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Uzair didn't think he believed in God anymore. Anymore so than usual at least, he had never been as religious as his brother.
Tick. Tick.
He didn't think he believed in brothers anymore, either. He had a brother. Brothers. He wondered how he could reconcile himself to being a man who worshipped humans. It was blasphemy, wasn't it? They'd lynch him for it. But worship wasn't the right word either. Reverence. Approbation. I bow, for my eyes can't bear to meet yours. Not worship then, but close enough. Was it possible to worship your tether? His tether is Rehman bhai, of course. Was. Brothers.
Tick. Tick.
They never talked about it, men of God. They never talked about how easy it was to confuse your deities. How easy it was to think, the real god is so far away, and I am here, cowering in the dirt. When was I good for Him, if ever? When will I ever be? No, no. It was better to keep his eyes down. They can't bear to meet yours. Instead, he'd make his own gods. They wouldn't make him flinch. Rehman. Merciful. Brothers.
Tick. Tick.
And so he did. His brother was his gods, his mercies. Uzair would die for him. He would kill for him. His was a fine line. Balancing his worship with his guns. He was an infidel, so be it. The poets had never said he couldn't worship both gods, theirs and his. And so he did. Brothers.
Tick. Tick.
He thought these were the only kinds of worship that could happen. He didn’t account for getting a new god. No, not a god. Hamza was a man, flesh and blood as any of them. Uzair liked laughing with him, at him. This didn't give him godhood. Uzair had only ever worshipped the people he loved. He didn't think he'd worship Hamza. Hamza was too close, too earthy, too wild to ever be considered saintly or good. Him and his lion's mane of hair, like his namesake. But, Uzair thought, one night in bed, when alcohol dulled his mind and tiredness grasped his body, I wouldn't mind if he tells me he is divinity. Maybe I'll worship him, too. His brain halted at that, an uncertain laugh coming out of his mouth. His good sense chuckled at him. Hamza doesn't need your offerings. He isn't your brother. Yes, he thought. He isn't my brother.
Tick. Tick.
Then his brother died. Rehman bhai. His earthly tether. His reason for living. The last vestiges of sanity snapped. Grief, unsurmountable grief. I will kill them, he thought savagely. All of them. What do I have holding me back?
But he did. Hamza was holding him. "You'll need to be alive to avenge bhai", Hamza said, piercing through the fog in his head. His eyes, earnest. His voice, pleading. How could Uzair say no to his god? Against his gut, he decided to follow his holy books. He did as Hamza asked. He isn't like my other gods.
Tick. Tick.
He kept repeating the same thing as he was caught and placed in a cell. A series of unfortunate events. The holy men say if you place your faith with everything you have in you, He will listen. Uzair had done that only, hadn't he? Wasn't faith always rewarded?
Hamza came to visit him. "I'll take care of you", he said solemnly. Uzair had all the worldly comforts he would ever need. The only thing to do was sit and plot. Hamza was different. He wasn't divine, but close to it. He'll take care of me, of all of it.
Tick. Tick.
He still kept believing when they came to drag him off. Traitor, they called him. Spy.
No, no I'm not, he tried to speak between the waterboardings and the beatings. I didn't betray anyone. I just believed in another god. He'll come, you see. He said he'll take care of me. He isn't like the ones I worshipped before.
Tick. Tick.
But then he got to know. Between gaps of gossip and whispers of the wind, he got to know what the higher ups were trying to quieten down. Hamza Ali Mazari. The real spy. The traitor. He wasn't a god after all. He wasn't even Hamza.
Uzair had a blank look in his eyes and a heavy weight in his belly that didn't go away, no matter how hard he tried. It could be a result of the torture. It could be the result of his last hope bearing wings and taking flight. Either. Both.
Tick. Tick.
The guards looked at him, and they whispered. The doctors looked at him, and they sighed. A few weeks, at most, they announced. Too much internal bleeding. Not enough will. Since then, an ominous shadow of doom followed him around like a warning. The tick tick of a clock waiting to deliver him to his maker. No matter how loud he screamed, or how hard he tried to stuff his ears, it was always there.
Tick. Tick.
Sometimes, when he drifted in and out of consciousness in the hospital bed, he could see Rehman bhai sitting in the chair opposite him. I'm sorry, Uzair would wail. I am not worthy of being your devotee. I have desecrated the ground and not even picked up the ashes. Forgive me, forgive me. Sometimes bhai would forgive him, sometimes he would stare with censure and say nothing. But always in the end, just before going, he would bend down and brush his lips over Uzair's forehead, just the way he used to do since he was a child.
It wasn't always bhai, though. Sometimes, he would see Hamza sitting on the chair. His wild hair and his sheepish smile. The wreath of divinity that Uzair had placed on his head without ever asking. Uzair was too weak to even snatch it back.
Why? He tried to scream, but his throat was raw. Why did you do that? You were supposed to be different. I wanted you to be different. Does what I want not count? But then, when did it ever?
And Hamza would smile sadly and tell him I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I'm not. You understand, don't you? I had to do it. Even I have my gods. They're ghosts to me, more like. And I had to choose. In the end, and even at the beginning, truth be told, it was an easy choice.
Uzair would glare at him. Begone, then. Don't come near me. Don't speak to me, don't justify yourself to me. You don't deserve what I gave you.
Hamza would smile again, and like a final goodbye, brush his fingers over Uzair's eyes. I know. I'll go. It's all I do, anyways. I walk away from my family. No home, no hearth.
And before Uzair could ask what he meant, Hamza would turn around and go away. Uzair would stare at his retreating back till he disappeared to reunite with his ghosts.
Tick. Ti-
The ticking stopped one day, as it was destined to.
Uzair Baloch was buried in an unmarked grave in the grounds of his lands, next to his brother. They were going to toss his body in a mass burial pile, but apparently a high ranking politician had insisted on letting him rest next to his family. The guards grumbled, but they did it. He was just about the last of the Baloch family that ruled Lyari for the better part of a decade.
***
The worms got to his body, and they feasted. As he turned to dirt and moss, the worms never went hungry, for as they ate his heart they tasted the worship he had carried for all of his gods till his death. They ate his lungs, and they inhaled the anger and betrayal he had carried in the last parts of his life. They ate his brain, and they remembered the memories of all he was, all that he had ever been. And then the worms were the only ones to know, apart from him, that although Uzair had many gods, only one had bloodied him enough to profane his veneration. And he was the only one who would've worshipped Uzair the same, in another time, maybe. In another life.
***