My Skin Drifts Away
By Merey Kossyn
Translated from the Kazakh by Mirgul Kali
Codex Cumanicus. Year 1303.
From the manuscript pages vanished into the folds of time:
Inside a round tent with a hole at the top a girl sat naked on a prayer mat. The light of the rising sun, peeking through a gap around the door, gave her naked back a touch of luminescence. Braids of silken hair streamed down this naked back, touched with luminescence. At its end was a silver shashbau. The sun, burning within its bowels all those who had sinned on earth, shone with the glow of the hell’s fire as it rose once again to warm the surface of the earth. Its rays, peeking in through the door, wished to take over the entire body of the naked girl, but various triangular and rectangular household objects on its path made that impossible. All the while, the naked body carried on with the morning namaz.
She began to molt. The particles of skin separated from the naked body on the prayer mat floated upward and scattered in the air. A moment later, in perfect unity, they converged again to form a human body, the body of a girl. Reluctant to leave behind its owner, this skin, this ethereal shell of a body, kept circling the praying girl. At last, it pulled away. It slipped out of the tent and took several turns around it. Gradually, it began to pull away from the tent as well. Moving restlessly, this skin, which had separated from its body, turned towards the flat expanse of the steppe. Its course was unknown, and the parched desert sprawled before it.
A woman with no shashbaus in her hair hastily tucked under a white head wrap opened the door to the house where the naked girl was praying and immediately shut it. The woman’s startled cry lingered in the air for a long time. The unsettling sound reached the round tents huddled nearby, waking those who were fast asleep and startling those who yawned as they rose from their beds.
The freedom to worship her own creator was given to the girl by that creator himself. But the inhabitants of the round tents could not tolerate the shashbau-adorned hair streaming down the naked back and the nakedness of the body worshipping on the prayer mat.
Then...
It seemed the sands, rocks, and thorns of this stark desert resented scraping and tearing the girl’s luminously white back, so loved by the glow of hell. Tied to a running horse, the lifeless body left behind a trail that looked like a rupture in the earth. Only the sound of the silver shashbau broke the infinite silence. The jingling of that shashbau sounded peculiar. It was unceasing. It seemed to fill the steppe with a vague sense of sorrow. No flowers danced, and no birds chirped to that sound. That day, the steppe was unnaturally mute.
***
This is an entirely different story.
A foot soldier in the riot police unit, he left work early and dragged his trembling body home. Though the people who greeted him when he entered the house looked familiar, he acted aloof toward them. They had nothing in common. He took off his uniform, threw it on the floor, and collapsed on the sofa. A strange flicker in his eye seemed capable of setting the clothes on fire. He thought again about the one thing that could free him from having to wear the uniform again. Suddenly, the words “Dear boy, my brave warrior, the defender of the country” interrupted his thoughts. The person who uttered the words picked up the clothes off the floor, stroked them with reverence, and put them on a hanger. The man appeared to be his father. Nudged by his father and other people whose faces seemed vaguely familiar, he got up and dragged himself out into the front yard. When he saw a man with a bright white headdress in front of him, he almost forgot about his sickness. The mullah held a small bowl with water in one hand and a pair of fire tongs with hot, glowing tips in the other. He looked like a doctor who was about to perform surgery. His father, more attached to his police uniform than to him, made him squat in front of the mullah, then lifted his shirt. The mullah began to spatter water, moving his lips as he muttered something to himself. He shuddered and recoiled every time the tiny droplets landed on his skin after ricocheting off the hot fire tongs. He knew that all this water raining on him could not wash away the thoughts running deep within him, and could not ever free him from his sense of guilt. At that moment, his trembling legs, unable to bear the weight of his body, gave in, and his knees collapsed. The people around him, young and old, gasped and rushed to help him up, and when the ritual was over, took him to his room. They laid several thick comforters on top of him and left him alone in the darkening room. Repulsed by his spit-soaked body, he began retching, began longing to escape his body. His skin, holding together this body—kept under the watch of some unknown force, of strangers, relatives, friends—could not take it anymore and began to detach itself from it. He began to molt. The molted skin then slowly pulled away from the body.
***
He was the skin shed by his own body. He strove now to exist apart from his body.
The blue-bannered social network was arrayed with faces in tiny circles. When an image of the air someone had breathed appeared on the screen, they all pasted that image onto their own pages. He too pasted the image onto his page and got off his phone.
Doctor: “I’m listening.” The doctor’s eyes were smiling. The smiling eyes bored into him.
