Iris

This is a story of a flower. A flower championing through hindrances and classism. The world was hostile, tried to stem her blooming but she didn’t acquiesce, she didn’t lose.

He had named me Iris. “So Iris, do you want to be a farmer?” he asked while I held his uncharacteristically tender fingers. Looking at the large swathes of maize, I said, “ So farming will give me biceps just like you Dad, big and strong, round and manly. I will also sing songs like you do wearing your special hat.” In a world where atrocities ran like rivers through plains, I wanted to farm and grow stalks of maize. A solitary gladiator ploughing through Earth, unearthing hope.

That night at the dinner, I quizzed Dad about my different coloured iris. “Why do I have different coloured eyes? Will I be blind? Am I an animal? Will my eyes shine at night? Can I see the invisible things?” With a plethora of questions, I surely had my Dad in a fix. Wiping his mouth, he said, “You can see the depth in life. I don’t know how to explain this to you. Umm, think of your eyes as those small paper 3D glasses that we made. Red and blue ones. Remember?”

“Yes, they are so funny! Things are near to me and it seems I can catch them,” I said smilingly.

“Yes, exactly!”, he said.

What is morality? The underlying reason to every deed done in this world. The very fine line between what is wrong and what is right. A perpetual catechism that prevents us from turning evil. But apart from the realisation of public welfare, where do our intrinsic impulses take us? A journey into the unestablished.

It was the spring of 2005 when I joined the university in Leuven. I had lot on my mind when I joined the university because I wanted to help my dad with farming but also travel and study more than just growing food. After a lot of deliberation, I left Brussels to study more in Leuven. Quickly, I made some friends. Maxime, the ever so entertaining and the constant source of intellect, Florence, a shy yet serendipitous girl and Oliver, the incorrigible lover. We all need friends to keep us tangible, to keep us protected from the iniquities of life and to keep us happy. They were my world apart from a world I carried within. The world I didn’t know about then. A silent tempest that was brewing inside me.

I had been lying on the bench while Professor Marveaux rattled on about Jungian archetypes. “You don’t have a fixed personality, do you Oliver?”, asked the professor. Oliver being the true wallflower expressed, “ I believe personalities generate when you experience a sudden change in life. I was never so generous and empathetic about world until my mom passed away. But I do fear that someday all my love would be exhausted upon this merciless world. But I am persistent. I am obstinate enough to get hurt each day.” “Voila, we have a lover type here! Well, well.. see Oliver this is what Carl Jung wanted us to see with his concept of archetypes. You think that the love is your fundamental motif, a consequence of our experiences and emotions. These mythic creatures reside within your collective unconscious, constantly pulling down your facade. It’s the inner drive that feeds your own ego but also pushes you forward in life.”

Just then we heard a loud explosion. It sounded quite close to us and soon we started hearing screams and cries. Students started running out from the class, jumping over the benches, trampling books and paper. Clutching my bag, I could just stare fixedly at the pandemonium that was unfolding in front of my eyes. Just then Maxime grabbed my hand and shouted, “Come on! We need to evacuate this place. There seems to be some kind of blast and it’s not safe here anymore! Stand up Iris! Are you even listening to me?!” I stood up and started running with Maxime. And then I saw something which I would never forget.

Was is it some new kind of time? Day and night were all I knew but this was a horror unfolding in front of us. There was dust and smoke all around me. I split from Maxime and started walking in that nebula of cataclysm. The bricks which had held this institution for so many decades were rubble now. Structures always stand firm in an event of upheaval but what about these structures of restrictions, these structures of parochial attitudes? I could see a girl lying on the floor with her leg trapped in the debris and blood oozing out of her head. She was signalling for help. Signalling for hope. I walked towards her and sat beside her. I held her hand and watched the needle of death slowly extracting life out of her. Her eyes were burning of a quintessential fire. The kind of fire I hadn’t seen anywhere. I was a silent student to these prologues of death. The senility, loneliness, pain and this infirmity were all I saw. A power leaving, a soul dying. Once she breathed her last, I kissed her hand and left through the murk.

