The Dead One’s Tale

Darkness….. 
An incredibly bright light! 
Flashes of silver……. 
...........................................
Darkness!

I was tainted by the emptiness around me. I felt suffocated – claustrophobic. I had never before been claustrophobic. Why was I feeling like the walls were closing in on me now!?

I tried reaching forward with my right arm. My arm didn’t move. I tried lifting it up again. I could feel nothing.

Ok…. So my worst nightmare has finally come true. I was alone, feeling claustrophobic, in some kind of enclosed space and I was bloody calcified!

I shut my eyes and tried so hard to shut my thoughts too. I wished I could calcify my brain sometimes because the 24-million thoughts that run through it at any given second gave me a headache. Like right now, I was trying to get hold of my thoughts while thinking 'whys' and 'whens' and 'hows' all at the same time! Sometimes I wonder if God put a 6.2-liter LS9 Turbocharged V8 Twin Atomic-powered Engine in my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut for another minute and opened them again. I could see! Finally I could see something other than the pitch blackness and the glowing white alternatively. I didn’t feel so ‘enclosed’ anymore.

I looked around. In a flash, I was surrounded by everything familiar. Well, wait… I was surrounded by TOO MANY familiar things!

There was Aunty Katherine, the painfully parsimonious sister of my mother who thought that money was god.  She was sitting by the wall looking around with bulging eyes forming some juicy gossip in her head to talk about later. Next to her, leaning on the wall was Robert. Robert the Snobbert! He was sad. His eyes looked painfully distant, which is a look I have never seen on the teen-aged movie-addict before.

I turned to look to my right. My little sister Jen was talking to some stranger in a white dress. She seemed intensely engrossed in the conversation.

Hmmm….

I looked around a bit more. People were whispering. Why were they whispering? Why was Freda whispering? Usually when she spoke on the phone, the entire neighbourhood would know every detail of the conversation.

Curiously I focused my eyes on the centre of the room full of sad-looking, whispering people. There it was! Right at the heart of the room… a white casket filled with white roses! In it, dressed in a flowing white gown was a girl. She was pale. Well she was dead. Well, obviously! It’s not like a ballerina would be stretching in a casket!

I looked closer, the full face and the sleek hair caught my attention.

Wait! What?

Holy- whatever-the-slang-that-I-am-not-supposed-to-use-here…. It was me! The dead chic was me!

I was dead!

It was me, dressed in a gaudy bride’s gown, surrounded by roses (roses! I don’t even like roses!)… I was lying there dead.

People were sad and people were whispering because I was dead!

I closed my eyes again.

I felt a curling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to throw up. I felt intensely claustrophobic again.

I was dead… I was dead….. Brianna Helen Montgomery of Bluesdale was no more!

It took me a few minutes to come to terms with the termination of my existence. But after taking a couple of deep breaths and shutting down a couple of my turbo compartments, I was able to go back to the beginning.

I was running late as usual. Trying to multitask – applying my eyeliner and putting on my sandals and throwing in the essentials into my handbag all at the same time, I stormed out of the house. I hopped into my rusty car and drove to the main street. The car was a reward to myself for the years of committed education and the little I saved off doing one part time job after another. I don’t even know why I call it a reward because it was in absolutely shameful shape. Well, at least I didn’t have to take the bus filled with middle-aged perverts anymore.

I turned on to the high-way and drove at the speed I had lately begun to allow myself to drive at. As usual, my brain was filled with things I was supposed to get done that day as I was making an imaginary checklist of dos and don’ts. Well, I bet you think you know what happened next? Really, you think I got hit by a massive truck and exploded in my upturned car?

Well, no. I drove to my workplace, parked the car and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor….. Ok, I was kidding just because I wanted you to think that I had JK Rowling skills in adventure writing. I did get hit by another vehicle.

Not a massive truck, but a speeding bus that lost control and skidded towards me. I cannot remember if I was killed immediately or whether I put some under-qualified paramedics through the misery of trying to keep me alive, but what I do remember are the undertakers.

Greasy men with red faces, they looked emotionless as they cut me open and discarded my insides piece by piece. Lungs first, the intestines, liver and gut…

“Strange how youngsters die before they live while old grumps like my mother-in-law are still alive, you know!” I remember the youngest one of the men saying.

“Maybe she didn’t deserve to live” replied the oldest.

Helloooo people, I can hear you. Quit judging the dead girl!

“Maybe she just deserved better than life, man. Better than life!” said the cross-eyed lean one avoiding eye contact with the other two.

I felt sorry for the men. They made a living off hacking dead body parts. Could life get any more miserable?