He: “Well, I wanted to... this—”
Doctor: “I told you the last time, you’re in perfect health. Didn’t we look at the test results together?”
He: “Yes, I know, and I probably look fine on the outside, but I’ve really been feeling sick. It comes on when I start working. I can’t seem to do my job anymore, that’s how bad it’s gotten.”
Doctor: “Then change your job!”
He: “I can’t.”
Doctor: “That was what you said yesterday and the day before. I’m not sure if you understand me, but I’m going to say it again: You’re perfectly healthy. I’m sorry, but I have other patients waiting.”
He: “But—”
Doctor: “Next!”
His eyes fell on a portrait hanging on the wall behind the doctor. It was as though the doctor’s smiling eyes had been pasted onto the portrait; it was difficult to tell the two pairs of eyes apart. He looked at the eyes on the wall, then at the ones in front of him, and, just like before, suddenly felt short of breath. The eyes were all around the room, they were even on the street behind the window; he could not see anything but those smiling eyes.
The smiling eyes seemed to have attached themselves to his own. He looked at the doorknob and saw the smiling eyes perched on it; he opened the door and found the walls, the floor, and everything else in the clinic covered with them. He couldn’t see anything but those smiling eyes. He wrestled with them on his way to work.
The puffs of dust rose about his feet as he walked along the familiar unpaved paths. The dazzling blue skyscrapers lining both sides of the street were not affected by the ever-present dust; their mirrored facades remained untouched by it. The inhabitants of this sky-soaring, jubilant city who trod those dirt paths every single day were oblivious to the soil and rock beneath their feet. In the meantime, his shoes were leaving prints in the dust. There seemed to be nothing special about these neat footprints, which were now approaching the office. Before entering the building, he looked up at its glass exterior, shimmering, like a mirror, in the sun. No matter how often he stopped to look, he had never seen that glass shimmer in the sunlight. He hadn’t been able to figure out how to spot the moment. Worse yet, he hadn’t once seen the sun in this shadowy city. He wondered if it was something to do with the location of the city, some natural phenomenon, or perhaps all these tall buildings were simply obscuring the sun. The neat footprints proceeded toward the building that failed to reflect the obscure sun.
The letters that spilled with loud clicking onto the screen were feeding the issue that was to be sent to the printer early in the morning. He settled comfortably at his corner desk and began typing. As usual, to ward off dreadful questions that immediately popped into his mind, he took a sip of black tea and sealed his ears with music. Dancing to the rhythm of rock as if to conceal their own meaninglessness, the letters dropped onto the page: “Today, on an unusually sunny day, people came together to celebrate the city’s birthday. Unfortunately, the day wasn’t without some unpleasant events. Due to very busy traffic this morning, there was a two-car accident. Happily, no one was injured on this blessed day showered with sunlight.” When he inserted a full stop, he felt the sweat dripping down his back. Only then did he realize that his back was tense and his body was throbbing with pain. He tried to write a few more sentences but was overcome by fatigue. He leaned back in his chair and looked up toward the ceiling with bleary eyes. The unwelcome questions rushed into his mind again but didn’t linger. The printing facility of the newspaper he worked for was housed in the same building. The audible whir of the presses churning out newspaper rolls next door seemed louder than the regular sound of this type of machine. He was so used to this noise that he was afraid of the brief moments of silence which inevitably brought in a flood of unsettling questions. The noise made by the machines behind the wall was joined by the clatter of keys in the office, yielding an eerie, discordant tune. The strange tune sometimes frightened him, making him shiver. His eyes fell on the desk across from his where a girl he was partial to used to sit. She’d been absent for three days. In the office full of sullen people, she was the only person with a friendly face. His heart began to feel heavy.
