A Tarnished Coin

A Tarnished Coin

"See you later, sweetheart." Your uncle smiles as he tucks a lock of dark, curly hair behind your ear. He helps you up into the car, the sun shining all around the two of you, the grass green and the sky a brilliant, cloying blue. There is sadness sitting heavy in your heart. Sadness running liquid and cold down your bones. But there is a smiling sort of contentment too. A soft, smothering sort of sweetness at the knowledge that you are here, surrounded by loved ones.

Loved ones. Love. The word sits sour-sweet like a pill on your tongue. You don't know what love truly is. But you think it must be this. It must be. For it feels all warm and fuzzy and writhing in your chest, like you swallowed a kitten.

Inside the car it smells like air freshener. It smells like chemicals. It smells like a fragrant, classy sort of dead. The seats are plush and soft, and there is a lot of space inside. You lean back against your seat and feel the softness underneath you. You feel the simple, unassuming lavishness.

Inside the car is your aunt, dressed in a colourful floral salwar kameeze with a georgette scarf draped over her shoulders. Her hair flows straight and shining down her back and her lips are bright red. Inside the car is your mother, with her own hair in an elegant bun and pearl earrings in her ears. You don't know whether they're fake or not.

Inside the car is your baby brother, sitting in your mother's lap, oblivious to the darker facts of the life you both live in. You wonder what is going on inside his head. You think that he is adorable, like a little flower draped in morning dew.

Inside the car is the driver, whose name you do not know. Who is silent as you all say your goodbyes to each other. He is wearing a simple cotton shirt and there is something hollow, something haunted inside his eyes. You barely notice it though, and even when you do, you barely pay it any mind.

This is where you are. These are the people who you are with. And nothing anyone can do will change this reality. You might as well not question it. You might as well enjoy it.

The car speeds up and drives down the long stretch of road connecting the secluded house to the rest of the sweltering city. The road is paved with cobblestones and really rather beautiful here, lined with trees. You look out the clear glass window, shaded in order to ward off the hottest rays of the sun.

It's actually a little bit cold in the car, despite the outside world being exhaustingly hot and muggy.

Soon you exit the walled-off guard district and you are being driven through the city proper. Outside the streets are brown-gray, dusty, and covered in all sorts of garbage. You keep looking out the window, the ugly scenes holding their own sort of aestheticism.

Your mother and your aunt talk, while your brother is playing with his fake keys, big and bright and clunky in his hand. You run your own hands through your curly hair, freshly-washed and soft to the touch. You turn around to talk to your mother.

The car slows to a crawl, caught in a traffic jam. A woman comes to the door of the car, eyes overly-large and dark and desperate and hollow, hunger etched on every line of her face. She seems almost ethereal, looking at you with desperate wells of eyes. Knocking on the glass of the car door.

"What does she want?" You ask, voice arching with curiosity.

"Money, probably," your aunt answers. "Or perhaps food." Her voice is disdainful. Flippant. As if she does not truly care. As if she does not truly see the woman out there, knocking wearily and desperately against the car windows.

There is a man alongside her now. And another man. And another man. And two more women. The beggars come and they come until they are packed all around every side of the car, pressing in, gazing with their desperate, pained eyes.

It is as if you are transported into another world. A world filled with need and strife and hunger and pain. A world where every day the sun digs into you and the wind tears across you. A world where death is just a few bad days away.

You can feel death lingering near the throngs of people gathered around the car, pleading for anything you could spare them. Pleading for help. Invoking the name of God with their dry, parched mouths. Invoking things far greater than God with their eyes.

Their eyes. Their eyes, their eyes, their eyes. These eyes seep down like twilight, like water, like fire smoke. They seep down into your very soul. You already know that you will remember these eyes for the rest of your life. They will haunt you forever, always over the edges of the surface of your mind.

They are all pressed together, close to each other. And it's such a strange type of community. Such a strange type of solidarity among all of the people standing there. Standing there and sharing their common pain. Sharing their common need. Sharing their common hope.

But you look into their eyes and you see a deep aching emotion so much larger, so much more terrible than mere sadness. This is an emotion that you cannot name. An emotion that perhaps there is no name for. This is devastation. Beyond devastation.