Either way, the point was, I was dead. Well the other point was, even when I am dead, my turbo engine of a brain has not shut down.

I looked around the funeral house again. I didn’t know how I could see everything and I got to admit that it feels pretty weird to be staring at my own self. Maybe I was an angel!

At that thought, I relaxed a little. Everyone wants to be an angel right? Isn’t that why people pray, confess and try to fill their earthly days with deeds that will add to good karma?

So maybe I had become an angel and didn’t need to bother about the good and the bad anymore. Hmm…. Where was St. Peter with his gigantic book then?

A car parked outside the gate. In came Leanne dressed in a knee-length, fitting, black dress. Oh Leanne Leanne!!! She totally didn’t know how to dress appropriately for a funeral. Her cleavage was showing a little too much and she had dark eyeliner on. Her pointy shoes made tapping noises on the cement floor and everyone stared at her head to toe.

She looked awkward. As inappropriately dressed as she was at my funeral, I loved Leanne. I met her during my final year as a volunteer at the Suicidal Youth Campaign. Many are surprised when they get to know Leanne’s true personality. She looks like an alcoholic party girl on the outside with her nails painted in deep shades and a thick blob of eyeliner on her at any given moment, but she was one of the smartest and the most empathetic people I had ever met. She was beautiful.

In my short life – which is now over btw – I had known many many people and many of them just passed by. Some came in when I needed them and some came in by force. Many left after a while and when they left, they either took a part of me with them or left a part of them behind. Some left hairballs in my comb and some semen on my blanket!

Well, ok in the more philosophical sense, each person I’d known in my life made me grow a little. Leanne was one of the very few people who stuck around. She was the one I called in the middle of the night when I found out that my boyfriend was cheating on me, she was the one I sent pictures of my dress choices for an important date, she was the one who motivated me to lose the extra pounds I was packing around my middle, she was the one who advised me on dealing with my overactive imagination issues…. Leanne Leanne… she was the one I stalked ‘diggable’ men with, she was the one I took a road trip with when I graduated, she was the one I shared shoes with.

Now here she was, my beautiful, out-of-place Leanne, clasping her hands across her ample chest, bowing her head and praying. Yes, she was praying.

Well, Leanne and I both were not too high on religion and god. We thought of ourselves as more philosophical, scientific, logic-oriented people set out to define ourselves with proper understanding. We believed that the rules of religion were not necessary unless you didn’t know good from bad and needed someone to spell them out for you. After all, all most religions do is judge and what good ever comes out of judging?

As she prayed, she looked up from the corner of her eye. I laughed. She looked really uncomfortable. I knew she was trying hard to make her eyes tear... well, because that is what people are supposed to do at funerals! People are supposed to be sad!

But knowing Leanne inside out and knowing how similar we are, I knew that she had come to terms with my death. She missed me of course! She had to miss me! I was her best friend! But she was smart enough to wrap her mind around the fact that everyone dies. Even if my death was premature and unexpected, that is how it works sometimes. Existing things need to be whipped out for new things.

Both Leanne and I were startled at the sound which suddenly filled the small room. “waaaaahhhh…. Why did you have to go!!!! waaaahhhh” came the continuous wailing. It was coming from just beyond the door. I peeked to take a better look.

Nan Reese!

Oh no wonder. I rolled my eyes and laughed again.

I was half mad and half ridiculed by the annoying whines of Nana Reese.

This was a woman who had no involvement with my life. I hadn’t spoken to her since high school, after she shunned me when I asked her for a $2,000 loan for college. She was a woman who re-carpeted her kitchen floor every six months because she had nothing better to do with her money.

After I asked her for the loan with the same interest as the bank, she avoided me like I was a cat carrying mad-cow disease.

She stopped answering my parents’ telephone calls and made some sort of excuse to avoid the family dinner at Christmas.

Now here she was, out of the blue. Dressed in an over-sized wrap dress, gaudy gold jewelry and wiling for dear life.

I looked at Leanne and winked as if she could see me.

See this is what I hate about funerals. People who don’t turn up when you are alive turn up when you are gone. Relatives you have not seen in decades come out and shed tears for you and god knows what aspect of the fact that you are dead is saddening for them. Friends who don’t return your telephone calls when you were alive suddenly become your best pals and end up talking about what a wonderful life you lived.

Ex-boyfriends turn up with bouquets of flowers that they should have given when you were alive and suddenly you become the love of their lives that died. Suddenly, you become the climax of their life-stories.

