“Burn Like a Phoenix” by Sonny Arifien

Burn Like a Phoenix

I am invisible.

I can walk up and down this busy strip on a Saturday night and remain unseen. People walk through me, never around me. I leave no trace, no footprint, no shadow.

Being invisible comes with its pitfalls and challenges. It has its advantages too. Take this intersection, for example. There’s always plenty to take in for those who possess the ability to observe close up the many curious interactions that ensue after hours. First, I watch in semi-amusement as a driver attempts to use his sound system as a call for courtship. But wait. Soon enough, the pretty eyelashes of some impressionable soul will come fluttering in his direction – and poof! Eventually they’ll ride off together, leaving yours truly engulfed in a wheezing cloud of dust. 

I go all over. It’s all the same to me. And on nights like this when the air is still, the sky clear, and the walls are my blank canvas, I’m likely to be in no hurry about it. One day, they’ll dig up the rubble and discover my name on every brick, block, and back alley of this tired place. I’ll be the intellectual talking point at dinner parties, revered by the descendants of those same arseholes who claimed I would never amount to anything. 

They’ll be sorry yet. 

With the exception of a methadone clinic, a cheap sleazy hotel, and a couple of pawn shops, the majority of premises on the hill at the west end of town have remained boarded up for as long as I can recall. Having already tried every trick in the book, the real estate agents no longer bother adding positive marketing spins like unique opportunity or long-term investment. Even the junkies and panhandlers steer clear of here. This is my domain, a misfit’s haven. For those who care to look, it reads like a noticeboard for the streets, and you can see my personal mark everywhere. In an instant, I can tell you who is active, who’s feuding with whom, and if any imposters are fraudulently imitating others’ work. It stands in stark contrast to the plush development blocks at the other end of town where your work is guaranteed to be removed come sunrise. Say what you will about the rich, but they do an impeccable job of rubbing out the real world. 

A bright, garish rooster, a sort of feather-plucked beacon, lights the way as you approach the centre of town from the hill. The closer I get, the more unsure I am whether it’s the aroma of burned canola oil or the flashbacks of menial drudgery associated with my old job that twists my stomach into one insufferable knot. I push the feeling down until it burns under my ribs. On the curb out front of that chicken shop, a young couple are trading insults by a row of wheelie bins. They pause every now and then as a bottle of cheap bourbon changes hands. The world around them appears to have grinded to a standstill. They are oblivious to the honk of cars, the arrival and departure of late-night diners, the pair of pigeons at their feet that appear to be fighting over the scraps of a chicken bone before copulating in a puddle. I find the entire spectacle utterly repulsive… and yet, I cannot help but be amused by the carnal similitude of the animal kingdom. It comes as a surprise that the shop window has been repaired so quickly. That the place is just as busy as ever. That they’ve found a replacement to take orders and wear that silly uniform. Somehow, some way, I’ll make them sorry they ever raised their voice at me. Sorry they ever fired me. Sorry they accused me of dipping my hands into that register. 

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. 

From the rooftop, you can see almost the entire town rolled out before you like some grandmother’s ugly rug. It stretches all the way from the hospital hill in the west down to the eastern harbour basin, up to the foot of the escarpment in the north and back down again, where the smelting industrial plants pump out the purple sulphur clouds that pervade the south. Sometimes, when I’m up here, I like to imagine that the odd remaining field might offer a rare insight into the look of the land that the indigenous man had once played careful custodian over. Before their proud culture was driven out by the barrel of a loaded musket and conveniently wiped from our collective minds. In the end however, logic prevails, and I’m reminded that this land is too far gone now to change its ruinous course. 

Taking advantage of the commotion below, I ease myself onto the ledge above the shop sign with two steady feet. I don’t concern myself with the people below. No one in the city ever bothers to look up. Eclipsing the length of the chicken shop sign requires the fat cap and a generous coat of paint. I use the chrome can for this one, so it shines under the light like a brand-new coin. Before I climb back down again, I make sure to leave a nice big hole through the rooster’s neon beak with the butt of my aerosol can. 

Did I mention that I have a reckless habit of being loyal? I am, to the point of standing blindly and unquestionably by those who routinely let me down. It’s something I grapple with daily and resolve to contain, like refined sugar or nicotine. I’m reminded of this the moment I see the fools lined up like livestock out front of a single glowing door. Several flights of stairs up, the low rumble of bass seeps out from the blackened windows before escaping into the cool night air. Despite my best efforts, I am helpless to do anything else but linger here a while and wonder – 

Is she out on the town tonight? Is she safe? Is she with company? 

For a good twenty minutes or so, I play the observer – with a kind of removed curiosity of someone watching over an ant farm. Nobody bothers to look my way. I study faces that arrive at the back of the line, faces at the door waiting for other faces to show up, faces that mill out on the curb or alight from taxis. None of these faces bear any resemblance to my own. All the while, I do my best to stop my brain from trying to imagine what sort of stuff goes on in there. Why bother? There’s no way for me to ever find out. Anyone who looks like I do would be denied entry anyhow. 

Eventually, the scores of night revellers begin to slowly disband, and so too does my spirit of inquiry. Soon, I’m left as always to nurse a solemn and familiar bitterness that simmers inside me. Exactly what purpose am I trying to fulfil in searching for someone who can’t see me? I am dead to her, but in my name, I will resurrect and burn like a phoenix.

