The Four Footed Human Of Nishapur

I see you there Jarnalis, I see the look in your eyes. You have come to the streets of Nishapur from Engeland, to the places where roads are dirty paths through the shacks, one door in the front one in the back, the garbage, the beggars, the putt putts, the sweet shops and the sprawl and the skinny dogs are alien for you. You are shocked yes this I see, the pity makes you greedy.

You will tomb these stories up in your tape recorder. Your readers will think how brave this Jarnalis, how big his heart and how wretched these poor souls of Nishapur, we congratulate ourselves for reading this instead of watching the cricket.

Your eyes are hungry, Jarnalis this I see, but you know nothing of hunger, with your watch. What have we who live past the Chickens Claw, by the Factory have to say to you with a watch? You who does not understand that there is no time here? What time is it, you will wonder, what time is it for they who live on 1 rupee a day, a chai tea and a samosa and what we find in the stinking bags of the cafes?

Look at your watch, there is no lunch time, Jarnalis, lunchtime is when you are hungry so we need no watch. There is only hunger and hunger is eternal and so for the people of the Apokalis in Nishapur it is always now.

My friend Jai has bought you, Jai who thinks of nothing but money, who swears and looks at your fingers, at your fat rings, Jai who wants me to tell my words into your tape recorder so you will pay him. He brought you here to my tower in the Factory past the Claw, through the wild grass under the blackened stairs, he sees your eyes when I pull my onion from the hole in the wall and brush off the scorpions, when I put it on my coals to cook and it becomes delicious.

But more than that he brings you here because I am not human, no I am an animal, I am four legged and knee-heighted, and I know Jarnalis of the stories you wish to have about the Factory and the night of the Apokalis which spewed the poison that twisted my spine, so that my legs are useless and drag behind me like sticks of bone in a bag.

You see, Jarnalis, all of our people here in the Claw are sick, we are coughing, there are strange babies born with two heads, yes I have seen them, I speak to these things. When I went to the clinic, there where the Company pretends to care for us, there the two headed monsters in the jars spoke to me. They said,

“Hey fucker!”

“Who is this?” says I, because this ugly two headed green baby is talking only from one side, the other head is droopy and wrinkled unborn in the liquid. It is as if one knows more than the other, so it is with all things.

“It is I your friend, me who could have been. Do not mind me ugly four legged boy, I will burn soon. But you must destroy this place and set the Angels free from their bodies.”

You see Jarnalis, I should have told you I go crazy when I go into the clinic, it is terrible, it is the terrible fear of hope that makes me hear these voices, that I could stand upright again and become human. They are scanning my back in a huge white machine and this baby in the jar is talking to me again saying,

“You who walk on all fours like an animal, you know the Company must be burned to the ground. You are a saint even though you are so ugly and will never fuck a woman.”

This makes me angry Jarnalis, because although I have a big cock it is true no girl will touch a cripple like me, so I scream and the doctors pull me out the machine and I don’t see clearly for a while.

That is how I got the idea and that is why the Company is following you Jarnalis, because they know you are speaking to me, the terrorist, the radical Animal of Nishapur. Soon you shall see what has become of these scoundrels who poisoned our city, and this story you can tell to your far people of Engeland, for when the city burns the Angels will be loosed and hellfire will spread. When the people of the Apokalis rise the streets of now become the streets of tomorrow.

This, yes, this I shall I tell you, but before we speak of Angels, first Jarnalis tell me. Would you like some Chai tea?

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Inspired by the beautiful and brilliant Animal’s People by Indra Sinha, shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker prize.

Get it here: https://goo.gl/jGmVA0