“Oh and this woman I loved five years ago died in an accident and my heart is still broken,” they would say to their dates hoping for some sympathy which will justify his careless behaviour. “Please understand why I am so afraid to commit…”

Well, I don’t get the point of funerals. If I had thought I’d go so soon, I would have written my will (which I had been planning to do for years by the way!) sooner. I think people should throw parties instead of having funerals. (I think one sappy movie I watched had this going).

People should have parties with smoked salmon and rich wine, dancing and karaoke; dress up and bring dates! Talk about the life the dead person lived and rejoice at the memories they left behind – be thankful for the done life! That is how funerals should be.

If I could plan my own funerals, I would opt for cheap sunflowers which as big and yellow. I would have laid myself on a bed of flowers instead of a ridiculously pricey casket that is going to melt to the ground anyway.

I would have opted for soulful music instead of hour-long prayers. I would have… I would have…..

But it didn’t matter anymore. Because I was dead and no one listens to the dead man!

No, my story doesn’t have a culmination. There is no hero and there is no mawkish running-towards-someone-in-the-pouring-rain scene.  There is no grand end and there are no heart-melting twists. Yeah, so basically that was the story – me being dead and all - and this is the end.

Oh yeah, just one thing! Life is full of darn surprises that can blow up in your face, so do what you have to do and do it NOW! For all you know, tomorrow you might be lying in a box surrounded by people who don't really care!

Boiled Chicken and Running Away

Inspired by 'Who's Irish?' (1999) by Gish Jen, I attempted to write a short story in a very colloquial manner, almost like what it would sound like, if the character, not so good in her middle-school English, would write. It is a satirical story of a girl who has just attained in age and has elements of Sri Lankan culture in it. So unless you are a conventional Sri Lankan, you will probably not understand the sarcasm. Either way, enjoy and feel free to comment! 

She no small girl now. She big. Blood coming from between her legs every month now. Everybody knows it. Embarrassing! She can’t see boys for five days, not even Father. She can’t play with boys now after this day. She must learn to cook rice, dhal curry, scrape coconut and make a Sambol. She must learn to wash clothes, bashing them on the granite rock and know the exact amount of whitening powder to put for white clothes. She must also wear long skirts now and talk softly. Can’t shout, even when she see a big iguana across the road. If iguana attack her, she can’t shout. If iguana eat her, she can’t shout. Now she is woman. Can have baby if not careful. Imagine having baby at thirteen! Boys in village will now come to flirt with her. In five years, one will be lucky to take her to his mother’s house. 

Now she must be cautious. Every month, she will have tummy aches and head pains. She will be allowed to sleep during the day and skip school if she want to. She can’t wear white skirts. But school uniform white skirt. Poor girl. Oh no. Poor woman! So, in five days, at 06.43 in the morning is the auspicious time. She cover herself with a white cloth and go to have a bath with lavender flowers. She crack open a coconut. She can’t even carry the cleaver. She is so petite. Not five feet tall and weight less than 40 kilograms. Opposite of her tall, fat sister. She open the coconut. Good luck came! Then come inside house and wear gold and pink dress. Gold and pink! Mother put a thin gold chain on her neck. Now she can look at boys. So, Father put two thin gold bangles on left arm. Grandmother put big, chunky, rose-shaped, gold earrings on her ears. “Ouch” she say. She doesn’t like earrings. “Pull my ear down”, she say. “Now you must wear earrings all the time. You are a girl” grandmother say. “I always a girl” she say. Mother frown. Sister laugh. 

In afternoon, Mother, Grandmother and two aunties serve a grand lunch. They cooked fried rice, chicken curry with extra chilies, potato and dhal. Always have dhal in special occasions. Dhal is a must! They have fried papadam. She can’t eat papadam. She can’t eat fried rice, because have oil. She can’t eat oil, until blood stop. Otherwise her stomach will hurt more and she will get ugly. She grab plate and serves a big papadam. Grandmother hit her hand. “No papadam for you! You want to be ugly skin with pimples like your sister?” Sister make a face. Mother bring plate full of white rice and boiled chicken for her. Mother has served vegetables also. She hate vegetables. “So bitter” she say. Her chicken have no spices. It is yellow. But chicken for guest is nice brown curry. Now she make face. Boys from the village eating tasty food, laugh at her. One boy wink. She turns and looks behind her dress. She have to be extra careful now. Can’t jump, can’t run, can’t sit.

She gets lot of small, small gifts. A few big gifts. She get another gold chain and a few earrings. And she get another three bangles. A small pendent. She get a few ornaments. Pink dolls with green dresses. She doesn’t like ornaments. She get some cloth for making dresses. Some fancy things like chains and bracelets. She wants a makeup set. But no. No one give her makeup set. She put them in a small box. She is happy because now she can run away when she is fifteen. She can’t runway now because she want to run away with O/L results. Otherwise can’t find any job after runway. She want to hide the gold under her bed. But Mother come and take it. “Safe with me” Mother say. She make a face. 