Darkness bore down on the city, bore down on his room. He sat, clicking the keys on his laptop. In the evenings, he turned off the room’s feeble orange light, reminiscent of the nür, the glow of the sun. He hid his writing from the light. At night, he thought about questions that during the day he muffled with the sound of rock music. He laughed out loud imagining the day when the sun would suddenly appear, shooting its rays across the sky, and the city’s inhabitants, stricken with horror at the sight of their own shadows, would kick up dust as they ran from the sunlight. “This morning, as always, the weatherman predicted clear skies, he said that we’d be basking in the nür of the sun, yet the city remained just as gray and gloomy as always. I wrote another piece about people living in this city, about how lucky they were.” He wrote down these private notes on his personal website, which he’d been using as a diary, and logged out. He closed the browser and clicked on a folder on his desktop titled “Nür-death.” Among many files, he selected and opened one named “Data.” He quickly scrolled past the photo of a young man in a police uniform on the first page. When he had first encountered the image of this man, a man who had killed himself, he had been struck by the resemblance between them. Spooked by this experience, he had considered abandoning his inquiry into the case. But the man’s mysterious death seemed to hold answers to the questions that weighed on his mind. He had spent the last several months gathering information for an article, which he was now ready to write. However, the inconsistencies in the relatives’ and officials’ accounts of the dead man’s work-related activities in his last days complicated his investigation. That had only made him more interested in the story. He opened another file with the draft of the article and began typing, “How is the recent increase in suicides by military and court personnel in this city related to this case?” He realized that he hadn’t come any closer to understanding the young policeman’s death. As he reread the interviews taken in the course of his investigation, he suddenly felt very tired and dropped his head on the keyboard.
Under the bleak sky, along the city’s dust-covered streets, people walked with their heads lowered. They were in a hurry. Neat as usual, his footprints made their way along the city’s dusty paths. They led toward the building that soared toward the sky. The whir of the presses and the clatter of keyboards blended to play the familiar eerie, discordant tune. On his way to work, his thoughts kept returning to the empty desk across from his. It was empty today too. His heart sank, and he felt like whimpering. Seemingly nimble only a minute ago, his hands trembled when he touched the keys. He looked around the room. Everyone else was at their desks, busily typing on their keyboards. They all looked placid, not a single sign of emotion was visible on their faces. It was as if all openings in their bodies were sealed; no feeling could escape from within. He knew that people in this office had disappeared before. But no one ever talked about it. It was as if the girl who used to sit at the desk across from his had never existed as if her feet had never touched the dust-covered streets of this city. He put his hands over the keys and immediately had a sensation of his body being consumed by fire. He forced himself to remember the worn-out, memorized journalistic tropes and tried to type again. Each time his eyes had fallen on that girl’s friendly face, his heart would soften, and he’d feel an enormous weight lift off his shoulders. Sometimes, when he had felt short of breath as he tried to pull himself out of the dark, bottomless sea of eerie, discordant music, the glance at her friendly face would give him strength. He had stayed here only because of her warm face. It dawned on him that he’d never see her again, and the hot tide rising within surged all the way up to his eyes. Stopped from spilling over, it was forced back in, where it burned his insides.
No matter how hard he tried, the letters refused to come together, and it took him a while to collect his thoughts. Gradually, the rhythm of rock music in his ears brought back the fixed phrases and familiar tropes. It seemed as though the song blasting in his ears and the letters spilling onto the screen were working in concert with each other. Then suddenly, he sensed a discord: the letters and words began to jump around and swap places. He started; he was not sure what was happening. He quickly read what he had written. Before his eyes, random words filled the screen as they replaced his own text. Their meanings changed rapidly. He knew that errors like these were unacceptable around here. He rushed to correct them. He double- and triple-checked the sentences. He reread the text multiple times. His fingers faltered momentarily before he finally emailed the assignment to the editor by the deadline. In their conversations, the girl with a friendly face had mentioned receiving a warning about the mistakes in her work.
The room with the eerie, discordant tune remained behind as his footprints hurried along the dust-covered streets.
The blue-bannered social network was arrayed with faces in tiny circles. When an image of the feces someone had excreted appeared on the screen, they all pasted that image onto their own pages. He too pasted the image onto his page and got off his phone.
Doctor: “I’m listening.” The doctor’s eyes were smiling. The smiling eyes bored into him.
He: “The thing is—”
Doctor: “I’ve told you a hundred times: you’re perfectly healthy.”
He: “But I’m getting to the point when I’m not going to be able to do my job anymore. I’m making mistakes.” The doctor got up from his seat and exited the examination room.
Neat as usual, the footprints made their way along the city’s dusty paths. They headed toward an old high-rise apartment building. The faint light on the first floor was of no use after a few flights. He turned on the flashlight on his phone. When he came to the door, he saw a white envelope tucked into the handle. He ripped the envelope open and pulled out a piece of paper. The text typed on it contained several words circled in red. He immediately recognized his own writing. The marked-up words were misspelled.
Darkness bore down on the city, bore down on his room. He sat down and began clicking the keys on his laptop. As usual, he had turned the room’s feeble orange light, reminiscent of the glow of the sun, off. He hid his writing from the light. Today, the writing was slow. He kept looking at the misspelled words in the letter. The image of that friendly face flickered in his mind’s eye, distracting him from his task. He hadn’t been bold enough to hold her hand. He remembered the way he had felt around her—his body turning now hot, now cold, sending his heart aflutter, and realized that that feeling might never come back.