Part of you feels subsumed into their eyes, subsumed into their world, subsumed into their pain. It flows through you and overwhelms you, and you want nothing more than to help them, to honour them, to give them what they so desperately are asking for.

You don't know how to honour someone yet. Not in your consciousness. But in your unconscious mind you do. And your unconscious mind is telling you to let yourself become subsumed by them. It's telling you to let this haunt you until the end of your days.

They look at you with their dark eyes. Their wide eyes. Their sorrowful eyes. Eyes that contain infinite depths within them. Eyes that speak of things you know you cannot understand.

In every line of their face is etched death. And you know, you just know from looking at them that they are suffering beyond what you can ever imagine.

And so you ask your mother if she can open up her wallet and give some money to the beggars.

She looks at you as if you are a queer sort of being. She looks at you as if you are a baby, not a child of ten years old. She looks at you as if you are a bad child in need of a scolding. She looks at you as if she cannot believe what she has just heard.

She looks at you and she tells you that your family does not have enough money to spare. She does not have enough money to spare. It's not as if they are rich. It's not as if they can hand out money to every weary beggar who asks.

You plead. But she doesn't hear you. You plead again. But she tells you the same thing. You plead a third time. And she tells you to keep quiet and be good.

The driver says nothing. He doesn't look at you. He keeps his eyes on the road. But there is a certain slouch to his shoulders that you can see. A certain slouch to his shoulders that tells you more than you thought it could tell you.

Your aunt looks back towards you, her eyes slightly pinched, her face glazed over with youthful carelessness. She offhandedly tells you to listen to your mother. Her leather purse with silver-coloured chain links sits on her lap.

And so you turn away from her, hands empty. You look out the clear glass window, shaded in order to ward off the hottest rays of the sun. You look at all the beggars pressed around the car, almost pressing into the glass. You see the death surrounding them, dark and jagged and whispering constantly foreboding. You look, and there is nothing else you can do but look. There is nothing else you can do but remember.

They are out there in the muggy, oppressive heat, out in the dirt and the dust of the streets. And you are in the soft, cool, fragrant car. You are in the throes of luxury. In the throes of life. In the throws of comfort. You live in a world they will never be able to access and they live in a world you will never access as well. There is cold, tinted glass between you and them. And there is a world of different destinies between you and them. A vast chasm that is insurmountable.

You look at your empty hands and you realize you have nothing to give them. You look at your new dress that you are wearing. And you realize that the world is tilting away from sanity, has been tilting away from sanity for as long as you have been alive.

The car speeds up and you leave them behind. But still they press upon you. Every time you close your eyelids, they are there imprinted on your mind. And in one sense they make you feel emotions you never knew yourself capable of feeling. In another sense they make you feel nothing at all.

The dusty streets go by and you are still watching them from your tinted windows.

Eventually the car reaches the store that it was always meant to go to. Your brother is on your lap now, and you carry him as you step out of the car. Your mother and aunt get out. And then they lead you inside the glass doors of the shop.

Inside the shop it is clean. It is pretty. The walls are a light blue shade and the polished stone floors have little dark flecks of different sizes scattered through the stone. There are bright and shimmery clothes hanging from the walls or folded on the shelves or draped over the mannequins. There are glass cases filled with jewelry.

You are so taken in by the calm, cool prettiness of the store that you almost forget about the beggars. Almost. They remain, out of focus and blurry, on the very edges of your mind. What takes up the forefront of your mind is all the pretty, shimmery colours all around you.

Your mother is looking at saris. Your aunt is looking at jewelry. You join her, looking at all the pretty semi-precious stones arranged into aesthetic shapes and sizes and patterns. You feel so close to your aunt, standing there beside her, looking over jewellery. You feel like you could get lost in this forever. And somewhere, deep in the very core of yourself, you feel lost.

You see the perfect set. A necklace and a pair of dangly earrings. Each made of a string of little colourful, pastel-coloured, rocks of various sizes. They match a bracelet you have perfectly. They are made of the same rocks in the same multi-sized, multi-cut, multi-coloured pattern, all strung together. You just know that you have to buy this.

