Highway Hypnosis

As I drive past the little yellow house that signals the end of this street, my phone beeps and the message flashes over the navigation-screen in front of me. It’s my partner threatening to wreck me as soon as I get home. A chill of arousal and nerves washes over me as I turn into the lane that will take me home. The familiarity of the street calms me, even as its proximity to home reminds me of what may come. Every day, at roughly this time, I drive this route to-and-from the pool. The route is comprised of some very narrow lanes. Really, they are so narrow, the first time you encounter them, you are completely sure you shouldn’t drive into them lest you get stuck, but they are more functional than they seem, and over time, you learn the techniques you need to navigate them but it’s not possible to do so alone. Either, we all get there slowly or no one gets there at all. There are rules that necessitate community cooperation and if you participate, you’re guaranteed to make it past the trucks and buses that also use those lanes and if you don’t, you cause dozens of people to be stuck there. At least, until the five octogenarians who live in the street and serve as de facto traffic-decongestants spontaneously emerge from their lairs and take on the role of managing the situation while simultaneously cussing out the tourists who won’t follow the guidelines.

Those are the rules of arcadia.

I slow down and very carefully drive into the next lane, as we all do, because of Savita. Savita’s name is not really Savita, I just call her that in my head because she looks a lot like a Savita I used to know. She is an old lady who walks up and down this street for hours every evening, she doesn’t pay very much attention to her surroundings so the surroundings have adjusted to keep her safer, instead. No one blazes into this lane, no one speeds down it and no one forgets to look for her in the street. From what I can tell, she has dementia, and even though I slow down and greet her every day, she gives me a different name, daily. Sometimes, she scolds me, calling me a bewakoof ladki for telling her she looks pretty and sometimes, she beams at me, clearly mistaking me for a granddaughter or someone else she knows she loves but whose features she seems to have forgotten, she’s always different but she’s always there. That’s kind of how I feel about my love, I never know what to expect when I get home to him, I never know who he will be, but I know he will be there. It’s hard to explain how you can continue to be afraid within a life of such exactness and predictability until you’re driving to a sanctuary where all your safety resides within your most colourful nightmares.

Those are the rules of the love I have chosen.

As I try to cut across what passes as a highway around these parts, my phone buzzes again and a new message flashes across the screen. It’s characterised by words of impatience, telling me to hurry up and hurtle up the stairs so he can knock me down and keep me there. I always feel like I am going to be knocked at this intersection, anyway. Its design feels like an afterthought, the roads don’t neatly meet one another at all and chaos reigns at all times of day, but it’s a calmer chaos than one might expect. In any city—one even slightly larger than this one—there would be murders over the way these roads function but here, I often find myself lodged in front of a car on my left and one directly in front of me, none of us able to budge an inch, but all of us, smiling at one another with knowing exasperation while humming to the music. Maybe you don’t feel as enraged by minor inconveniences when the air is clean and cool, and all you can see is snow-capped peaks and pine trees. Maybe you can withstand the fracas better when everyone’s home is just around the corner because the entirety of the town is just around the corner. Adventure and stillness are both at the same intersection. Madness and serenity live in the same place. Joy and pain have the same address. Function and chaos reign together.

Those are the rules of this intersection.

On the last winding road before the incline that leads me home, I slow down to lean out of my car and touch the water in the stream that runs alongside the road. It’s ice-cold but it makes me feel warm. It’s a man-made canal, created to carry the excess run-off from the river during the monsoon and periods of glacial-melt, but the water is as pristine as it is in the river. The charted course of an ersatz river is still made of water, just like simulation of violence is still made of pain. Now that the weather is slightly warmer, children bathe in the little river by the roadside, I used to be those children, running towards river or the illusion of it, without a care for its potential for destruction. It’s an almost delusional form of trust that through the chilling speed and unprecedented force, you’ll be fine and even, have fun. Whatever awaits me at home is not so different from this river, we built it on purpose to absorb the force our natural selves cannot safely bear, but it can kill us just the same. We can bathe in its luxurious rapids and seek whatever calm we may desire, but its heart is destructive and stronger than us.

Those are the rules of the water.

As I pull into the clearing beside our house that serves as a parking lot on some days and a playground for the neighbourhood kids on others, I sit back in my seat for a moment. I look into the horizon. The mountains are hazy, a thick fog surrounds the peak, and dark, angry clouds promise that we’ll lose both power and silence, very shortly. I look at my phone and see another message. It tells me that he can see me and he’s counting down the seconds until I turn the key in the lock on our door. I look to the other side and see him standing on the balcony. As I take off my glasses and step out of the car, he grows hazy. I cannot tell if he is smiling or wearing his armour of stoic nonchalance, but there is a darkness around him. An air so pregnant with intensity it augurs an unpredictable course to a very specific outcome. As I enter the house, the electricity goes out and a loud burst of thunder echoes through the evening, and in the darkness, I see only his eyes as he comes towards me. I will lose both power and silence, very shortly.

Those are the rules of our home.