Understanding Ansh (LGBTQ Fiction)✔

Ansh Is Beyond Definition

Chapter 10// Ansh Is Beyond Definition

Vinodh's temper had changed. It wasn't explosive anymore, it had refashioned into becoming seething and peppery. Ansh wasn't sure if he had a preference, although, he firmly wished Vinodh would stop being so goddamn angry all the time.

Ansh was lying on his back, with his head resting on the springy beige sofa clad in soft drapery, and his legs thrown over the arm-side, within the compromising space which was obliging his long height awkwardly. Ansh couldn't move properly yet from all the injuries.

Ansh was pensively flicking through the sturdy pages of a noir-fiction graphic novel that he had come to like so much, but, with the way Vinodh's sharp yet passive anger-infused vapour streamed in the air around the room, Ansh couldn't focus on anything. He was staring at one picture for too long and even read the same sentences over and over again whilst he tried to intermittently steal glances at Vinodh.

Vinodh could feel Ansh's eyes on him and he knew he was being irritable. He could very well imagine Ansh's bright brown eyes against his bright white, lugging unease upon his movements and, truthfully, Vinodh wanted to look at Ansh but he passionately laboured to keep his eyes off of Ansh, he could feel anger simmering inside him as he thought of the way Ansh was beat up.

Vinodh hadn't spoken a word to Ansh about it. Vinodh simply remembers hastily descending the staircase to the fervent knocking and impatient ringing of the doorbell. And when he opened the door, he was shocked. Shocked to see Ansh in an injured state.

It wasn't long before Ansh crashed into his arms. And soon Vinodh had to carry Ansh's fragile body to his bed and treat whatever injury was accessible to him, because it would not be right to touch him in places for which he would ordinarily require consent touching. Vinodh was torn. It appeared like, Ansh had critical injuries and he didn't know if it would be right to touch him while he was unconscious, but injuries can be life claiming sometimes. After excruciating hours of waiting, Ansh woke up who whimpered every time he moved, Vinodh declared that he'd take him to the hospital. The hospital staff asked too many questions and Vinodh knew nothing, so he couldn't answer. Eventually after getting most of Ansh's body bandaged, they left. And Vinodh had still not inquired about the events that transpired that horrible day.

Vinodh had had enough time to calm himself down and act objectively and go on about his daily obligations without a hitch, he was only pretending to. And frankly, Ansh could clearly see through it all anyway.

Ansh got up noiselessly, afraid that any noise would subject him to Vinodh's wrath. He'd seen it many times before. And it had been a while since he had last seen flaring nostrils and slit eyes. Ansh decided to go out for a walk and clear his mind from the impeding clutter that was Vinodh.

"Where are you going?" Vinodh's icy voice reverberated through his system and he felt prickling sensation rise to his head and he shook his head violently.

"Uh...a walk?" Ansh said, feeling unease through him, he was frowning and did not dare to turn back and look at Vinodh in the eyes.

Vinodh couldn't risk having Ansh hurt again. "I'm coming too." Vinodh put his phone down and made his way towards the door where Ansh was standing, they wore their shoes and walked into the gravelly roadway and as they advanced, the roads became more and more solid.

Ansh regretted coming out for a walk, specially when he was still healing. The whole intendment was to get away from Vinodh and somehow he'd tagged along.

Ansh couldn't help the unexpected thought that crawled its way into his well subdued memories. Next thing he knew, he began talking. One sided. But when was it not?

"My father always did the opposite of what I wanted him to. One evening, he found out about me. He caught me making out with a boy that I didn't know very well. I was twenty. I still remember the way he ripped me away from the boy and then he slapped me, my jaw was swollen and I never knew eating could become a difficult activity. We never spoke about it." Ansh looked to his side, at Vinodh. Vinodh's usual dark and silky complexion had become pinched with a frown.

"But everything had changed. He snapped at me every opportunity he got. I lost so much of my liberty. I wondered if he was the same man who'd brought me up. He always encouraged me to think on my own but now that I had begun to, he told me that I shouldn't start a war over my opinions. To be honest, I was comfortable with my identity when I first realized. I still persisted the underlying fear of my father finding out. And when he found out, I had nothing to fear. It was relieving until I began to realize he'd never let me live the life I want- gay or not."

Memories had befallen upon Ansh's sight, seemingly illusive because it had been such a long time. He recounted his father's incorporeal soft and affectionate voice which slowly morphed into that of indifference and rage. His taunts. "You're like a girl".

"What?" Vinodh asked confused, still drawing that frown.

" 'You're like a girl', my father used to say that too often to me. I mean- I realized I wasn't the embodiment of masculinity, even so, it was insulting at first. Because, society had semanticized it as some cheap product you buy at street-side bargaining shops. But, I came to enjoy the phrase after some time. And I longed to look like one, as I started to feel like one. But, just as I would get comfortable with my domestic feminity, I would long to become nothing. To just strip down all identification and just exist as something indiscernable. But, you see, how do you show others that you're such? Where everything is visually focused and 'nothing' means being blind, how do you show it? And more so, when I am both  feminity and a gender-oblivion?"

Ansh's chest was writhing in suffocation and he found it hard to speak. Vinodh placed his shaking hands on Ansh's shoulder as he began to comfort him through an arranged pattern of fingers gliding on Ansh's back. Vinodh was getting over his avoidance to human contact as he came to notice just how crumbling Ansh was. Vinodh's voice, barely a whisper, like the soft bask that you crave to come under on cold winters, spoke into Ansh's ear, "It just means you're beyond definition. You're exempt from man-made labels and at the same time loyal to them. You don't have to explain it. You're still as charming as ever."

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