Nighttime

Eleven pm and we try to sort out the tangle that our lives have been. I hate talking about him because he's new but now I realize I've never seen him in the daylight. 'Excited to go home?' He asked and I said yes. Yes I was. He squeezed my hand.

Just another party and I didn't even really want to kiss him but I was tipsy as fuck and realized that it didn't really matter anyway. Just another pair of lips. Moving. Halloween this time and of course Lahori men take full advantage of an excuse. Make up, black wings, fancy shoes. It's two am now and they're all too drunk to say no to a pretty girl selling cigarettes. We've partied enough on the side because we know the brand guy is never going to pay us the 3k each he promised. I love watching degenerate old men at parties. Too old to dance, too old to fit in. Why are they here? To sit in a reserved lounge and watch other people dance and drink?

Already dark at seven pm as I wake up in my own bed. From my room I can hear them shouting and I count days till I can go back. I was excited to come home but now I feel like a guest. It will take time to redefine home in my head and to accept that bits of home are everywhere. I brace myself and go downstairs. They stop talking when I enter. They will need time too.

Five am and I walked onto the terrace to see a girl already sitting there, crying. I take one look at her and turn one eighty degrees and back to my room to shed a few tears myself.

Oral Fixation.

I feel like I appreciate both company and solitude more now.

I value being alone. Value it because it is difficult to be alone here and hence to be savoured. An evening walk, a morning on the terrace, a solitary smoke.

I met someone today who asked me what my greatest fear was and I told him it wasn't rejection or being penniless but being unhappy. That I would never want to wake up thinking I should be living someone else's life. He told me to read Fitzgerald but it turns out we've both read Gatsby and that is ironic.

I treated today like a Sunday because there need to be more Sundays in a week, in a month, in a year.

I like to watch him smoke but I don't like smoking around him. He makes me self conscious. Mostly though, he makes me feel young.

Dawn came and I went for a jog just because I could.

I crushed the last bit of cigarette and realize that winter is finally here. Goosebumps on my skin told me so.

October is already waving goodbye. Two more months and we'll be seeing off the end of a long year. Where did it even begin? With tears and a promise that now I'm finding difficult to keep.

Lahore is lovely and despite the obvious pull of alliteration that could not be truer. Soon work will pile up and I will stop noticing morning dew. But for now.

The boy I once asked for a secret is far away. Sometimes he calls. We talk and I realize he is done measuring out his life in coffee spoons but he still can't quote from Caesar and I have always held that against him, pretentious brat that I am.

I could write pages and pages about the fact that I no longer live at home, will hopefully never live at home again. My mother came for a day and after she left she called and told that it had finally hit her. That I was gone. That now we would visit each other.

For the first time ever I wasn't sure what to say.

Hey you.

Sometimes I see bits and pieces of you in other men and it fascinates and terrifies me to no end. Last Saturday night I didn't even know what I was doing and then all of a sudden I did and when I got back it had 'you, you, you' written all over it. He's probably never even met you. I'll never really know what he's up to either.

I hope he fades into the background. He's as unreal as you were.

But still, there are nights when I think of you and smile. I'll give you that much. You made me smile like nobody else could. Despite the fact that I knew what you were like.

Much love.

Today.

Today, while lugging groceries up three floors after haggling with a rickshaw driver, I realized exactly how much I've changed and how good this place has been for me.

'Karachi is burning, darlings.' Powder puff and then a dab of lipstick. Fiery red dress and I smile at the irony. Karachi burnt for a while before you noticed. You were shocked out of your bed at one am just a few days ago. Early.

Unreal City. Funny how much Karachi reminds me of Eliot. Maybe because bits and pieces are literally a wasteland. Desert. Who goes there?

 'You're here because of dengue, she can't go out like that, I never know where he is. Never. What is going on?' My mother is worried. My mother never worries. It just doesn't happen. But now she says a prayer every morning before she drops my sister off to school. She says a prayer knowing what is meant to happen will happen. She sends another kid, perpetually rebelling, to school not knowing if he even goes to school half the time, not knowing where he'll end up.

They tell us, apparently, there are mosquitoes mentioned in the Book. I don't know what that means. Is the end near? Should I have capitalized that 'e'? Is this how we're meant to go? How undramatic.

Eleven houses destroyed and I knew one of them well. Twice a week a woman taught us Hamlet soullessly. And she would tell us, rich kids with foreign passports, to get out while we could. Now now now. And then her house exploded and I wonder whether she'll leave.

And somewhere there are floods. I'm not sure where. Were they mentioned too? Should we check?

Should we leave? Karachi is burning, darlings. My parents are getting old. But where would we go? Back there? It's too cold there. Too different. Karachi is burning but at least we'll stay and try to salvage the pieces we loved the most. And maybe soon, sooner than soon, we can try again.

And so here I am.

It's funny being here. Maybe because I was so convinced that this is not where I'd end up or maybe because there's no time to adjust really, honestly it happens all by itself and bam suddenly it's like you've been doing it all your life which is sortofexhilaratingsortofdepressing in a way I can't place.

I'm excited about it though, don't get me wrong. Pretty campus, good people. And I realize of course that typical situations are everywhere and it's what you make of them that proves whether or not you are typical.

LUMS is such a mix of things, of people. Girls that stumble over three syllable English words and chatter away in Punjabi rooming with Karachi 'elite' girls in jeans and tank tops. It takes all kinds. I like the variety. I have yet to form a solid opinion about anything except maybe the womens gym which sucks. But hey, give it time.

I'm a brilliant packer but I'm forgetting things today. Shoes? Headphones? Where the fuck is everything?

I wonder if Lahore has a cure for my writer's block. Let's see.