted at her how she in all fairness, had vastly overestimated the moon, it’s no spectacle as her gaze would suggest. She shrugged off my suggestion with the most insipid effort, to the extent that her shrugging it off was almost a favor. This set the tone for us. I would be at the receiving end of rather unassuming acts which to a third person would look very benign, and possibly even rude, but they took on the shape of kindness in the most unlikely of ways.  

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Freak encounters as they might look to you, we began meeting at the same place quite often. She would be generous in her appreciation of the moon and I would sit there cynically. I tried to spite her every now and then by peeing during those occasions but she remained unfazed. What she does not know is that I began to chart a course for our meetings. I would wait, sometimes for days at the same spot. On occasion I would stuff my bladder up with water, suspecting a connection between me peeing and her turning up. 

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She would arrive most days of the week and we would begin our ritual. Other times, weeks would pass by without her sight. I did realize, however, that waiting is a quality in and of itself, and it repels loneliness. It was only during those brief stints of time which immediately followed her leaving after our ritual when I felt lonely. But that feeling was quickly dissipated by the anticipation of the day to come—the week to come. Moon-sightings and pissing contests.  

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Over the course of these meetings, we talked to each other more. To the extent that I began to tell myself how she would probably come there now exclusively for me. I heard how the moon is visible from other parts of this world, and I would like to believe that. It lends credence to what I feel about the whole ritual. She started telling me about her life, the life she had left behind, and the life she was looking forward to—her friends, her family, her worries, her joys, and I would listen. I will admit it was disarming the way she talked about her life, but made it all about the people and situations around her rather than herself. I was tempted though, every now and then to ask her to tell me more about herself rather than everyone else, but I never gathered the courage. I saved it for all the fights we had and there were plenty of them.  

…

I eventually started to live with her and we shared the same bed even though I hated it, and maybe she did too. It was the best and worst part of the day. We ended up not talking too much once we started living together because I spent most part of the day sleeping, and she, the night. There were constant squabbles over food, milk, and garbage, which was further compounded by our noisy neighbors. Precarious though it might have been, I made some semblance of peace with life in this dwelling with her.  

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It was only after a few months that she introduced me to her friends. There was hesitancy on my part and probably hers too. Turned out to be quite refreshing though. Her friends were always kinder to me than the neighbors, and even Saira herself. I chose not to dwell on it too much. I tried to make a good impression of myself in front of her friends, and I think somewhere deep down she was happy about it. 

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 It was a month ago when she told me one of her friends was getting married—the one with sunflowers in her hair. I am not good with remembering names. I was invited and I could not contain my joy even though I feigned reluctance. Not all of it was made up though, a big part of me was anxious. I had no suit to wear, I had not taken care of grooming myself for a long time so it looked like a tall order to me. Nonetheless, I decided to take things into my own hands and got myself a fairly decent looking suit. We took off together on the day of the wedding in the back of a train we would often travel by, mostly down to Saira’s insatiable love for trains. She complimented me quite a lot on the suit. I could not have been happier.  

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The less said about the wedding though, the better. Everything went downhill for me rather quickly. It would not be an exaggeration to say I am completely out of my depth in the company of any number more than two—me and Saira. Just the attempt to count the number of people made me dizzy. This on top of all these random folk brushing up against me, whispering weird sounds to me which I believe were awfully misguided attempts at pacifying me made it all the worse. I tried to get a foothold in the middle of all that, and I almost did when I sat down in peace beside a fishbowl right next to the niche where the bride and groom were sitting, exchanging pleasantries with the guests and hoarding up flower bouquets, thrust in their laps like clockwork.  

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This was until I decided to take a stroll through one of the alleyways of the wedding hall, covered with mirrors on either side. Passing through this rather bizarre spectacle, I flinched every time the sight of me in that ghastly suit caught my eye. I thought I looked awful, and all those compliments Saira sent my way suddenly seemed so cruel. The thing with faceless remarks and sugarcoating is that it does not stay that way for long. Once the façade melts away, what remains is an ugly skeleton of those fictitious remarks. 

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Her notion of kindness did not dispel my worries. I think human beings ought to be honest in their conversations. Just like a careless shrug from her turned out to be kind to me, a warm compliment from her turned out to be cruel because it was a lie (or so I thought). I was extremely grumpy throughout the course of the wedding, and it was not lost on Saira or her friends. I can see how it must have been embarrassing for her to say the least. She did not talk to me at all on the way back, visibly crestfallen. I felt taken aback by the amount of influence she had on me. This was followed by a sense of sadness which overtook me. I had let her down and probably blown things out of proportion. It was awful, I don’t get sad very often. 

 

Before she went to bed that night, she looked at me as if to tell me how sick she was of me and how I ought to know that not everything is about me. I could wrap my head around the former but not so much the latter. I am full of myself and that is how it has always been. I have reconciled with my nature long ago and could not possibly part with it on any account. The neighbors were at their loudest that night but Saira was a defeated person and did not put up a fight that night. She fell asleep as soon as she got into bed. 

…

I am not good with gifts just like I am not good with a lot of things, but I did not know how else to make it up to Saira. I roamed around the bazaar for a bit, but there was too much there to choose from. I still wonder what people do with such opulence. I stay far from an abundant life—abundant means. I am possibly giving myself undue credit for it because truth be told, I am compelled to live a less than simple life. Which is why I found myself rudderless in the abundant bazaar, adorned with myriad sights and sounds which thoroughly intrigued and baffled me in equal measure. 