“To Calais,” that’s what I said last to Florence. I took a train to Calais for the journey to my sanctum. I had to leave these concrete structures to find the my inner self. After a day of travelling and searching, I came across a jungle. An atypical jungle. A jungle of tents, synthetic sheds, flocks of people dispersed in a big area and a church. I was in the ‘Calais jungle’. There I met someone who taught me the very basic skills of life in this capricious environment. Abdo, the shanty boy surviving happily in the jungle. “Iris, why did you travel to this mess? It’s a place for us refugees and vagabonds. Do you see anything of significance here? Dirty facilities and infrequent meals, that’s what we get here,” he said with a grimace. I assured him, “ Don’t worry Abdo. I will just do fine here.” This juxtaposition of lives was necessary for my soul. It was liberating.

Mornings used to be just mornings of commotion. I used to wake up with that shrill sound of babies crying and mothers trying to silence them. After taking a bath after three days, I stepped outside my tent. “Oh glory day.” I could see some children playing football in the space between the tents. I expressed my excitement, “ Juggle that ball, kid and don’t look around the players.” The wind was blowing strongly and I could feel my hair blowing. The journey to Calais wasn’t an impulsive decision, it was a cultivated one. How do we solve brawls in cities? By scrutinising the event and breaking it down, sometimes stripping away the core issue. Here in this rudimentary universe, brawls aren’t solved. They are eliminated, either by the government or the people themselves. Maybe I was getting carried away by these winds from Dover. These winds which carried history, which carried a suite of hope and I was caught up in them. These people didn’t have a fixed home. They were refugees from lands unknown, lands diverse and lands distant. I had to find a way soon. That night Abdo took me to their church, St. Michaels Church. It was better than most of the shelters here and usually attracted large congregations. It was dimly lit with candles but it possessed a powerful aura. Powerful enough to make these migrants hold on to their faith. I sat beside Abdo while a small group of choir was singing the hymns. I asked him,” Is life so beautiful in these parts?” Abdo didn’t answer at first. I nudged him again but he kept listening to the choir. The light emanating from those candles and the unified sounds of bells and choir was pulling me in. Christ, God, magic and religion, do we really believe in them? I asked Abdo what was wrong but he stood up and went away before saying,” You are not one of us. You have a home, a place to study and you are different than us.” Ofcourse he was right.

These wild ravishes were not ready to accept me. Because I had been too cultivated, too genteel. They thought that I had a lot of faith in the world. But did that mean I can’t have frustration? I looked at Christ hanging on that cross, pale and calm. We killed God the day he challenged our faith, we crucified his mortal self when he judged us for our actions. But I wasn’t yet ready to place faith in this institution of morality. I devoted my life to telling my story. Till my mind shrinks to a speck of dust, I would tell this story of my brawl with life. I stood wiping a tear or two rolling down my cheeks and went outside.

I was thinking about my father when I saw Abdo and his friends walk towards the container facilities. The French authorities had converted some shipping containers into shelters for the migrants. I had never seen Abdo go there in all these weeks of my living here. Some said it was a dangerous ghetto, place where all the wrong things happened. So I followed him silently. It was getting quite dark and I didn’t know if should have spied on a friend in this dark, uncertain world. But I had to follow my instinct. There were rows and rows of containers lined beside one another. Some were empty, some were teeming with life. Dark, dingy boxes of metal were converted into congested places of activities. I saw a small child crying with a torn piece of cloth in his hand. I looked around for his parents but I couldn’t find anyone. I looked at his eyes and they were similar to something I had seen earlier. Those eyes during the explosion in Leuven. Burning with a different nature. I took the cloth from his hand and saw it was stained with blood. Was this the nature of this universe? Staining everything with red, be it those red dwarfs or these vectors of violence.

