To Have Fought
“Study #079” by Keith Petersen
Gatik Nana ji stretched a thin cotton cloth against the countertop so that the space between its white threads widened like lungs taking air. At its center was a dollop of wet yogurt. His wrinkled fingers swept the four corners into a knot and hung the cradle from a brass cabinet handle. At first, water poured from the sack like summer rain, a tumultuous flow rattling into the bowl he'd put beneath it. Afterwards, it quieted to a slow drip, like a roof leak, and when this happened, Nana ji settled back in his chair, feet flush against the stone floor in this dark corner of the kitchen.
This was how his mother had made shrikhand. In the same way the people of the town wondered why Nana ji lived alone, they wondered why he didn't simply buy cans of fresh-made sweet yogurt from the store. Truthfully, brightly colored cans and translucent plastics of the modern age frightened him. Every new shift in town was the breakage of a tectonic plate, a landmass cracked away from the original continent of Nana ji's body.
The mixture dripped. Specks of yogurt which had escaped with the water drifted through the murky bowl like clouds. Last night, Nana ji had dreamt a scene too frightening to recall. He thought instead about the seed from which the dream had originated. Blurred colors tightened into a picture from his past, fresh from a camera lens. In his mind, he visited the true memory.
***
“Ay, Gatik!” Three boys called out to him. School was out, and disheveled children spilled from the doors like ants onto the street, ties loose and hair plastered across sweaty foreheads. He should’ve run when he heard his name, but one particular voice stood out to him.
“We have a deal for you,” said Advait, a particularly rough kid who everyone avoided. Behind him, though, was the carrier of the special voice. Suresh.
His face was full but stern; the shape of a surely formed petal. It held a needle-thin twig of a smile which swayed with so much fluidity that Gatik could never tell if the boy was genuinely happy. In the relentless heat, Suresh’s cheeks glinted with orange light like round fruits. Gatik couldn’t look away.
“You get a feather off a peacock and we won’t beat you up,” announced Advait. A couple kids behind him giggled and formed a mass. Normally, Gatik ignored these outlandish dares – but a fight allowed the opportunity for Suresh to cheer him on. He imagined inhabiting the focal point of his vision just for a moment. Glowing at the center of his eye.
“I’ll get it!” he screamed. “You all just watch me!”
The pack traversed the roads back to the school field with a lethargic annoyance. They were expecting a fist fight, not a ridiculous prank. But here they all were, facing three royal peacocks scattered over the grassy horizon. The sun shone in the birds’ eyes, fiery red spilling between long blue necks curling into thick summer air like steam. Mosquitos pecked at the children’s knees.
Gatik had never seen a peacock grow so tall in his vision. Usually he watched them from a distance, their elegant crowned silhouettes too perfect to truly be animals. But in front of him, their heaving chests turned like bowls into the shadows of their guts. Their golden-blue colors, vibrant from afar, dripped with otherworldly saturation. They were poisonous.
Gatik swallowed and stretched out his hand, only to find his hand had not moved. He stepped back, but his feet weren’t shifting either. Was he breathing? He sucked air in, but his chest did not lift. Nothing. Nothing. Instead, it was the children behind him who rushed forward, who called for the teacher when he hit the ground, the boy who lost the bet, the boy who did not fight.
***
The sweet curd thickened, along with the darkness. Nana ji kneaded the fleshy cotton. Not yet firm, he decided. Every couple minutes, another drop would fall. It surprised him every time, like the ticking of a broken clock.
In the dream, Gatik's hands responded to his call. His fingers flicked the peacock's crown, a challenge, and the two bowed, their necks dipping into the mist. Then, emerging, they lunged at each other: Gatik's open palms dug into the plumage like two claws. Talons gripped at the crevices under his arms. Their bodies turned hot with ferocity, blood beating between their chests, pounding, till they spun into a hurricane of feathers and arms and skin, made of flesh and nothing more.
Nana ji, who had never naturally sensed the outline of his own body, often determined his position by the relation between his feet and the nearest solid shadow. But that morning, he woke in a cold sweat surrounded by skin, enclosed under skin, trapped in skin.
A man's face speckled through the gaps of the window netting. Nana ji heard it before he saw: the creak of the gate, the thump of footsteps. Jasmine sweet steam in yellow morning light. There was the milk delivery man, with rough, teakwood-oil skin, mauve blooming at his cheeks. His back was deeply arched, the weight of many years on his shoulders, and perhaps many children too -- or perhaps not. Every day, Nana ji observed the man. But now, after the dream, for the first time he wondered about him.
Nana ji began to massage the bag. It was firm now, just barely bending to his fingers, the exact shape and consistency of a human heart. He marveled at the dimples his hands left, how the cotton had formed the skin of this muscle. He tore the cloth from the cupboard and flattened the shrikhand to the countertop. What had he done? It was too late to cook, too late to eat. But no matter. The next day, his body would glow under sunrise. The milkman would arrive at his door.
About the Author
Devaki Devay is an Indian writer who loves to explore family, queerness, and culture. Find their other work at Barren and Okay Donkey magazine, and follow them @DevakiDevay on Twitter.
about the artist
Keith Petersen explores the connections between science, nature and art. Working with photography and mixed media in a studio practice, his interest in the intersection of the natural sciences and art has led to a series of explorations of the alchemical interactions between organic and synthetic pigments and other elements. He uses photographic processes to document the often unstable and ephemeral reactions between these substances.