You ask your mother if you can have the necklace and the earrings. A few weeks ago your ears were pierced against your will so you can wear earrings now. You can buy earrings now.

Your mother says of course you can buy them. She asks the store clerk to put the jewelry in a small bag and she hands him the money as he is busy wrapping them up. You thank your mother. You feel so very lucky to have her as your mother. She lets you do anything that you want.

But somewhere deep inside you, something festers pale and grey and dead.

——————

You feel the hunger raging through you. Raging through each and every part of you. Through your writhing gut. Through your hollow chest. Through your sore and decaying arms and legs. Through your dry, parched throat. Through your throbbing head. Through your aching kidneys. Everywhere.

You feel the heat melting you, burning you, boiling you from the inside out. Your head aches dully and gratingly because of it. You feel as if all your insides have melted and turned to soup. You feel as if your skin is burning under the hot, unrelenting sun.

You are sick, and every once in a while you cough wheezing into your naked elbow. You don't remember the last time when you were not sick. It's as if sickness follows you everywhere you go like a twisted and corrupted shadow. It's as if you can never get free. And your wrenched out soul can never get free.

But you are free. Far more free than most of the people in this aching, dying city. In this city that is so supersaturated with misery that everyone and everything is drowning in it. Everyone and everything that matters at least.

You do not know how so much agony and aching misery can be crammed together into so small a space. You do not know how all the tall, tall buildings and dusty, dusty roads do not contort themselves and collapse into piles of ruined steel and bricks.

You feel like the whole city is a giant pile of rubble anyways. Because you are war torn. All your friends are war torn. The family you left behind for their own good is war torn. More people than you could ever possibly meet in your life are all war torn. And there isn't even a war going on. Not literally anyways.

You are thirsty, and that makes you even hotter. Your throat burns dry. Your arms and legs feel heavy, lethargic, slightly itchy, dried out. Your lungs burn, your eyes burn, everything about you burns and you have no idea how you are still clinging to life.

But clinging to life is what you have to do. Because even though death would be a panacea, would be calm and cool and comforting, you are too much of a coward to accept death. You have friends and they rely on you and you can't bear to leave them behind. Even though you know they would want you to be free.

You are such a coward. Such a coward. Such a coward. Even when you are brave. Even when you share what little coin you are able to gather with those who have not been able to gather any coin that day. Even when you share what meagre food scraps you've been given with those who have not had food that day.

You have nowhere to go. Nowhere to go but for the dusty, dirty streets filled with festering water and crumpled garbage. You have nothing that is yours. Nothing except for the pain and the ache coming from so many different sources. Nothing except the hunger which echoes through all of you all of the time. You have nothing except your misery, and your agony, and your hurt.

But that is not true. You have your friends. Friends who share what tiny little they have with you. You have your comrades, who all join the throngs of desperate beggars every single day, trying to pry what little they can from the rich. You have your people. People you have met and people you have never met. People you will meet and people you will never meet. You have them. You have the connections and the bonds that tie your heart to theirs. You have love.

Sometimes it feels like the love is burning through inside you like sparkling gold. And it is the only thing that is giving you hope, keeping you whole, keeping you supported, keeping you human. To love is to be human. To love is the only way to be human. Society had taken almost everything from you but it could not take your love. It could not take your humanity.

You are one human in a throng of so many other humans. One beating heart amidst so many other beating hearts. One of many. One part of a whole. And when all your people come together as a whole, all the beggars and the factory workers and the rickshaw pullers and the miners and the farmers and the construction workers and the servants, when all the people come together in their hearts, that is when you feel whole. That is when you feel human.

You sleep on the streets. All your fellow beggars sleep on the streets. It is horrifically dangerous. There are criminal gangs that are out to steal whatever they can, even organs, even whole people. There are police officers who take whatever they want from your people and beat you guys whenever they feel like it. Full of hatred and full of malice. There are dogs that are rabid and may bite you. Cats that are much the same.