I’m still angry at myself for thinking of her as I pass the taxi rank out front of an old boarded-up brick building where the only cinema in town once stood. In the gutter, a group of people are watching eagerly as a man attempts to beat another man’s face in. A couple waiting for their ride home arrive and attempt to intervene. 

“Let them be,” a woman says, her eyes on the bloody exchange the entire time. Then, as if for reassurance, she adds, “They’re brothers.”

I leave the popular night strip behind, making my way along the lower arm of the mall, and soon enough I feel a reassuring lull wash over me. Most people would find it eerie walking through a place like this in the early hours. Shops lie dark and lifeless behind thick glass and padlocked doors. Even the window mannequins seem to eye you suspiciously. For me, on the other hand, the solitary echo of my footsteps is a welcomed sound. Passing under the cover of a large awning, I pause to produce a small glass vial, taking great pains to avoid spilling. A homemade concoction of hydrochloric acid and shoe polish – it works a charm on glass surfaces. Though it’s not so charming if it comes into contact with skin. The moment that the traffic clears in both directions, I make sure to leave my name burning permanently and indiscriminately into every shop window within reach, before I am gone, like I was never there at all.

It’s that bleeding voice inside my head that gets me just as I am about to embark on the home stretch. It grills and interrogates me, and before I know it, I’m already halfway across the park, nearing the row of warehouses and industrial lots that back onto the train line on the outskirts of town. Down this end, the empty streets, vacant walls, and minimal light usually mean less heat, more room to operate, and fewer interruptions. But one must have their wits about them in a place like this. Its remoteness can often lead swiftly and unexpectedly into the lap of danger. But none of this is playing on my mind – even as I cross under the tracks and spot a rival name emblazoned along the bridge that would have normally put me on high alert. At this stage, I’m no longer checking for blank walls. My sights are now firmly set on the grey building at the edge of town, on the third floor of that grey building, on the balcony of that third floor, where the curtains are glowing under a pale light. 

By the curb outside, I find the thickest cover of darkness and make myself as discreet as possible. I may be invisible, but those who know where to look can find me if they try hard enough. The light at the window delivers a certain degree of relief, and yet, I know that the reassurance I am searching for will only come when that familiar silhouette, her tender outline, is revealed on the other side. Call it what you want, but whilst I may have accepted that she can never see me, I’m still bound by a moral obligation to check in every now and then. It’s what unites us, despite everything that keeps us at odds. 

At odds with ourselves. At odds with one another. At odds with the world that stands between us.

When I see a figure briefly approach the window, only to disappear again, my heart thumps and I hang on with bated breath. Was it enough to put my mind at rest? I am not so convinced. Something about the demeanour feels cold, guarded, hostile. 

I wait for the figure to materialise again. Only this time, when they peer out from the curtains, I could almost swear that they see me. But the figure bears none of the physical traits that I’ve come to know so well: the thin fragile frame, the sharp pointy shoulders, the shrinking disposition. A fog of self-doubt begins to set in. In the strands of light, I hold my hands out in front of me and study them intently: the dark brown pigment, the ashy knuckles, the wiry veins.

Surely I exist.

As I’m about to call it a night, a pulsing blue light sends waves of dread surging through me. I can tell by the way the wagon comes hurtling in my direction that someone has tipped them off about my presence. I don’t waste any time hanging around to find out why.

Anybody running from the police should never attempt to do so in a straight line. Nor should they give conventional walkways or footpaths precedence over, say, backyards or bushes. In order to give myself a fighting chance, I make certain to put as many obstructions as possible between my pursuers and myself. This means carving a zigzagging path – weaving in and around back lanes, vacant lots, and scrap metal yards.

From the outside, the only physical distinctions between a residential house and a whorehouse are the brightly painted bricks and the red-tinted bulb that illuminates the front door. Aside from this, they share the same key features: a single driveway, a front lawn, a picket fence. They also happen to be great places for those wanting to avoid the law. The last thing officers want to do is disrupt the sordid and clandestine activities of their colleagues and cronies. I sit on my heels a moment and listen out for any signs of pursuit. At this hour, the police know better than to use their sirens, but it’s not difficult to make out their tires rolling over the asphalt.

Only when I am absolutely positive that I am invisible again do I climb the reinforced metal gate that backs onto the railway line, allowing myself to be swallowed into the cold, comforting embrace of thick shadows.

The last time my biological father bothered to see me, I was nine years old. I know this because the boarding house where he lived has since been demolished and redeveloped, and by the time I was ten, he’d already skipped town. I still remember sitting in that gloomy bedsit, watching an old documentary about a family of wild rabbits that had the terrible misfortune of being born in a region where the humans were at war with one another. Boxed in on either side by two unscalable walls that separated the communist east from the capitalist west, their everyday existence was a never-ending fight to avoid landmines, heavy artillery, razor wire, and bloated corpses. Day after day, they scampered about, trying to find food, raise their young, and merely exist. They might as well have been invisible. When I’m reminded of this, I often wonder, when that war was over and those walls eventually came down, did the rabbits relocate to greener pastures where other rabbits resided? Or did they choose to remain in that bombarded wasteland, simply because they knew no other way of living?

It feels good to walk the line again, to hear that gravel crunching under my feet. Out here there are no sudden forks or twists in the road to trip you up. Just one long and methodical path carved out for my sole convenience. I decide on the can of acrylic gold for the final stretch, and keep a couple of extra caps handy in my pocket just in case. You never know when you’re going to run into another wall.