dayanitas

[dayanitas]

ataylorwright​:

closed to: @dayanitas​ 

evening of July 30th, 1889  Arthur’s birthday party at his house

The party is going well in Arthur’s eyes, especially when he finds out that people are in disagreement on how old he’s actually turning. He’s not planning to reveal the mystery anytime soon and he hopes that none of the people who actually know the answer won’t do so either. The truth does send a shiver down Arthur’s spine. Thirty. A rather unbecoming number. If he could stop time, he’d do so in a heartbeat—his twenties are certainly treating him well. Or rather had treated him well. This should’ve been a funeral themed party, an au revoir to his youth. 

The ground floor is swimming in guests; friends, mere acquaintances and, frankly, a very large number of strangers—he’s been rather generous with giving out invitations. The more the merrier. The music, the loud laughter and the conversations all bring Arthur an immense amount of comfort. They’re also a distraction—while the hauntings have grown calmer and became almost dormant, Arthur’s started obsessively thinking about them instead. He’s so tempted to write about it all but he still remembers what happened the last time. He does not want a repeat any of it. 

There’s one person Arthur sent out an invitation to that he didn’t think was going to show up. That’s why the surprise is clearly visible on his face when he finds Daya entering the celebrating crowd. He rushes down the stairs to meet her, catch her attention before anyone else does. “Do my eyes deceive me? This cannot be true,” he says, his tone teasing and especially dramatic. He breaks out into a smile right after, as if it were going to make them both forget that they haven’t really spoken in a while and when they did, it wasn’t all that pleasant. Arthur’s in a very amiable mood tonight, though, and he tries to sounds as genuine as he can. “I didn’t think you’d come, actually. But I’m glad you did.“

.

A funny thing happens when your world collapses in on itself - for everybody else, life goes on. 

The departure of her husband from London (From England, mind you. It is as though he could not put enough distance between himself and Daya without fleeing to the other side of the continent) was no longer a secret, the intimate details of the affair, the child his mistress was carrying, and the wife that was left behind now a regular feature in London’s newspaper circuit. It is not pleasant. She has lived a life of privacy over the last few years, retreating further into herself as her marriage deteriorated. What’s left is a woman she no longer knows, who has hidden so much of herself, just to be left with nothing. 

Well, not nothing. She has Pearl. If nothing else, marriage has given her this one small blessing. 

Daya has always prided herself on her preparedness. In business, she knows how to navigate every calamity. When confronted with a difficult situation, she can survive. But the scandal that surrounds her is another matter altogether. She has never had to mitigate gossip such as this before. Despite all her husband has done, her own actions are under close scrutiny, her ambition and career, even her younger years on the London social scene a source of speculation, a possible motive for his departure. Her only response so far has been to lock herself, and her daughter, away from the world, hiding them both from vicious tongues. 

But she cannot hide forever. It is a surprise to receive the invitation from Arthur, and one she contemplates carefully. She cannot hide forever, but reintroducing herself to the public needs to be done in increments. What better place is there than one of Arthur’s parties? She has moved in these circles before, a long time ago, and knows it will be full of attendees who have battled scandals of their own. Nobody will blink twice at something as trivial as a divorce. 

And so, she attends, dressed in a silver gown that shimmers when she walks and jewels that catch the light just so. She attends, despite every nerve of her body screaming at her not to. She decides to remain on the outskirts, only long enough to see and be seen, and make an early exit. It is enough for her purpose. That is, until the host himself steps out of the crowd. 

“I can scarcely believe it myself,” she deadpans, surveying him for a moment. She can hardly remember the last time they spoke civilly to each other. She waits for the facade to drop, but it doesn’t. Instead, he grins at her, as though they were both twenty-two again, and none of this had ever happened. “I should thank you. For inviting me, that is. Happy Birthday, Arthur.”

[dayanitas]

Maybe the sun is just another form of a void, but instead of emptiness, all you feel is burning.

- "It meant nothing until it scorched you", anastasiasyah

[dayanitas]

Aeschylus’ The Oresteia: Agamemnon (tr. Richmond Lattimore)

[dayanitas]

What is armor after all but a cage that moves with you?

Rebecca Solnit, “Recollections of my Nonexistence”  (via grimdarkacademia)

[dayanitas]

I loved my friend. He went away from me. There’s nothing more to say. The poem ends, Soft as it began— I loved my friend.

Poem, by Langston Hughes (via loverselegy)

[dayanitas]

“It is June. I am used to being a certain kind of alone.“

“The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady & The Dead & The Truth“ by Morgan Parker, in Harper’s Magazine

[dayanitas]

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion | Dining Alone, Joseph Lorusso | Trances of the Blast, Mary Ruefle

[dayanitas]

Sobhita Dhulipala in Ghost Stories.

[dayanitas]

“I am afraid to touch / anyone who might stay / long enough to make leaving / an echo”

— A Fortune for Your Disaster, “FOR THE DOGS WHO BARKED AT ME ON THE SIDEWALKS IN CONNECTICUT” by Hanif Abdurraqib

[dayanitas]

on touch, trust, and fear

Anne Carson, “Dirt and Desire - Essay on the Phenomenology of Female Pollution in Antiquity”  |  In the Mood for Love, dir. Wong Kar-wai  |  May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude  |  Louise Glück, “Epithalamium”  |  photographer unknown (via @birsiyahhikayesi  ) |  Mary Ruefle, “The Cart”

[dayanitas]

I’m not used to being loved. I wouldn’t know what to do.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via bnmxfld)

[dayanitas]

Amrita Sher-Gil, Sumair (1936)

[dayanitas]

profcss​:

-

He can only stare openly, concernedly, as Daya begins to collect herself. Even though the moment has passed, the tears well up in her eyes and trail down her cheeks with barely a notice. Yet, he remains still, listening to her admission with furrowed brows. You don’t know me—the words are few but revelatory all the same, and Gilly is left wondering how many people in this world do know the woman, or be privy to such a moment of vulnerability. 