I peeped inside the container that Abdo went in. He was with people I hadn’t seen in the jungle. They seemed much more vocal and inordinate while speaking. One of them spoke, “ It’s getting too late with these French authorities. We demanded more than these shitty containers. We had an ironclad deal to trade these pups in exchange for arms.” The other tall, lanky guy who was smoking, said,” French diplomacy. They are too smart to involve us in their conspiracies. I think we should make the move.” What were these pups and things that they were conspiring? Just then Abdo saw me and said, “ Guys, stop! I need to resolve some issues.” And then he left the conference and led me out of that place.

“You think that we all like to live in this jungle. This place reeks of disdain and it lacks harmony. I don’t know why you left your normal life to pursue these violent delights but I am not going to involve you in our operations”, he angrily reacted. He explained to me the things that they were planning. These violent crimes and these inhuman activities. That fire in her iris. I said to Abdo, “I will be a part of this. I will not be one of you, but I will be the one.”

Social inequalities and identity crisis. The public always wants neat and simple answers to problems and they simply miss the complexity and ambiguity of this process. We all want lies to satisfy ourselves. The moral lies which save us from going deep below. But what about the instinctive incendiaries causing infernos within? How do you quench them? I believe ideologies are a mere conduit for grievances and only pave the way for three things- a sense of purpose, identity and community. That morning we were in the streets of Versailles identifying members for our operation. These past few months had changed me. It had made me more resilient, more tenacious and more vigilant of my surroundings. I was roaming in the Estate of Trianon at the northern branch of the Grand Canal. Just then a handsome looking guy broke my solitude. “Hey! Are you visiting for the first time?”, he asked animatedly. He was wearing a look of a professor. I could see his didactic aura encircling me. He took my hand and led to me an alcove. He had green eyes, lit with a certain sorcery which made me slid my hand in his pants. And then I took out that tool of procreation. It was a beautiful piece of artistry. It had a sharp edge and its sides were rounded off by time and probably its inoperative attitude. The handle of the dagger was gilded with a thin layer of gold leaf and there was some inscription on it. It said, “My Dear, a Greater perhaps.”

I touched his face and asked, “What is the purpose of all this? All this negativity.” Clutching my face with a certain force that I could bear, he spoke silently, “You think death as alienation to humanity. You think of our activities as radicalised and hovering on evil. But death is a mere maze. We all know that someday we are going to be covered in those white shrouds lying with dust. But it’s about the path through which you step into oblivion. You have that moral staircase to lead you down the path of righteousness but what happens when you foot falls down, through the air and sickly there is no ground to support you? Spiralling down in that abyss of non existence and more importantly Sisyphean age. Take this dagger and put out that false light of hope. These governments, these fallible leaders and these ambiguous creatures will never be able to complete this maze of impulses. My dear, there lies a world, a greater one perhaps.”

From that day, there was just one aim, the truth to oneself. From reading Nietzsche, listening to Chopin and understanding the skills of chaos management to bomb planting, I had to learn everything. Then came the day of evaluation. It was to be a coordinated attack on Bastille Market. That place was vibrant and intoxicating. There were queues of fresh fruits, vegetables, olives, jars of yoghurt, eggs and a variety of foods. The colour was almost blinding to our hopes of panic. I was sitting in the car with four of my comrades. Abdo scanned the market and was the first one to leave the car. Then one by one, each of us took our positions. My heart was crying out inconsolably and my pulse was erratic. But this was the time to prove my worth to these fanatics. I looked around and I saw Oliver standing in front of a red and white striped background. He was squabbling with the vendor over something. I walked slowly through the crowd towards Oliver with the dagger in my overcoat. That incorrigible lover Oliver, why did he turn up at this hour? My heart called out for semblance and the clock to run backwards but my instincts had to be satisfied. I had to protect Oliver from what was about to happen. Just then, Goldstein, the bomb expert from our group exploded causing a huge commotion. Pieces of oranges, swathes of sauerkraut, rivers of blood, chunks of body parts and the mist of humanity flooded the market. My face was blackened and I was coughing violently. Just then Oliver saw me. Before he could say a word and break my resolve, I stabbed him in the gut. The dagger that broke his heart, the archetype he didn’t think I had. Twisting the dagger deep and spilling the blood through the edges of my dagger. He whispered, “Why?” His eyes were afraid of time.

