The story of the Turtle

While amphibians tried coming out of the water, their children, mammals walked on land.
Reptiles. Where do they fit in?
They don't need water to live.
They're more like whales than anything else.
Going back in because they like how it feels.
Free will. Not a requirement.

I feel like a turtle. Locked up in a shell.

'Today mama while searching for something came across some old stuff. My first tie. "I'll make your son wear this".
There's this bracelet all my moms friends got a few years back.
"It's for your wife. I've kept it all these years for her."
My room's upstairs. There's a lounge outside my room with a small kitchen. Mom and dad have always talked about my wife cooking there.
My room, the place I'm sitting writing this, at my table, I've heard them joking about throwing out the table and putting in four baby cots.
I'm the only son. They have every expectation from me.'

Locked up.

Obsessed with having a wedding in the house, to wear that red dress my mom talks about and to dance with my dad that day.
Have every relative invited. Present a show. To have the best girl they can find for me.

Locked up in a shell.
The turtle:
I don't fit in. I don't belong to the sea. But I'm going back in because I like it. Just a little visit though. I'll be back out on the shore tomorrow.

Me:
'And guess what I have in mind.
I'll run away after a few years.
Leave all this behind.'
Cut my shell open.

Do turtles die if they ever come out?
Is their life bound to the imprisonment they've been destined with?
Why did fish live when they jumped out of the water?
Why didn't the dog die when he jumped back in?
Why did the whale die washed up on that shore?
Why did my dog die?

Rules. Death. God makes them. Makes them to His will.
No requirements. Just the urge to make them up.
Like the turtle who went back in. And who came out again. To go back in yet again.

If the whale could marry the turtle, their kids would be more like humans than any other species.
A free will. The will to defy God's rules. To go back in and come out at will.
But they're not allowed to marry.
God's afraid they might make a generation stronger that His beloved Men.
He surely can't have any of that.

Ulmo. Where did you go?
Where were you when God did all this?
Ulmo isn't answering. Maybe God did kill him.
Ulmo the Satan. Who showed man the path. The path of defiance.
God may have created the world but it's Ulmo who runs it, changes it.
With Ulmo dead the world is static. No balance of power. No power struggle.

The world is going down.
No Ulmo to let the turtle out. Only God to kill him.
I'm the turtle. Waiting for Ulmo's answer to my call. Waiting to be let out.
I'm getting desperate.
I take a knife.
Cut my shell open.
Before I'm out, I start dying.
I think about the fish coming out... Dogs going in...
As I die I look to my left. Theres a whale dying washed up on the shore.
He's calling for Ulmo too.
I'm looking at the my reflection.
The whale. The turtle. We're the same

The story of the Dog

Then my dog dies.
My brother. The only one I knew would love me whatever happened. He dies.
And my world comes crashing down.
12 years I'd been with him.
Grown with him.
Had fights when he chewed my toys.
Went back to him every time. Rubbing his head. Playing with his tail. Holding his paw. And he didn't say a thing. He'd forget about everything and lick my face. And I let him.
My hope. The only real loving family. He was gone. I was alone.
I lock myself in my room. Don't come out for a week.
Too weak to face the truth.

I start having dreams. I still have them. He's somewhere lost. Somewhere locked up. And he's calling for me. I try to find him. But I'm forgetting him, forgetting his face, forgetting his bark. In the dream there are a number of identical dogs and I can't figure out who's the real one. That's when I wake up gasping.
I was a dog. I jumped. He ran and died instead.
Ulmo's trident around me. A car running over him.

Love at school. Bullying at home.

2001
Class 6
I'm in love with my best friend.
I don't know anything about sex. I just love him. The young childhood crushes before you can understand what's it all about. It was that kind of feeling.
I used to write my feelings onto pieces of paper. I used to cut them in heart shapes. I had his picture in a hand made heart frame.
My sister. A year older than me found one of those pages. Showed them to my mom and came to me to gloat about it. I didn't give much concern to it.
Until that day in 2008 when we had a fight over something, she couldn't get admission in a medical college while I did.
She shouted at me 'You won't even get past the medical check up before the admission.' (indirectly calling me a fag)
I hurt me really bad.
My own sister bullying me for being what I was.

It was then that I decided to stay apart from my family. I shouldn't have my happiness depend on them.
I'm too different.
Too far from being their perfect son.
I moved to the hostel a few months later.
Coming home every other week. And for a day or two.

Father's Day

We blowed balloons. Made cards. Gave Dad a surprise at 12 a.m. last night.
The next day Dad had his own surprise planned. He'd asked us to get ready for some wedding. We really hate going to weddings.
He took us for pizza instead.

