Alina Ehtesham​

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Last week I preserved Man 1 in mango achaar, watched as the juices melted funny into his ears, mouth, nostrils. He had laughed at my jokes, I at his. Tipped the waiter. Pushed the door open when I’d pulled, gently, enough for it to seem assistive not instructive. The next morning he wished me good morning, why did he wish me good morning, I never asked to be wished good morning. Clingy, I decided, and pushed him deep into the pickling oil. His eyes calmly swallowed the liquid, resisting resistance, then popped open.

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Three days later I preserved Man 2 in honey, the brutish kind, sticking wildly to guileless fingers. He resisted but then I knew he would. Man 2 wanted sex but Man 2 didn’t bring protection so Man 2 got a kiss goodbye. He had fisted his eyes instead of his hands, hands that were too busy clutching a tan wallet. Jafferjees, full-grain. I paid the bill, then dropped him into the brown stuff. 

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Man 3 loves Novak Djokovic. Man 3 tells me about a man called the Medical Medium. Nice alliteration, I say, what, he says, MM, I say, sure, he says. Man 3 doesn’t trust vaccines. Takes his water hot in the morning, lemonized. Every morning, I ask, every morning, he says, okay, I say, discipline, sweet thing, he says. Man 3 talks funny, like the tongue isn’t quite doing its job right. I imagine going over it with a rolling pin, flattening it into an agreeable cadence. The new voice giggles affirmations into my left ear, then scurries off.

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At eleven my mother told me she loved me still. As she held my hand tightly, dropping me off to my dad’s, he’ll take better care of you, chanda, he’s right for you, chanda. My mother told me she loved me, then transacted me into my dad’s lonely apartment, lonelier routine. She called when child support was late. My dad answered softly, asking after a younger brother I never got to know. Is Qasim any better at math, he must be getting better, Lilan, it’s in our genes, hisaab, you know that. Yes, I’ve sent it Lilan. Yes-just-now-Lilan. JustnowIsaid. PleasecheckLilan. At night I crawled into my dad’s lonely WhatsApp. “thx, deposit received” in pale white below rivers of green waste.

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Man 4 cooks. Man 4 met Zubaida Apa at Gul Plaza. Man 4 invited her for dinner and she smiled big at him. A toothy smile, he says, okay, I say, I promise, he says, okay? I say. I stop believing him but laugh at his jokes. In the evening he cooks fish. I pick out the bones, stick them into my powder puff. The next morning I bury them in my dad’s lonely bonsai.

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The girls at school are too pretty. I’m thirteen and the girls at school are pretty, too pretty, the guys like them I think, they who aren’t that pretty, but the girls are pretty for them. I wonder if I’m pretty. I ask the mother I always carry in my purple backpack, a lonely purple backpack picked out by a lonely dad. Am I pretty, mother? Too pretty, she says. I throw her away and start calling the bonsai mother instead. 

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It’s your mom, he says, I’m going on a date, I say, okay, he says, your left ear is bleeding, he says.

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Man 5 is kind and honest, more kind than honest, and it bothers me. Kindness quickly bleeds into loneliness, and honesty cherries the top an ugly red. I keep him for a few days, unbrined, folding his legs this way and that, putting to good use my YouTube origami search history. One day I panic and throw him into a bucket of dyes. On Friday we’ll tie-dye t-shirts, the lonely dad had said in a lonely voice. Man 5 now floats in redbluepurpleorange. I regret throwing him in but his heart has already started pumping the colors. Thiswayandthat. Happy it is, so I leave it there, him with it. A happy heart for a kind and honest and lonely and redbluepurpleorange man.

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Man 5 finds a way to stick around. I try TikTok’s favorite dadijaan’s lemon achaar recipe but it doesn’t work. I panic. I panic until I’m sleeving it over my head, panic, picking it out dry and dead as the skin around my toes. I try to prepare a new preserve, sharper, zingier, but my hands are too busy holding his face, feeling his redbluepurpleorange stubble. Man 5 kisses lightly, holds the kisses, abandons them, prolongs abandon. When I bitch about my smile lines he emails me a copy of The Double Standard of Aging by Something Sontag. Sally, or Sophie. SS. Have you read her before, he texts, no, I text back, you should, he texts, okay, I text back. A minute later he calls. Ignore the email, he says, why, I ask, just because, he says, okay, I hang up. An hour later he’s putting stapled paper in my hand. Sally or Sophie Sontag sits kooky above a piece of text. I read it between bites of salty biryani and cry. I start holding his face tighter, kissing it harder, but he takes us back to lightness somehow. SallySophieSontag appears in my dream, tells me she’s an actress. Me too, I tell her, then go away.

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Man 5 stays, although I have prepared a new preserve for him. Mango and chili. My tongue almost steals a lick but I tell it to go fuck itself. I ask a friend to safekeep the preserve. What is it for, she asks. I tell her to go fuck herself. She stops talking to me, then a week later sends me her sister’s wedding invitation.

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Man 5 isn’t going bad yet, even though he’s roaming about in the open. Sans preservatives he breathes, kisses, holds, SallySophieSontags me. Man 5 refuses to go bad. Man 5 refuses to go bad so bad that I start to go bad. Once panic I am now a prickly, rotting, leaking bonsai. I call my mom. She’s at the aesthetician’s and has to put me on hold. Eighteen minutes later she calls back and shows off her new Kybella. Her chin, taut and absent, mocks me. I start to tell her about Man 5 but the Kybella keeps injecting itself into the conversation. I watch it melt from her neck and strangle me. My neck disappears, mother’s flabs. I hang up.

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Man 5 wants to meet my dad but he’ll catch the lonely and surely then I’d have to pickle him. I tell him my dad’s dead. He asks why I never told him before. A tragic accident, I say. He died tie-dying a bunch of lonely t-shirts.

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Man 5 and I marry. Man 5 writes me a note the night of our wedding. It’s seventeen pages long and part of me is upset at the length of it but part of me laughs and laughs and laughs itself into a sickening, cloying illness. Part of me is newbrighthappy. Part of me loves Man 5 in a way Man 5 will never know.

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The pickles have gone bad, the men with them. I worry The Husband will find out. Man 1 and Man 2 and Man 3 and Man 4 start rotting in the basement and soon the tabby is pawing at the door. I go out to buy cleaning supplies and find at a local dhaba The Husband having lunch with the lonely dad. A lonely thaal of nihari looks at me, the men at each other. They’re smiling, warm smiles, heated slightly, no risk of going cold. I buy two discounted bonsai and forget all about the cleaning supplies.

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