Facts
The fact is, most of us will refuse to drop anchor in the seabed, to sea walk for pearls.
The fact is, most of us will refuse to drop anchor in the seabed, to sea walk for pearls. The fact is, few of us can drive a cab for twelve hours straight, six days a week. Fact is, few of us applied to be maids-in-training. Or mop floors until they shine like Pavé diamonds. Or pitch a cardboard tent next to other cardboard tents, because there are other ways to catch a friend, say hello, weep. Fact is, most of us will not know what it is like to be asked to sit in a little booth and write down names and IDs and phone numbers in a public park. Or to be asked, during a pandemic, to stand (masked) at the bottom of the escalator, in a shopping mall, with a little towel in one hand and a disinfectant spritz in the other. Fact is, there are few applications to dress up like Spider-Man and sell helium balloons way past your fortieth birthday. Or practice saying, “thank you, ma'am,” “thank you, sir,” until the boss says, “yeah, that's right.” Fact is, most of us will refuse to nurse someone else's child, or memorize the difference between an affogato and a macchiato. Most of us won't know what it is like to break rock with a pneumatic drill. Or wash windows clipped to a steel bench. Or bake pizzas, deliver pizzas, drop pizzas. Or ride scooters and bikes in the rain and in the heat, to make sure the nuggets stay hot. Fact is, when Supermarket Cashier Eva is belting karaoke, singing “Dancing on My Own” smashed out of her mind, somebody needs to ask her whether she's been in the corner, watching him kiss her. The fact is, most of us don't know who makes bottle caps or shoelaces. Or why ships are scrapped in Chittagong, not DC. Fact is, assembly line work makes you feel pain, whether you chop pork or pack undies.
The fact is, FaceTime, like phone booths, helps you teleport. Fact is, voice notes are carrier pigeons. Fact is, sea walkers existed before plastic. Fact is, smartphones are parasites. Fact is, karaoke machines are sorcerers. Fact is, drones are death stars. Fact is, when someone sings “Eva Kamukha mo si Paraluman” in Hong Kong, over a million Quezon City residents bump and grind. Fact is, bedspaces hide poets. Fact is, pineapple buildings exist. Fact is, a domestic worker's backpack is her radio to God. Fact is, bicycles lit up like Christmas trees are ridden by lovers high on Old Monk and Coke. Fact is, cardboard boxes are confession cells, watchtowers, little airplanes. Fact is, gallery vocabulary turns your brain into an antelope. The fact is, if you yell out your baby's name at the shoreline of any beach with grey waves, your baby will hear you thousands of miles away and yell right back. Fact is, B-Ball hang time gives you the option to fly home. Fact is, Vending Machine Salesman has a name, Janitor Face has a name, even Teppanyaki Queen with her low-rise jeans has a name. Fact is, Juan, Raffy, and Sylvie have been identified as OFWs. Fact is, “another brick in the wall” wasn't talking about children. The fact is, mosquitoes slow down to bite, fish chomp down to think. Fact is, ukay-ukay stores harbor ghosts and secret doors. Fact is, used t-shirts smell like ancestors. Fact is, passports smell like conquerors. Fact is, land is what sea used to be. The fact is, we are what we used to be. Fact is, we keep dancing on our own.
Deepak Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi. His work and literal voice have infiltrated/inhabited art and performance sites. His award-winning Temporary People, a work of fiction about Gulf narratives steeped in Malayalee and South Asian lingo, set the base for his latest project, Pettee, a dance piece co-written and co-directed with the writer Karthika Naïr, composer Sarathy Korwar, and other movement-makers. He is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, and he has two more books in him, no more.