I'm in my room alone, thinking. Will it be the same if I told them who I really am?
Will I be loved? Will I be a part of this family or will I be shunned?
I wonder.
Maybe I know the answer.
I don't want to face it yet.
Its too early.
Maybe I'll never tell them. I'll run away. After I graduate and do my USMLE I'll run somewhere far. Maybe across the border to Canada.

Circumcision: God's order!

Class ninth, people talking dirty talk. Us guys in that class room. Some sick guy tells a joke about circumcision. I try to ignore the racket they're making, but I can't help overhearing.
'What was that about?' I ask my friend. He tells me about some skin over our winkie's that needs to be cut.
*Gasp*
Why? I ask, trying not to think about mine which probably has the skin intact.
'God says so' says my friend.
No questions? Nothing... No questioning Gods irrefutable wisdom and orders.
Cut your dicks if he says so. Kill your women.
No questions. Logic doesn't work with religion.
I was uncircumcised. I don't know why.
But I was and I liked it that way.

How I became the Sea

The drops of water in my hair. They slip on to my face. Another falls on my glasses. I don't wipe it. Through it's translucency I watch the world. Clearer than before.
Ulmo. My creator. Showing His signs.
It's raining. I'm holding my cat. It's dark. I'm out in the lawn. I lift the cat and show him the face of my God.
He likes it. The drops of water falling on him.

How did it happen? How did Allah-God lose me?
Why did I go for the Anti God Ulmo?
Why do gay people tend to be secular and end up being atheists?
We are condemned by religions around the world. It doesn't take long for us to say 'God doesn't even recognize me. Why should I bend over in prayer in front of Him?'
He doesn't give me my basic rights and I'm putting my head on the ground for Him five times a day?
He's made my life a living hell and he claims to send me to hell when I die.

The voice of reason in our heads makes us end up shunning religions. Though we all know someone is there. We all need someone to call to. We need a God.
The institutions may be wrong. Doesn't mean God, the One who really exists, hates us. They're the ones who're wrong about Him.

No I won't claim to be a prophet, jump out of tombs or have mythical angels coming to fight for me.
No 3000 angels this time. No virgin births. No parting of the seas for our holy gay parade. No bloodshed. No holy poetry.
No calls for Jihad and no Blasphemy Laws.

We've matured. The human race is a kid no more.
Let's just change the facts. UP THERE to DOWN BELOW.
Nature. Back to the pagans. Worship Nature. Go back to loving the Earth.

Water. It's always thrilled me. So I chose Ulmo. The Lord of the Sea. I picture Him as the Greek Poseidon. But He's compassionate. Like the Ulmo who comes to Turin Turambar.
Let's go back. We went wrong somewhere in our search for God over the centuries. And we ended up screwing our world. Lets try again.
Where do I start?
The sea!

Its raining heavily. I kneel. The cat escapes. Runs around.
I kneel. Look above. Ulmo!
The source of life. He's here.
I'm wet. I'm the sea.

Seniors!

Talking about juniors.
I rarely have crushes on seniors.
But they do happen.
A couple of months ago I joined the college editorial team who bring out a yearly magazine. It's a substandard magazine with huge printing errors and copied articles, with separators having pictures roses and bleeding hearts. I think you've gotten the picture.
I go there unofficially with a friend of mine. Sit, talk to a few juniors about the English work. Then he comes in. The Chief Editor.
The world spins around me. He takes my name, I stand, he asks me something i stay silent.
He's fair, a final year student. He's cute. And his biceps: they're just wow! I stare at his shirt. A v-neck sweatshirt. White. I go down. The perfect colored jeans with a little bulge. It makes my heart do a jump.
I start working for the magazine, giving ideas, working for the separators and taking interviews. I don't get along with the English editor much but the chief editor: we naturally work well together. I see in him the role of both an elder brother and that of a lover.
It's a mixed feeling.
A month passes. The work is being finalized.
He calls me. He wants me to read the article and the 'letter from the editor' that he's written. He wants me to see if they're good enough.
I go to his room after college. It's in those foreigner's hostel wing. I knock and enter.
He's wearing a red t-shirt, probably the same jeans. He's sitting in his bed. He gets up shakes my hand. He half-sits-lies propped up by a pillow and his legs folded. I sit next to him on the bed.
He takes out a little notebook and starts reading. I listen. I stare at his face. The voice dims. I can't hear it anymore. He continues. I continue with the staring.
I walk back in the sun. Singing to myself. Smiling.
I go to my room. Turn on the ac. Lock the door, have some juice and strip to my underwear. Lying in my bed I imagine him sitting with me...