Three days later, she not go to school. Blood still coming from her private part. She thinks blood never stop. If she can’t go to school for week, she will miss so much. An exam also. Then, in two years, she can’t pass O/L exam. She can’t runaway then. Fourth day blood is still there. She gets dressed and go to school. Cloth between her legs is uncomfortable. She walk slow. She make a ugly face. “Give this to Teacher and worship” Mother tell and give a bundle of beetle leaves to her hand. “Why? It is no Awurudu still!” she ask. “Don’t talk back! You are a big girl now! Big girl don’t talk back to Mother”. Class is uncomfortable because of the blood coming between her legs. She don’t want to stand. But teacher ask question. “Name three national parks in Sri Lanka!” She names them. She knows them well. She knows a lot of things well! She reads. She smart girl. Smart woman!  She want to pass O/L and run away. But now can’t run away because mother has gold. How to run away without gold?

For lunch, still boiled chicken and dhal with white rice. Sister eats left over tasty food. Next door boy comes and ask her to play hide and seek. “Go! She won’t play” Mother shouts and next door little boys get scared and runaway. She want to play hide and seek. After few hours she is hungry and boring. She scrapes the wall. “What you doing child!” Grandmother shouts. “Big girls not supposed to shout” she tell Grandmother. Sister laugh. Grandmother angry. Mother complain. “No use, these girls.” She pout. She go to table. Remaining boiled chicken in a pot, is covered with a cloth. She put little hand and take a piece. She open her history book and study. Boring. She eats chicken. Boring. But she somehow reads the history book. Must pass O/L and runway. Must get that gold. She fall asleep on the page about King Dhutugammunu...

The Cinderella Blah

To be ‘ugly’ according to conventional standards of society is a terrible misery. I don’t know who said that mere brains get you to places, but trust me, brains are no good unless they come with beauty. And that brains too, used for the 64 whatever-women-are-supposed-to-master only. But the irony is that you can be pretty with no brain and man, can you get to places! I was once a believer of wisdom, because that is what society tells you. “No man wants a hottie with puckered lips and an empty head”, but men believed the contrary. No one flirts with intellectuality and a man in his right mind doesn’t fondle with it anyway. A typical man, evolved to be vision indulgent and all, prefers a woman who can take him to places with her mouth shut. Maybe that is the reason why I repelled almost every guy who dared to even ask me on a date – a first date to never call back, just so you know. Day after day, through middle-school and high-school, I repelled man after man in my life. And bit by bit, with every passing rejection I turned bitter. Oh, I was once nice and all – I would help old women carrying shopping baskets cross the street and feed a lost lonely pooch in the street corner. I once even sacrificed my knitted scarf to warm up a little beggar with sore feet. But as each year dawned, I turned in to a miserable snob, even more miserable than my cellulite packed butt. It all started with a bit of sneering. Then came the snobbish remarks. Then came the thrashing and stealing and lying and cheating and then came Cinderella! 

My mom is alright. I mean, she is not that ugly, but her old man, my daddy, left her for a prettier woman he met at the carnival. She then met this man, who is now my stepfather and not a bad one at that, who kinda swept her off her wrinkled feet and she sure was swept off. He was a divorcee (because of ‘incorrigible differences’). Before I, or my twelve year old sister knew it, Mom was off on late night dates with extra rouge and before we could express our concerns, she was married to this guy. He was no rich man, probably why his wife dumped him. But my mother took hold of his business and worked hard to get it to the level it is now. We are now one of the richest and the ugliest families known in Once-upon O’Land. Mom was sure a hard working gal, but she was also a control freak. She wanted to show off to the world that life was good, by adorning us with ridiculously large feathered hats and frilly dresses. She painted my acne-drenched face with a coat of foundation and drew up my lips so that they look fat. She crammed my blubber in a corset so that it sounded like I wanted to throw up whenever I spoke. The tightness made me aggravated too. So basically, the tighter the corset became, the wickeder I grew. I guess holding your breath too long makes you callous. I was at the peak of loneliness and desperation, when Cinderella walked in through our Mahogany door. The unfortunate blonde’s mother has passed away on an overdose of rich wine. (Oh did I mention that she got carried away by her newly acquired rich life with her new husband?) 

