Somersault
Gogol
The word we had to learn this week was defenestration, and we weren’t particularly happy about it. The city is lonely, we conceded among ourselves, but finding an absolutely empty building with glass windows intact would be quite difficult. Adham even suggested we change the word, and we learn somersault instead, as that was his favourite word. It is at this conjuncture that the planning picked up crescendo, because we realised Adham was being selfish for his own narrow interests and breaking the one cardinal rule of the game: changing the word. We deflected the suggestion tactfully – we asked him what his height preference was for getting defenestrated. He said he wanted the ground floor for he was a man of the soil who liked his feet on the ground. Charles said this would defy ancient customs where windows were at least 12 feet above ground. Adham asked for an example. At this sudden insistence on proof, Deng Pufang replied that it was written in ancient texts that had been forwarded to him in a family WhatsApp group. We all agreed that the window had to be at least 12 feet above the ground, for one cannot challenge the wisdom of family WhatsApp groups. Adham half-heartedly said fine.
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Zircon felt it would be quite a bother to find an appropriate venue. What if people came and stopped us? Defenestrating someone would be punishable under section 306 and section 308. I replied we must check the definition of abatement and then jump to conclusions, and we almost have a historical right to defenestrate people like Adham, for sometimes an act of omission is equal to an act of commission, and by omitting Adham we are committing to our ancestors. Everyone nodded their heads in unison, even Adham, at such a cool-sounding sentence. The next question asked was how do we make the event accessible: do we invite people or do we livestream it on YouTube? Ravil, who was a professional YouTuber, was upset at this question, for he had already assumed that his skills and camera would be used for the event. He called us bad names and told us we were fake friends. Zircon hugged him and asked him to join in the recce for the defenestration venue. Adham also wanted in on this and we all said yes, for isn’t it every man’s right to have a say in his spot for being propelled from a 12-feet-high window? Especially when it is abatement.
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Next came the question of background music. Fela Kuti wanted a full-scale orchestra. He would conduct Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar theme while Adham jumped. The idea was a novel one, no doubt – who doesn’t like Hans Zimmer and his epic strings – but it was above our budget and we did not want to disinvest our money. ‘Mutual funds are subject to market risks and shouldn’t be liquidated for this programme,’ was our unanimous decision. Also, who would arrange for the transport of the orchestra? – our programme cannot be impractical. Fela Kuti said that we did not have a taste for expensive shit and that he would just play the flute. Flute is beautiful and sonorous. Flute is within budget.
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Now we decided to create a programme-tracker to make sure that everyone was allotted their responsibilities and proper timelines. Zircon would be the location coordinator and find us one in six days flat. Ravil would bring his camera while Fela Kuti would play the flute for 155 minutes. We were worried Fela might be tired but he said art never tires. Additionally, he said, I will bring a recording, just in case. Charles and Deng would be logistics experts: they would drive us to the location. My job was simple: I would chronicle the activity from start to finish. Anything else? Adham said he wanted to prepare for his farewell speech – we said yes. Our only request was that the speech should contain action words that show intent and avoid nouns like democracy. In short, only verbs were allowed. The date was fixed: 14 August, and time: at the stroke of midnight. We dispersed soon after.
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When I got inside the car I was asked to wear a blindfold by Deng while Charles looked ahead through the windshield. I queried: why? – I wasn’t informed of this before. Deng replied, you can reach the location only when you aren’t looking for it. That is strange, I replied, and turned back to where everyone else was staying put and were blindfolded as well. After an hour or so, maybe even a lifetime, because you can’t count time when light doesn’t reach your eyes, the car stopped and we were asked to step out and take our blindfolds off. We saw two towers in the middle of nowhere, along with a giant balloon which had DONALD BARTHELME printed on its translucent skin (sans serif font, size very very large). Zircon smugly said, welcome to Donald Barthelme towers, named after some american writer. We would have preferred buildings named after someone from around here, but we decided to go ahead for now. I was asked by the group to write in the meeting minutes (to be circulated later) that our next event would be in a desi-named place. I made a mental note that we would choose KANISHKA APARTMENTS, after the famous headless statue who ruled here many aeons back.
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We went up one of the towers which was made of entirely empty rooms that looked and felt like haunted places, and stopped at the second floor which had a large window with no glass. Adham started to stretch and rinsed his throat with soft, warm, salty water. While the camera was being set up by Ravil, Fela Kuti gave two breaths into his flute and started to play a very popular Bollywood tune. We were getting impatient, for the mosquitoes had suddenly found a feast and were making us restless. I went up to Adham and asked him if he was mentally prepared to jump out of the window. He did not reply and started to mutter to himself, probably he was rehearsing his speech. Hopefully, it would be something like, a small step for me, but a large leap for our club, like Lance Armstrong had danced on the moon. Just at the stroke of midnight, Adham shouted liberty! tyranny! – and we said stop. This wasn’t a speech worthy of defenestration – what about the action verbs we had requested? Also it wasn’t going well with the beautiful flute music and the rhyming cicadas. Adham said Jay Shree. No. We won’t hurt the sentiments of the majority. Inshallah – no, we don’t provoke the minorities. Jesus Christ, but ok fine – Adham wasn’t an illogical man, he understood our concern, did an almost half-foot namaste towards the camera while Ravil gave a thumbs-up, dug his heels backward, took a sprint and shouted SOMERSAULT while jumping out of the window. We ran and saw his figure do a somersault in the air and land on the giant balloon – the balloon was collapsing fuss fuss in front of our eyes. There was a giant hole in the letter O from where Adham’s head could be seen.
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We realised our event was only 50 percent successful – we had to throw Adham out of the window to actually learn what defenestration means.
Anyways.
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All’s well that ends well.
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Gogol is a sustainability professional who works in the climate change space in the global south during the day, and tries to write stories during the night. A version of this story previously appeared in Kitaab.
an interview conducted by Otherwise creative non-fiction and memoir editor, Laura Moran