But still, you sleep on the streets, on the hard ground and the dust, in the cold night air, because you don't have anywhere else to sleep. You don't have a pillow so you use a bundled-up wad of cloth that you drape over your shoulders in the daytime. You huddle with other street urchins for warmth.

Most of your days are spent pressed together with the crowd, hurting, hungry, begging for scraps from the middle class people in their cars that drive by. Most of your day is spent looking into the eyes of those who do not meet your eyes, do not see your eyes, do not care about your eyes. Most of your day is spent asking for mercy from people who give you none, people who give you nothing.

But it almost feels good to be pressed up against the hungry, aching bodies of all the other human beings who are begging as you are. It's a strange sort of solidarity. You all standing together. You all hurting together. You all aching together. You all pleading together. No matter what, you have your people. And they are fighting the same fight you are. You are all fighting together.

Often it feels as if you are more dead than alive. As if much of your soul has already drifted up into the afterlife, into a kaleidoscopic whirl of emotions that are not meant for this life, not meant for this world. You sometimes feel like you are floating up to the sky just as much as you are tethered down on the ground. And it almost feels good. It almost feels like victory.

You know that you will die soon. People living on the streets never live long. Your lives are really just a slow spiral into death. And you grieve yourself. You are thirty-five and already you grieve yourself. And you grieve your friends and comrades. Those who are still alive and those who have passed on. Both the same. Both equally.

You feel so much misery over the fact that your friends have to live the same life you do. Over the fact that they have to hurt just as you do. That they have to hurt just as much as you. You think that it probably hurts you more, the fact that they're hurting, than it does the fact that you are hurting. You would do anything to see them safe, see them healthy, see them happy. But you cannot do anything. It's all out of your hands.

Everything is out of your hands. Your life is out of your hands. Your death is out of your hands. Your loved ones' lives are out of your hands. Their happiness is out of your hands. Their deaths are out of your hands. The swirling hurricane of emotions that constantly batter at your weary soul is out of your hands.

Weary. You are so weary. Your bones are weary, your blood is weary, your flesh is weary, your skin is weary. Your mind is weary, your heart is weary, your soul is weary. Yet at the same time, they are all so energized. They are sparking with this aching, acidic energy that is almost enough to keep you going. Almost.

You breathe. And your breaths feel jagged. Ragged. Ragged just like your clothes are. Ragged just like your hair is. Ragged just like your soul. You feel as if you have no dignity left. But that's not true. You do have some dignity left. Things could be worse.

Things could be so much worse.

But still, desperation paints all you know. An aching sort of desperation. A ravenous sort of desperation. The sort of desperation that is like a caged lion roaring, like a never ending cave full of stalactites and stalagmites. Like the depths of the ocean or the fire of the sun. The type of desperation that you are so desperate to be rid of. The type of desperation that you know you will never be rid of. Not until the day that you finally, finally succumb to the death that is always trailing close behind you.

You are at the moment standing in a crowd full of people. You are all pressed against each other. You all pressed desperately together. You are all standing there together and that gives you a sort of strength. Gives you a form of power.

But truly you don't have any power as you press towards the car, asking again and again achingly for the passengers within to spare you some coin, spare you some food, spare you some mercy, spare you some life. You and the rest of the crowd melt together to form one desperate, weary, hollow voice. A voice that begs again and again for some type of help. For some type of kindness. For some type of peace.

You think of what a pathetic scene you must be painting for those on the inside of the car. All of you together, looking with your hollow, aching eyes and pleading with your tired, weary throats and stretching your hands out towards them. You think of how small they must see you as. And you feel small. You feel so small.

But at the same time, along with all your people surrounding you, standing in a mass with all of them, you feel supported. You feel as if you can stand tall.

Both these feelings constantly eat inside of you. And the battle leaves you bloody.

Inside the car is a world you will never know. It's a world of coolness and freshness and soft, plush seats. It's a world of decadence and comfort. It's a world where there's always enough, where there is more than enough, where there are no cares and no worries, nothing but the constant knowledge that you will be well provided for.

You can't imagine what that must feel like. Even the thought of it is alien to you. It's strange and otherworldly. You don't think that the world inside the car could possibly be real.

