You being a mardy arse? Wali asked, turning a page. Are you mad at me?
I stayed quiet, regarded the skylight dappled with rain, at the frame the skylight made of the evening sky, jagged across by the rusting stem of an antenna. What could I have said to Wali? I’m sorry, or, You wouldn’t understand. I could’ve said, So is this it? or even, No, I’m not mad. I could’ve turned bright again and breathlessly gibbered, Oh Wali, this is the sky I like best. Isn’t it so moody?
This sky, I thought. Straining through wet branches and fracturing on cut glass. A sky cut by thick electric wires and clotheslines. No. By the splayed hand of a child shielding his face against the sun.
Osama’s hand is splayed. His fingers slice the sky. They blot the disc of the sun. That night in Blackpool, this is how I imagined him: looking left, looking right, he wipes his fat cheeks clean of sweat. He chews bubblegum like cud. He avoids the dirty children kicking up dust. The hot dry wind of May cuts the street corner and spills across his face. Immediately, he’s sweating again.
Where are you off to? the wind asks. You’ll get a sunstroke in this heat. Another wind says, It’s cool on the shaded side. So he switches to the shaded side of the street.
It’s cool under the tarp, the tailor says. Why don’t you stand here? The tailor’s apprentice looks at him and says, Come here, Big Show. He cleans the corner of his lip. Did your ammi send you to pick up her clothes? They aren’t ready yet.
He shakes his head and leaves the tarp. He can still feel the apprentice’s finger on his lips. His scalp cools as the wind dries his sweat.
Look at these fish, bachay, the man selling the fish says. Only two rupees for these silver ones.
But his father already got fish for him the previous month, four expensive goldfish, and they jumped out of the bowl he put them in. The fish flapped around on the carpet until he and his mother ladled them back with a wooden spoon. Then they jumped out again at night and no one was awake to save them.
He crosses through the market of men and vegetables. Nearing the barber shop, he sees the Khans of Bollywood beaming at him through the dusty window. He enters the shop and waits on the little bench. Next to him on the bench is another child who’s already done with his haircut and is waiting for his uncle to come pick him up. The fan whirs choppily above their heads like a part of it is broken inside.
Now it’s his turn. I see him get off the bench. The barber puts the plank across the chair’s arm again, asks him to climb on it. I watch his knees push on the chair, and he heaves his body over the cracked leather. The barber wraps a sheet over him and ties it behind his neck.
Hold your head down, the barber says. The barber sprays his head with water. A drawer is opened and closed. A pair of scissors emerges, silver and surgical. He hears the barber test the scissors in the air, then gather his wet hair in between two fingers and shear it off. The shiniest snippets of him scatter in his lap. From his downcast view, he observes clumps of hair fall like damp snow on the floor and cover my shorn hair. He tries to glimpse if I’m still waiting on the bench, but when he inches his head sideways to look, the barber jerks his face back into its place. The scissors snip again. We wait. I feel the blade graze against his scalp. Then the barber grabs his chin and tilts his head upward, and in a sweep, he sees himself in the mirror. He watches his face and his back repeat over and over and stretch into an end he can’t see.