Something in my unshapely heart shuddered at the sight of this fair-skinned, blue eyed, blonde. She wore a cobalt dress with a white sash and her thick hair which was braided symmetrically flowed down her toned back. Imagine her in a silk gown and she’d look like she was straight from up there. The moment Cinderella walked in, the room filled with jealousy and the sound of my stepfather’s uncertain voice. “This, my daughter, has no place to go now. I took her in”. First of all, I don’t know how he took her in, because the house belonged to my mother now. She had seduced him into signing the deed a couple of years ago. She deserved it anyway, because without her work, the house would still be leaky, musty and cramped. At first, Mom didn’t mind, because she could always use an extra hand around the house while she was off either balancing cheque books or lying around in the spa. Cinderella was pretty submissive. She scrapped clean tarred pots, while we complained, because they made our dark hands darker; she scrubbed the floor left to right, as we complained of our back aches; she watered the flowers at noon and we complained because sun made our dull skin duller. The complains, genuine mind you, made us lazier and uglier and fatter. 

What became of my intellect, you may ask. I kinda evolved to keeping my mouth shut, because when I spoke, people felt threatened. My croaky voice didn’t help much either. As for Cinderella, she could sing a shallow song about tender flower petals and deep blue eyes and walkers-by would lean on the fence to listen. The moment I realized why even the ugly guys didn’t call me back and my few friends refused to keep in touch, was because of my know-it-all-ness, I began to give up on my Einstein dreams. First of all, I started watching Gossip-Girl instead of Disocvery-Plus on TV; I traded my thrillers to Cosmopolitans and I spend time plucking my eyebrows thinner and thinner, rather than spending time on homework. By the time I turned 17, my eyebrows had vanished and so had my intellect. I was no more interested in Harvard or even the local community college. All I wanted was to be beautiful! 

Sadly, I didn’t know how to. Cosmopolitan advice is for the thin chicks. Even the workout clothes advertised on them come only in sizes 0 through 6. What about something that a size 14 can fit into? I sought comfort in chocolates and fries. I cried myself to sleep on bed, at least thrice a day, I scrubbed my skin with all the beauty stuff I heard of or saw. I colored my hair blond and red and blue and black, I painted my eye lids in every shade of magenta. The more I tried the more depressing it became and the bitterness was expressed by anger. That was my part of the story. 

It was all bad, but not closely as bad as the day of the long awaited royal ball. Prince Charming, was the one man around, I had a massive crush on. Ever since I saw him on telly, when I was six and he was some ten-years, standing beside his mother, the queen, I wanted to marry him. I would spend hours dreaming about his hazel eyes and dimply smile and scribbling his name in curly letters all over my notepads. Ever since I heard that it was customary that princes throw a 21-year old birthday gala, I counted the days to see his face in real. Since six months to his 21^st birthday, I tried very hard to look better. I went on a celery stick diet, jogged to the spa every day and even did a thousand ab crunches morning and night. My dress for the ball wasn’t that amusing. Well, when you look like me, nothing thrown on you, even if it is designed by Vera Wang, would disguise you. No coats of Mac or conditioned, heat-styled hair would look appealing. But I did try. I hoped that Charming would see me for who I am. My long tarnished personality didn’t help much either. Before a could blink off the leaking mascara off my eye balls, there she was, Cinderella, dressed in the perfect gown, hugging her 25-inch waist, in the arms of the one man, I’d have given my right arm to share a kiss with. Need I say more?

Years after Cinderella’s story was penned, I the ‘ugly’ step sister seemed like a good-for-nothing villain, to millions of young and old readers. Everyone rejoices at the fortune of the ‘poor-hardworking girl’ who acquired the life of a goddess, but no writer talks of the three nights I stayed locked up in my room, out of sheer misery of knowing, believing, that I was going to age into an ugly, wicked, lonely old woman. The later versions of the story turned me into a joker with no desire to be nice too. Would the story have been any different if Cinderella didn’t look so good or she didn’t sing like a nightingale? Would I still be misjudged if someone asked why I was the way I was? 

But what I want you to know is that, there is always, ALWAYS another perspective to every story. Don’t embrace the obvious. Maybe, just maybe, things aren’t always what they seem.

The Orange Café - A very Lankan Affair

           I was not supposed to be here. I was not supposed to see him. When my parents first found out about Rukshan, they didn’t tell me. They didn’t ask a word about the boy I’ve been seeing for the past 5 months and 20 days. Later, our home was chaos. Father blamed it on Mother’s lack of parenting competency and Mother blamed Father, for being over-protective. My father was never too over protective. If you meet Nishanthi’s parents, you would know what I mean. Her father wouldn’t let her go even for a group tuition class. She had teachers coming to her house to help her with the second round of Advanced Levels. She was never allowed to come on class trips, nor was she allowed to go to parties. Nishanthi didn’t own a skirt shorter than her knee and she wasn’t allowed to be seen in skimpy tops even if the temperature outside was well over humid thirty-two degrees. I was not overprotected like that. In fact, that is why I’m sitting here, in a middle-class café, waiting for my lover of almost half dozen months.