But it is real. It is standing squat right there in front of you. Just as it stands right there in front of you each time a new car comes along and gets stuck in the traffic of this intersection. Each time you have to beg for whatever meagre scraps you can get.

Inside the car there are five people.

A driver, whose eyes you meet, whose eyes look as sad as your own, if not sadder. A driver whose eyes look aching and hollow. And within that aching hollowness you can see your own aching hollowness reflected back. His shoulders curl in just a little bit. Just barely enough for it to be noticeable. And you can see it in his face that he wants to help you, he longs to help you, but he can't. You understand him. You forgive him.

Sitting beside the driver is a young woman of perhaps twenty-five years of age. She is wearing a bright floral salwar with a georgette scarf. Her hair looks as if it has been straightened. Her eyes are haughty and cold and conceited. She looks through you, almost as if she doesn't see you at all. As if she couldn't care less. As if she has her own world to think about. You don't forgive her, and you don't understand. You don't understand how people people could be so apathetic, so cruel.

The third person in the car, sitting in the back seat, is a woman of perhaps thirty-five years of age. She is wearing earring made of pearl and she is looking straight ahead. Her eyes are hard and cold, sharp and cruel. She stares down her nose at you all outside. She almost glares, and you can tell that there is a strict, severe sort of hatred in her heart. You don't understand her either, and you know that you could never forgive her. Not after she did all that she did.

You look at the child on her lap. A baby of less than one year old. The young child is playing with a set of plastic keys. But he stops in order to look at you. To look at all of you. There is something searching, something sad in his large, babyish, dark eyes. His lips are pinched in an adorable sort of solemnity. You can tell that he is sad. Even though you can tell that he doesn't understand anything, you can tell that he is sad, you wish that the baby could grow up somewhere better than this hellhole of a city. You hope that he can grow up with people better than these soulless women.

The last person in the car, sitting in the plush seat facing you, is a little girl of school age. She has on a new dress and short dark hair that curls prettily. She is staring. In her expression there is something haunted, something touched, something screaming. You feel as if maybe, just maybe, she will get it one day. She will get how much you're hurting. How much your people are hurting. But you know that she doesn't understand now. No matter how haunted she might be, no matter how sorrowvfull and disturbed her expression, you know that she in her new dress and shiny curls understands nothing. And you understand nothing about her as well. Nothing about her world. But you forgive her, and you hope that that forgiveness is not misplaced. You have a feeling that it might be.

Outside the sun flares down hotly on your skin. It makes you feel sluggish and grated and dead inside. Your hunger courses through you, like hot acidic fire pouring over your insides. Your thirst burns your airways and your sickness leaves you wishing you could curl up and lie down somewhere.

But you can't. You can't. You need money for food and water, and money is the only thing that buys life. You need life. You don't want life. But you find yourself clinging to it nonetheless.

You can feel the pain of all the folk all around you, as if it is your own pain. All of all of your collective pain comes together and mingles with each other to form an ocean of violence that batters against all of you, that drowns all of your souls. It's a horrible type of solidarity. A beautiful type of solidarity.

You can feel death haunting all of you. Standing close behind your forms. Looking, silently, at your pleading and your desperation. You oh so desperately try to ward death away. You ask again and again, along with the crowd, for some meagre coins.

The girl turns to her mother. She says something, but you cannot hear what it is. You think that maybe she will give you some money. You plead in the silence of your mind. You plead that she could please give you some money. Please give you some mercy. Please let you buy a morsel of food and water. Please keep death farther away from you. Please help.

But the girl does not roll down the windows. She does not hand you a coin or a bill. She just continues looking at you with those haunted eyes of hers.

You feel pathetic. You feel weak. You feel like you're falling, like you've always been falling, and at the bottom of the drop is sharp ice and freezing water. You feel so hungry. You feel betrayed.

The traffic jam loosens and the car speeds away. Leaving you and your people there in the dust and the garbage of the streets.

Anger boils in the bottom of your chest, where your chest meets your belly. One day this anger will mean something. One day this anger will change something.

———

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is [email protected] and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.