A few years had passed since that day in Bastille market. I was shifted to Marrakech for recruiting new members of the group. Killing, planning raids into press offices, planting bombs into places of crowds wasn’t my task anymore. A young man named, Adil asked me once, “Don’t you miss your friends and family?” I answered, “ I miss a world where reality exists. I miss my father ploughing the fields, holding my hand. I miss his sweet callousness. Every night, I look up at the sky and imagine my place in this objective world. Yes, Adil, I miss them.”

After a year in Marrakech, I was called back to Europe. I had recruited a new young group of people.

Europe. The land of ones who conquered and the ones who stayed behind. I was called to Amsterdam for a big project. After landing in that beautiful city, I experienced something which I hadn’t in a long time. The sun grew brighter and brighter and it seemed that flowers would burst out into the streets. This city was bloated in colour and it was buzzing with life. I saw cyclists flashing past me, reminding me of the urgency in lives. Those gaps in the brickwork, those ropes hanging from the windows and the rumors connecting this wonderful city. I saw people smoking cigarettes and the canals forming this horseshoed city. Nothing ever vanquishes this voracious ambition of humanity.

I was asked to report at the Anne Frank House. I didn’t know why would they select such a place to carry out the project. I went inside the Anne Frank House and instantly my inner matrix crumbled to pieces. I climbed the flights of stairs, panting heavily. This place was causing an inner turmoil in me. I found a bookshelf. I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t think. My heart was beating dangerously fast and I was sweating profusely. I couldn’t breathe freely and felt the sudden weight of the roof of that house. I supported myself near the bookshelf and sat down. Just then, I couldn’t feel this reality.

“What are you looking at?”, she asked. I saw her curling her hair. She was beautiful. For a person who hadn’t seen the sun, felt the rain or walked on grass for a long time, she was the epitome of innocence. She stood up from the chair and walked towards me. She came close and lifted my face. Saying to me in a tone that was identical, “Oh Iris. I don’t think of you as miserable, I don’t think of you as lonely and afraid, but I think of the beauty that still remains. Soldiers will be commemorated, martyrs will be revered, heroes will be worshipped but what about you my child, the explorer? You struggle and suffer pain in the quest to understand the truth.”

I looked up and saw Anne morph into my Dad. Exclaiming, “Dad, I am sorry that I couldn’t get back. I am sorry that I let you down. I am sorry that I didn’t come home. I am sorry that I hurt you.

Stroking my hair, he said, “It’s okay. Come back home Iris and see those seeds of our farm grow into plants of the future. Come back child. Come back.

I angrily reacted with tears in my eyes, “What about this world? What about the structures that fail us? We know that the dice is loaded and falls erroneously. This reality that I saw unfolding in front of me, was it true? These governments exchange arms for small children in the name of “pups”. What about them? The objectivity of truth and the perpetual cohesion of lies drove me to the point of insanity. The search of instincts has torn down my mind into pieces and I can’t shape them again. I might die with scars but I can’t be unsaid. My conscience is my strength.”

Just then Anne wiped my tears and said, “I dreamt of buying lipstick, eyebrow pencil, bath salts, bath powder, powder puff and cologne. I dreamt of walking out on the grass, absorbing the benign rays of the sun, soaking in the rain and lighting a candle in the face of darkness. I want to be respected like men are because women deserve their share of esteem. Don’t we? Although I am just fourteen, I speak a lot.

I opened my eyes and saw that people were gathered around me, trying to wake me up. A small boy extended his hand to help me stand up. He smiled as I stood up and I composed myself. I wasn’t sure of what I had to do next and I kept looking around for a familiar face.

Just then, I saw him for the first time. I had just seen his photos in our group meetings. Just then he took out a gun and shot me near my chest. Three times. I fell down clutching my chest. Before I could close my eyes, he came close to me. I could see his eyes. Resolute, cold and black.

He said, “Sanity is a crime. You will die with these three holes, empty of blood and purpose. Death will be your note unsaid.”