It was eleven in the morning. I had to be in my accounting tuition class by twelve thirty. It was hot, even with the massive rotating fan which was fixed to the wall. The wallpaper of the café was orange; someone with very bad sense of colour had placed vases filled with hot pink roses on each table. On the side of the small area was a beat-up staircase that led to the top floor. It had a sign with an arrow pointing upwards on it saying ‘Lunch Only’. On to my right was a glass shelf full of various short eats. They looked fairy fresh. Even if the fish-buns were stuffed with half-boiled potatoes (and no fish at all), I would have eaten one. I was hungry. Rukshan never gets late. It was 11.03 already. He was three minutes late. 

        Rukshan and I met at a friend’s birthday party. It was Kasuni’s 18^th party and she had a splendid celebration at her grandmother’s massive garden. It was one of the few parties I’ve been to. I didn’t get invited to many. Rukshan was with some guys, most of them were known to me from this tuition class and that. But, I had never seen Rukshan before; I would have remembered him if I had. He wasn’t exceptionally handsome that night, with his spiked hair and dark clothes, but there was some charisma about his personality which struck me. He was standing at the center of the group of boys (well over half a foot taller than most of them) and when he spoke, they all stopped to listen. When he looked at me that night, for the first time, I could feel my eyes darting away towards my feet. I blushed. After that moment, I couldn’t pay attention to what my friends were chatting about around the dinner buffet or hear the music on the dance floor. My eyes would search for him moment after moment. That night I was a lovesick fool. But, sitting here, after nearly six months of getting to know Rukshan, my affection for him has grown beyond a moment’s infatuation. I am in love with my head. Rukshan is my first boyfriend, and I knew he was definitely the last. At that thought I smiled. I checked the time on the wall clock on the orange wall again. 11.07. Four more minutes had passed. I was getting anxious. 

       After the night at Kasuni’s party, I asked around about Rukshan. It was a fortune that I had managed to overhear his name at the party. He was twenty three back then. Definitely not one of the boys from my world! He would be twenty five this August on the day of my first advanced level paper. I looked around the place, while fiddling with my silver chain. He got it for me for new years. It had a heart shaped pendant on it and fit around my neck almost perfectly. I was getting rather hot. “Excuse me, can I have something cool to drink?” I asked the man who brushed passed me. He looked down at me in an odd way. “Miss, I am not a waiter” he said without smiling and continued to go wherever he was going. Embarrassed, I blushed. I decided it was best I kept quite until Rukshan came. I looked at the pastries next to the fish buns. I would never eat a pastry when I was out in public. You get the pastry crumbs all over you and you’d never know if you’ve got them on your face or not. Such a mess!

A week and a day after Kasuni’s party, Jehan passed a note to me during a Business Studies class. My heart skipped a beat when the girl next to me handed it over and said it was from Jehan. He wasn’t bad looking and he had a reputation for being smart. In our class, the boys sat on the left side and the girls on the right. They didn’t sit together even if they were brother and sister. I took the note from Jehan and looked up at the teacher. He was explaining something with his back to us. Christine who was sitting next to me nudged my thigh and whispered ‘What?’ With the folded note still in my sweaty palms, I looked at Jehan, he was looking straight ahead at the teacher, with a very serious expression on his face. He was handsome. I didn’t consider myself a pretty girl. I had a shapely body, my friends would say. Ruskhan has mentioned the slenderness of my limbs and the graceful height I inherited more than once. But I felt too lanky. I wish I had rounder breasts and larger hips. A friend once mentioned that boys liked curves, but not fat. I am not anywhere near fat or anywhere near curvy. But flipping through foreign beauty magazines, I’ve realized that my body could fit in well with those girls; except, my face would have to be blotted out. My skin is a golden tan – the only physical feature I’ve inherited from my father. My eyes are small and close-set with short eyelashes and drooping eyelids. I hated them. My nose is small and asymmetric and I have large maroon lips I feel are too close to my nose. My hair is a jet black mass of waves, which I usually tie in a knot at the base of my slender neck. 

