Maya: Sanskrit for the illusory nature of reality. The illusion of creation. The mist that veils the truth. The story the world tells about itself to conceal the fact that we are repeating ourselves into oblivion.

Meet me for coffee. Sit with me outside. Stare into our mugs. The birds are flying lower to the ground these days. They are eager for the next life. Trade mythologies with me while we pin down the difference between ontology and semiotics. Why do bad things happen to good people? Maya. Moksha. Words that mean commune with God. Words that mean illusion. Drown in the bottom of our mugs. And it was just their time. We can explain everything away like that. And it is just our time. Empty ourselves into our mugs. Become birds. Wave at cars. Cross the road. Kiss the rims of tires. See the blood from space. Smell it. Push our tongues to the roof of our mouths so as not to throw up from complicity. Plunge, nose-first, into the contents of our mugs. Become birds. Feed each other worms and watch them wriggle as they go down. Vomit into my mouth the truth about having many gods. I will vomit into yours the Hindu truth about peace. Sit in the bed and curl into these awful truths. Kiss. Spell ‘complacency’ across our teeth with our tongues. Our trigger fingers dance like ants on the handles of our mugs. Become birds. If we’ve been birds before we won’t know it. If we’re bad at being birds we might be worms next, writhing down the esophagi of some other bad birds. It’s never over and when it’s over we won’t know. It won’t be over until we have been everything. Count the lives we’ve lived in concentric circles of coffee that wail like blood. Become birds. Sit on the telephone wire and ask it to tell us something real. Watch the city swallow its children. Sit on the telephone wire and ask it to tell us something real. Relearn the reincarnation thesis. Sit on the telephone wire and ask it to tell us something real. Open our wings to make a shield. Call to the children of El Fasher. Call to the children of Gaza. There is more here than infinite death. Make space at the coffee table. Pour ourselves a folk song. Drag our slow tongues along the refrain. Cheers. The mist unfurls in the clinking of our mugs.