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So instead I looked for scraps, but much to my dismay, even the scraps were far too many. I headed back home lamenting what I thought was my ineptness. I came across a leftover piece of stretched canvas, and it looked like the after thought of a child’s sketch. A piece of abstract art they call it which I could not really understand, but then half-accomplished things have a certain allure to them. I picked it up and ran all the way back. Saira remained unfazed when I showed it to her, but she made sure she handled it carefully, washing it up a little bit, which I was annoyed by because it did not look necessary to me. The sketch still lies in the room we share in one of the four corners, sullen.  

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The days that followed involved some grueling trips I undertook to look for some more gifts. More than the half-accomplished sketch I found, more than just scraps. So I ended up getting her flowers, a handkerchief, a few pillows, and it remained the same. We were not really talking still, and this one was not down to just our sleeping patterns. She made it clear that she did not want to talk to me. I thought the best course of action now would be to be on my best behavior—to not be fussy and grumpy, to avoid confrontation which I assumed would be the best gift I could bestow her with. 

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Another week passed when she wished me  a happy birthday and gifted me a keychain which I made a plaything out of. I found her act of wishing me and gifting me very kind, more so because it came out of the blue and she did not make a big deal out of it. It was one of those things which I grew to be very fond of about her. The ice was broken now, and we went back to our old tried and tested schedule. It did not involve a lot of talking, but this time the silence was down to just our sleeping routines which I found oddly satisfying. Returning back to the status quo was more than I could ask for.  

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The days turned colder, the nights colder still. Ever since I returned from that ill-fated wedding, I had begun scratching myself a whole lot, like they gave me an itch—an allergy which only grew worse in the days to come. When she realized we could not just wish this one way, Saira eventually helped me to a doctor who gave us an ointment and shrugged it off saying it would go away on its own but I knew it would not. I had a premonition.  

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And now about last night, when she said those words. “Would you like me to be nicer to you, Björk?” I didn’t know what flipped inside me. I assumed something had been brewing inside me, detached from the fights, the humiliation at the neighbors’, from the unpleasant wedding and the aftermath. It was something else but I could not point to it inside my chest and locate it.  

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As I rested my puny little head on the windowsill, overhearing our neighbors, our disharmony got to Saira like it had never before. In a fit of unbridled rage, she picked up the sketch I had gifted her, and hurled it from the window toward our neighbors’ house. It was a pointless and especially petty thing to do. The sketch was ruined, it broke into pieces the moment it fell down and worse still, it never made its way to the neighbors’ house. All it did was squash more than a bit of the sapling we had been growing under the eye of our window. 

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The urge to react was exceedingly high, but for once, I chose not to. I chose to put a lid on my own simmering rage and just looked at her. She looked at me, eyes of fury meeting eyes of fury. And then something unexpected happened, her eyes turned sad, and tinged with a certain hollowness. It felt like I was staring into a void. Before I could even think of something or make sense of what was happening, she started laughing right in my puny little face and I could not help but laugh in response. We laughed for what seemed like an enormous chunk of time. 

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I had trouble comprehending units of time, seconds, minutes, hours, which was why I limited myself to saying that it was an enormous chunk of time. We laughed at the top of our voices and beyond. Our neighbors cried out and asked us to stop. This was the very first, and possibly last, time something like this had ever happened. We swelled up with such happiness and satisfaction. It was quite the sight, a cacophony of unabashed laughter riddled with absolutely no complaints.  

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A part of me was sad though because this was an act of kindness, on our part, on my part, on Saira’s part, and on the part of our neighbors too. And I was used to just showing kindness to Saira. The idea that our neighbors could also show kindness to Saira and be pleasing to her made me uncomfortable. Of the few things I own, I used to be mighty proud of owning all that kindness, exclusively for Saira. I try to avoid human emotions but it was the first time I felt jealous, or whatever this feeling was, I am sure it was close to it. 

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I rubbed my paws on Saira’s feet and licked her forearm like I had not in a long long time. I wanted her to ask me again if I would like her to be nicer to me. This time my answer would have been a resounding yes. I would wag my tail for as long as it took to convince her that I did. But she never asked again.  

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My name is Björk and I have trouble with language. I have trouble with understanding too, with comprehension. Come to think of it, I have trouble with most things in life. But I would like to think I do better than most of the other strays that find refuge in houses like Saira’s. I think what really works in my favor though is my owner, Saira. She might be insufferable to live with but so am I, and thus I tell myself that she is the best of the worst. My itch, my allergy has gotten worse since, I scratch myself and bleed a whole lot. Saira pays a little less attention to me and my illness than I would like her to. The neighbors have started to come over more often and a tender friendship has begun to blossom with Saira. 

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They act like I don’t exist, except maybe the youngest of them, the one who always wears white. She comes up every now and then in our room, Saira and mine, and pats me. Perhaps that’s all I ever asked for. I usually stay in the room nowadays. Saira left early this morning, and I have a feeling she won’t be back anytime soon. I am settling in for the long haul. The milk is fresh but I would rather lie down, curl up and sleep.