          Another five minutes passed. Three boys entered the café, all of them dressed in skinny jeans and brightly colored t-shirts. They had their hair stuck down with too much oil. One of them looked at me, but turned to the shelf of food. “Three plain teas, brother” one shouted to the waiter who was now behind the counter. “No no, two plain and one Nescafe ok?” the second changed the order. “Anything to eat brother?” the young waiter asked the three boys. “Wade? Six Wade with Sambol is good” (Wade is a deep fried patty made of flour and dhal ground together and Sambol is a rather popular food here, made of scraped coconuts mixed with plenty of onions, slat and chilies). The boys sat around the table next to mine. They were chatting about Sangakkara stepping down from his captaincy and this and that about cricket. They seemed to be keen fans and maybe players themselves. After a moment, their Wade arrived, hot and aromatic. I grew hungrier. It was 11.28 now. 

                It took me a lot of bravery to open the note Jehan had passed. I was half excited and half anxious that it might be a cruel joke played on me by someone. A distant cousin once drew an elongated, distorted me, with ‘You are a Pabaya’ (scarecrow) scrolled at the bottom and gave it to me saying it was a picture of me. I opened the note to find a couple of short sentences written in untidy handwriting. It said “I would like to know you better. Please call me if you can – 07*******. Rukshan from Kasuni’s party J”. I folded the paper almost immediately. My heart beat faster and I felt suffocated. The class was over packed anyway. There was barely enough space on the bench even for my bony buttocks. I sat through the rest of the lesson uneasily, looking at the massive clock that was above the blackboard in front of me. It was five minutes slower, so every time I checked the time, I had to add five to it. I didn’t own a phone. My parents thought it was unnecessary. I didn’t stay out late anyway. Apart from school and then one extra class on Monday evenings, and my Accounting class Saturday afternoon, I was always with my parents. I would spend my days studying or watching TV. If my older brother was at home, I would have a chat with him. He studies in Paradeniya University and comes home only once a month or less. Sometimes I’d help Mother in the kitchen.

                      I felt uneasy now. It was nearing midday and seemed like Rukshan was not coming. This was the first time this has happened and I felt confused. I sat at the table half surprised that no one had questioned my presence for nearly an hour in the café and half scared. I remembered all the accidents I’ve heard about on TV and the even more terrible stories of people getting kidnapped. But I didn’t have a choice. So grabbing my linen book bag, I headed to the exit of the café. The waiter looked pityingly at me. “He didn’t come? You didn’t eat anything also sister”. I smiled with no enthusiasm and asked him to pack a pastry for me. Then I asked him for another pastry. “Give me two of those and a milk packet. Oh, I want an egg cutlet also please”. “115 rupees” he said. I pulled out all the cash I had in my wallet and gave him two hundred rupee notes. I realized I had only hundred more. “Five rupees miss?”. “No”. “No change?”. “No”. “Ok, I took 110. ok?”. “Thank you”. I put my food and drink in my bag and started heading towards my tuition class. That afternoon, I sat through an accounting class with no numbers in my mind. I didn’t even bother to take notes. I was there because I had to be. My father was coming to take me home. I wished in my mind, I could go back to the orange café. Maybe Rukshan would have come anyway. Maybe he got late. His mother may have gotten sick or he maybe sick. 

                    I remembered the first time he kissed me. It was on my right cheek. We were at some small restaurant too well-set for its cheap food. It had beautiful paintings on its clay walls and a small recorder played piano music. We had started talking about our future when the expression on Rukshan’s face changed into something I couldn’t read. He looked around quickly and pecked me on my cheek. “I love you” he said and I believed him. I blushed. “I’d run away with you if I could”. I smiled. Two days later I missed my Monday class to go to the afternoon movies with him. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt from my school dress. The movie was some English action film. It wasn’t good. It didn’t matter because in the darkness of the corner of the theater, he kissed my lips. The man on the screen was talking to his General about devising a killer plan. He pressed his lips against mine with force. I had mine closed and my eyes wide open. I wasn’t sure what to do. He put his arm around me and told me again, for the second time in less than a week that he loved me and I believed him. 