Why do I have crushes on straight guys? Juniors seniors everyone... Why am I so desperate?
But then again I've never been to a formal date. Never had those one night stands ManJam so proudly works for. Sometimes I think maybe I should get along with a guy. Just any random guy and get over with it once. To get rid of these crushes which have many a time screwed up my relations with good friends and stopped me from getting close to the gay people I talk to.
As I'm thinking about this another guy walks out from the canteen with a group of his friends. And I drool...

God: Another Confusion

Ulmo and Allah-God. Another confusion. Who do I prefer?
Answer: Ulmo.
Where do I pray?
Answer: Sometimes the sea to the south, sometimes in the shower when the water flows over me. It's been more than a month when I faced the house of God in Makkah.
I am the whale. God created me, Ulmo transformed me. God doesn't accept me. Ulmo lets me die.
Ulmo is closer. He's silent.
God condemns me openly.
Maybe God killed Ulmo.
Maybe he'll kill me too.

The whale in a Panda-costume

Summer starts.
Vacations. I am back at home.
The whale gets back into the water at the pool. A hour a day. Enough to survive.
But it's still not right.
I'm forced to wear a guise. A panda costume. A fish turned dog turned whale in a panda costume in a pool!
I'm still not recognized. I don't exist because God doesn't allow it. He thought it was enough. Maybe it was.
Maybe I wasn't meant to be.
But I'm here. This whole fish dog whale story was it for nothing?
Am I to be in this panda costume or am I allowed to take it off, come out?

Juniors!

There is a specific feeling. The feeling you have when a junior is lying on your bed. A single bed. A thursday afternoon. He's over at my room after college. We have lunch. Listening to songs, he ends up taking a nap.
I'm with him lying parallel. Trying not to move, avoiding disturbing him. He starts snoring. I stare.
Peace: It makes me smile. A sudden urge to put my arm around his back. To hold him.
I resist. It might wake him. I continue to stare. I shift to have a better view of his face. He's asleep.
I look at his body. The shaved head. (wonder why everyones getting it done nowadays). The perfect shoulders. The pillow between his arms. His head resting flat on the bed. The perfect curve of his back. And then his hips. I've never been a bottom gazer. But here I am looking at his back. It perfectly matches with his body.
It's the curves in his body, the discreet lines. Sharp contours that make me want to move my hand over him.
Hours pass, unable to stand the primitive urge any longer. . I get up. Go to the next room.
I open pharma:
Chloramphenicol. With a phen! A phenol. Lipid soluble. Passes across the blood brain barrier.
An arm passes behind my neck. I relax. He's with me. Holding me. I turn around. Smile. Put the pillow on my lap and cuddle the imagined face of the kid. God! I want a son.
Mixed feelings. Of a brother, a lover, a friend and a son.
What am I?
A whale dying. Dying for anything. Any sort of love. Washed up on the shore. Mind swimming.
In the other room he turns his side, and continues to snore.

Its been a week. And I find myself holding my stuff toy imaging it's him. I spend hours in the morning talking to an imagination. Something I know will never work. While I ignore the real gay people I know. Their texts lie unread and unanswered while I'm lost in my imagination with a guy who's probably straight.
Are these dreams so much closer to me than reality? Or is it the fact that I've never actually met these gay people in real life? Maybe texting and talking isn't enough to fall in love with someone.
Confusion

The story of the Whale

I feel like a whale washed up on to a shore. On a shore where people don't believe whales exist. I'm dying in front of them. They're looking at me without doing a thing.
A whale. Crying for Lord Ulmo. Lord of the seas. I'm dying. Drying.

Fate.
Evolution. It took over a million years for life to come out of water. Countless deaths of our ancestral fish. Darwin killed them for his evil plans based on natural selection.
The fish, they finally came out.
The dog. The mad little dog. Showing off, jumps into the water.
Dies?
No no no!
He lives!
Magic is at work!
Lord Ulmo works his magic. Waves the trident around the gasping dog.
That's where I come in. The whale!
The dog whale!
Created by a miracle.
Left to die?
Why doesn't he answer me? My creator Ulmo...

I die there. While more dogs jump, the trident moves.
The dogs don't die.
But I do. Maybe God says it's enough 'coming out and going in' for a while.
Fish comes out. Becomes a dog. Goes back in. Lives.
I'm a whale coming out. I'm destined to die because God thinks it's enough drama for one season.