Under the bleak sky, along the city’s dust-covered streets, people walked with their heads lowered. They were in a hurry.
Neat as usual, his footprints made their way along the city’s dusty paths.
The letters that spilled with loud clicking onto the screen were feeding the issue that was to be sent to the printer early in the morning. He settled comfortably at his desk and began typing. He felt especially motivated today. He took his time to reread and check his sentences. He paid no mind to the usual sweat dripping down his back.
Neat as usual, his footprints made their way along the city’s dusty paths.
There was another white envelope tucked into the handle of his apartment’s door. This time, the sheet of paper contained even more words circled in red.
Darkness bore down on the city, bore down on his room. He sat down and began clicking the keys on his laptop. As usual, he had turned the room’s feeble orange light off. He hid his writing from the light. But today, the writing was slow. He sat staring at the misspelled words in the letter. As eager as he was to finish and publish his article about the policeman’s death, his stiff body, repulsed by itself, refused to take his orders.
Agitated by the unsettling thoughts, he suddenly felt trapped in the cramped apartment. He glanced at the edge of his desk where a sharp-edged tool lay; he had just used it to peel a rotten green apple.
His footprints led away from the dingy apartment building. The outside world dazzled him with its brilliance and movement, and he became unsure whether it was day or night.
As soon as he adjusted to his surroundings, he noticed that the dust-covered streets were filled with people who walked with their soles barely touching the ground. The wheels of the buses and cars, too, hovered just above the road. But he was still leaving footprints in the dust. He began to worry that tomorrow, they would find him by following his steps.
The uneven footprints made their way along the city’s dusty paths. They wavered before turning toward the familiar clinic. The absence of people in the halls made him quicken his pace. As he approached his doctor’s office, he touched the cold, sharp edge of the object nestled near his heart. He tried the handle and found the door locked. A voice reached him from his left, “Today is December 16; he’s away for the holiday.” The voice was that of a doctor who turned the corner before he could see what she was wearing—he could have sworn it was the middle of summer. He felt once again lost in the maze of time.
He headed outside; there wasn’t a single soul walking along the dusty paths. It was as if all those people who had previously filled the streets were now inside him. All the noise of the empty streets had been absorbed by his body. His head filled with clamor, and he almost forgot both his sickness and the smiling eyes. His footprints became erratic. Frightened by the incoherent voices coming from inside him, he grasped his head with both hands and turned the corner of the street only to find himself near the city’s main square. The moment he saw a large crowd in the middle of the square, the shouting voices poured out of his body. It was as though he had spewed them out. Breathing heavily, he listened to the noise that had come from inside of him. He stood, feeling bewildered, for a moment. The voices compelled him to go toward them. The wave of unintelligible noise hit his ears. He rushed towards the middle of the square, but someone came up to him and shoved him in the chest. A policeman in a black uniform was so strong that he could barely move. The familiar smiling eyes appeared before him. They attached themselves to the face of the man in the black uniform. Enraged by these smiling eyes, he remembered his unfinished mission. He retrieved the cold, sharp-edged object that came along nestled near his heart and directed it toward the man in black. The cold iron immediately became doused in blood. The man in black collapsed. Only then did he begin to clearly see the person lying before him in the dust. It was the young man from the photo on the first page of the file titled “Data.” But he seemed to be staring at himself. He seemed to have come face to face with the image he had formed of himself through this world’s mirrors. That image, now inanimate, was sprawled at his feet. He began to doubt whether he himself had a head, a torso, or a body. That head on the ground, that face and hair, those brows, and each mark on that body were all undoubtedly his. Afraid to lose himself, to disappear, he looked around nervously. But no one, not even the other black-clad men standing in a row in front of him, seemed to be aware of his crime. The noise, whose source he hadn’t been able to reach, now surrounded him. But no one was looking at him; people were running about, jostling, and yelling. The sky thundered; the faces in the crowd turned solemn. People passed by without as much as throwing a single glance at him as if he didn’t exist. He looked anxiously at his own body on the ground. But the body was silent. He hurried home to finish his article. He hadn’t realized yet that he was only a skin shed by his own body. The red-soaked footprints he was leaving in the dust were immediately trampled by other people’s feet.
He was a skin shed by his own body. He strove now to exist apart from his body. The footprints of this skin, which had separated from its own body, made their way through the streets of the city beneath the darkened sky.