Gilly suspects it’s a small number. If he is less optimistic, he suspects there to be none but him at all. 

In either case, there are no words he can supply to her uneasy confession—because it reminds him of how much he lives, too. The truth is that Daya does not know him, too, nor does anyone. He has become everyone else’s anchor at the expense of minimizing his own troubles. For the most part, it does not bother him, not when his personal tragedies pale in comparison to the world’s weight. The least he could do is make their burdens a little less heavy, whether in words or in actions—but to do so means to be fated to a lonely existence. There are no words that he can extend to Daya now without revealing his own hypocrisy. 

And so he stays silent, letting the proverbial knots in his stomach disentangle by themselves. It’s only when Daya talks about her daughter that the reality begins to settle in; their supposed lives beyond this unforgiving sea are now back in his purview. In some days’ time, they will make it to London. Soon they will be back on course, trading these deep and dark waters for lands just as unforgiving. 

“Your daughter—what is her name, again?” Gilly says, hoping the other doesn’t take offense. If anything, it drives the point home: that they were strangers, and strangers still, even after sharing such a vulnerable moment. There is a newfound bond there now, however, for entrusting Gilly with her daughter’s fate is no light ordeal. The moment they had was fleeting, but it is real, and that’s all the confirmation that Gilly needs. “Of course, Daya. I promise to keep her safe.” The words spoken are firm though no less tender. “And it doesn’t have to be for just the rest of this journey. I’m here if…” He doesn’t know what compels him to say it, but he continues, “…if you may need anything else.” When protecting is all he knows, the offer comes easy. 

He stands up from his seat, then, already wanting to make true to his promise. “Are you able to walk now?” Whichever her response is, his hand is already outstretched, offering to keep her steady. “Can you take me to her?” Attempting to diffuse the heaviness in the air, Gilly continues with a small chuckle, “Best I should introduce myself before promising to take care of her, huh?” 

.

There is a catharsis in being seen, in revealing even in fits and starts just a little of the troubles that plague her, and yet, she hates it, for this is something she cannot control. She’s trying to steer a ship in the dark, the clouded moon providing little by the way of light, and one hand is tied behind her back. The irony of the metaphor is not lost on Daya. 

But control is a funny thing. Like power and money and respect and all those other things coveted by the hearts of the greedy, having it is an advantage, but some is never sufficient. For most of her life, Daya has enacted the control she has meticulously, over how she looks, over her work and her home and the way she presents herself to the world. She plans meticulously, she acts with shrewd caution. On the outside, this is a woman in complete control of herself, her life and everything in it.

But it is not enough. No amount of control can fix what has been broken, what she suspects has never been a whole harmonious unit in the first place. No amount of careful planning can steer a ship that has already run aground. And the tighter she holds onto it, the more her life slips through her fingers. 

It all culminates in this. A near-drowning in the icy waters of the midnight sea, and a sobbed confession to a man who deserves better than to listen to it. 

But if Gilly had not been top of her list of potential confidants, he has more than proven his capability in the role. Daya looks to him now, glassy-eyed still brimming with tears she has yet to shed, and for the first time since he stepped into the room, she wonders about him. What brought him here, and why it seems as though he understands. She recognises the role he has slotted into, the one of the rock, the support and the shoulder to those who need it. She wonders if, like her, he is so shackled to that role that there is nobody to fulfil it for him. She wonders if his heart is as lonely as hers. Or perhaps, it is mere projection. She does not know, cannot say. 

“Pearl,” the first utterance of her name is quiet and cracked, barely audibly over the sounds of the night. Daya clears her throat, and tries again. “My daughter’s name. It’s Pearl.” And with that, she has given him everything she can, entrusted the only thing that matters, that is precious to her, in his hands. She can tell by the look on his face that he understands the weight of what she has tasked him with. 

And in his promise comes an affirmation. And in that affirmation there is deliverance. Daya knows now that of everybody she could have entrusted, Gilly is the right choice, despite the fact that there has been no other option. Perhaps something good can come from losing control after all. 

And so Daya nods, and she takes his hand. “I can walk,” she confirms. “I’ve had a shock, not a paralysing injury.” With the hand not in his, she wipes at her face, and soon there is no trace of the fact that she has cried. She is not Daya anymore, but a mother (Amma, as Pearl calls her, a word from Daya’s native tongue that she delights in hearing on her daughter’s lips).

“I should warn you,” she speaks as she leads him from the dining room, through to the cabins where Pearl rests. “Pearl is not a docile child. Neither is she troublesome, but she will ask questions, and it is likely they will be impertinent.”

[dayanitas]

kitchen work, silas denver melvin

[dayanitas]

Grief paralyzes. Motion continues; time departs. Something’s left with no means to retrieve it. A candle out in the down-clap of darkness. Then to wade and wade—

In grief: I, detached from place and time.

— Yanyi, from “Dream of the Divided Field,” Dream of the Divided Field

[dayanitas]

Adonis, tr. by Khaled Mattawa, Selected Poems

[dayanitas]

…Her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (via wordsnquotes)