Machinery
by Ayesha Asad
On June 6, 2021, in Ontario, a man drove into a family of five Muslim Pakistani Canadian pedestrians, killing four and wounding one.
I.
That whisk of a truck
pulling by, shadowed white
man in the front seat.
I remembered nothing
but how hard its headlight
looked: dark yellow
and stony in the afternoon
glare, a footstep away
from my skin. I may
have imagined it, those
two furious eyes. And my pink
Berkeley Bowl bag dangling
helplessly, like roadkill
seeping out of its own
body. He drove as if the landscape
unraveled for him—the glint
of a road forming under his
tires, then the buildings,
erect on either side,
the lamppost standing
to attention. And I,
halfway past his bumper,
emerging over the thick
windshield. What dreamworld
had conceived me? My face,
visible and hardy, my legs
propelling themselves. His legs
on the gas pedal,
his legs of ruthless bone,
made to shutter and be
shuttered. Did he know,
I thought afterward. What I meant
to think: Was it on purpose?
II.
The hollowed-out
throat. The panic.
The tree with its
graying leaves.
The lump. The boy.
The flailing power
lines. The whir
of motor. Churned
butter for chicken.
The boy, alive. The
emptied house. Dadi-
Jaan. The flutter of
cloth. Table set for
one. The lifeless
desk. The potato
wedges. Yumnah’s
pasta. The curtain
fall. The gathering.
The last text. The silver
of it. The infant moon.
III.
i want the world to know / i left /
to know / revenge / i left / they leave
you / no choice / left / with thoughts /
no choice / they leave / i hope the news
is here / warning / I did it on / purpose
i left the house / going to war / fuck
the muslims / that’s silly / i’m just repeating
stuff i read / it was me / who crashed
into them / 100 percent / very paranoid
i only wanted / the house with thoughts
of killing / fantasies / nothing / they leave
i read on / the internet / i only wanted to hurt
them / warning / come arrest me / a white
man / finally had enough / wasn’t attempted
/ murder / i’m just repeating / nothing /
left to lose / stuff i read / ethnic autonomy
i knew there was / nothing / a high
muslim population there / i’m just repeating
an intense rage / warning / warning /
it was weird i / could have kept / going all of
a sudden / i didn’t want / to die
IV.
Look, fingers tapping the keyboard. The screen with its blue light
keeping us awake—& inside, keys mounted on membrane, the heat
sink, the green printed circuit board. Each ridge like a tiny human
slumbering, weighted lives inside a mechanical frame. & the people
who live inside—the forums, the fourteen-hour browsing sessions,
the radical rewiring. The news anchors cycle on & off, selecting head-
lines, selecting households. & they spread out, get comfortable, toy
with the gears of fear. Watch as our small bodies rock against
everything in this slippery earth: asphalt, reeds, skin. Watch us make
all of what we know alien.
V.
They leave you
no choice, he said. And I am afraid
to talk about it: the shimmer of
the scene, with its dusk and low glow,
evening sliding in between each
body. I am afraid to imagine
what color the mother’s kameez was:
peach salwar and tangerine
dupatta, like my mother with her love
of orange. My mother with
her engineering degree, like the mother
of this family. Who would absorb
her empty office, or classroom,
the teachers who knew her? I imagine
myself dying most times I cross the road.
Nearby hovers the crush of cartilage and screaming
metal, and the streets, streaming. And yet I walk
at night. And yet I imagine everything,
everybody—their faces crowned by a brief
headlight. Or how they might evaporate:
a drop of moisture lifting from a jug, all that risen
vapor waiting for us, for them, and finally
catching them in skyward hands.