             I got three simple passes for my advanced level exam. I failed in English. I wasn’t that good at my writing and we never had qualified teachers for English. I ran out of time for the essay which carried a good chunk of my mark. I didn’t get entered to the university. “Told you not to get distracted with unnecessary things” Mother whined. “In vain I spent all that hard earned money on you. Should have saved for your sister. She will be a doctor for sure” Father blamed. My brother just said I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t like him. I decided to do my advanced level exam again. I enrolled at all the classes and promised my parents I would try harder. There was no other option for me anyway. So it was with great determination and courage I went to my new accounting class. There, after six months, I met Jehan. I was surprised that he hadn’t got through to the university either. He was sitting on the front row in the class and as I walked passed he stopped me. “I’m sorry” he said. I stared at him. “I lied. Rukshan was a cheater he didn’t love you.”I continued looking at him. He looked edgy. I didn’t find him attractive anymore. He had become fat and dark. His hair was like those other boys’ – glued to the skull. “He cheated on you with another girl”. He mumbled. “I know”. Standing there at the front of the class like a scarecrow, I remembered all the times he held my hand and made plans for the future. “He was lying” Jehan mumbled again. The moments with him, they were sweet. I never cried during the months after the day in the orange café, though I missed him and wondered what had gone wrong. I hoped at night that he was safe. I didn’t cry. It was as though I couldn’t. But standing there, where all could see me because of my slender height, listening to Jehan’s mumbles which had become senseless now, somehow I felt that I knew. I turned away and walked out of the class room. The evening sun was hot against my sweaty skin. I brushed the loose strands of entangled hair off my face. I walked with no awareness of the direction I was headed until I reached a small board which said “Breakfast and Lunch. Tasty Food”. I knew I was where I was meant to be. I stepped onto the café with gaudy orange walls and sat by the bright pink roses. Maybe he’d come today and I could ask him why. 

The Aappa Story

t was early morning on Saturday. Kumdu stretched while letting a long, loud and lazy yawn out. Her little sister kicked her on the right. “aiyooo! (Oh no!)” Kumudu whispered irritated. Iresha was small but her bony kicks hurt. Kumudu got off the bed quick because she didn’t want Iresha waking up at this early hour. If she did, it would be a nuisance. Babysitting Iresha was the most pathetic task and Kumudu hated it. So getting off the bed in haste, she covered up Iresha with the stripy bed sheet and walked to the broken mirror glass that was hanging by a nail by the bed. Wiping off the fog with her palm, she quickly fixed her hair in two pleats and rushed to the kitchen which was in the other room. In fact, the only other room in the house.

Amma (Mother) was already busy in the kitchen, baking the aappa (hoppers). The woodchip stove was blistering on the left corner and a pan on that was baking the 15th hopper of the morning. “Amma… How many aappa today?” Kumudu asked her mother, through another lazy yawn. Ignoring her question, her mother continued to stir the mixture in the aluminum pan. “Today also hundred and fifty aappa, amma?” Kumudu tried again. Her mother was acting deaf to Kumudu’s annoyance. Usually, their early morning exchanges consisted of details about hoppers, the hopper dealers and their customers. Eager to wake herself up from the sleepy daze, Kumudu leaned on the wall and went on. “Yesterday, I saw teacher. You know teacher no? She asked me if I could make aappa on my own” not knowing whether her mother was listening or not, she continued blabbering “when I said I don’t, she was surprised. She said ‘shame shame’ shaking her head. I was so embarrassed amma” she stopped to take a breath. “So I thought during this Aurudu holiday, you can teach me how to make aappa on my own. Not only aappa amma, I want to learn how to make Kawum (oil cakes)…ummm ummm…. You make Kawum so tasty no amma? Will you teach me? My friend Chathu said she knows how to make………..”

“Here, Kumudu, scrape that coconut near the stove, hiramane (coconut scraper) is behind the door” her mother interrupted her. “ane (please) Amma, you were not listening!” Kumudu frowned. “You talk so much child. Can’t understand what you are saying even!” her mother said with a blank expression across her face. Confused and wondering if they had lost yet another customer, like they had during the past few days, Kumudu decided to remain silent. The last thing she wanted was to get her mother angry before the break of dawn. So she sat down on the narrow hiramane and started scraping the fresh coconut. Sitting by the door, Kumudu remembered her Appachchi (father). He was shot dead on the very same spot she was sitting. Appachchi had failed to pay the debt he took for his bicycle from the Mudalaali (owner of a shop). Mudalaali had threatened him several times, before turning up at their door step one night with his riffle and shooting appachchi. Amma was dragged off and she came back looking aghast the next morning. Mudalaali was a crazy man, that is what everyone said. Kumudu didn’t miss Appachchi that much because she was very small when he died. Iresha was just a baby.

After several hours, the sun started to rise. The birds were chirping outside. Kumudu loved this time of the day. All she wanted to do was run along the gravel path on bare feet and sing with the birds. She was no singer, but she didn’t mind. She had a song in her mind about flowers and rainbows and flags waving in the wind. But her daydream trance was broken when her mother handed her the two large baskets filled with hot hoppers and sambol (a popular food item in Sri Lanka which is paired with almost anything from bread to string hoppers made of coconut mixed with chilli, onions, lime and salt). “Give this to the Udaha Kade (Upper shop - Location of the shop) aiya (brother) and tell him we need money today ok?” “Don’t come without the money child”. Iresha was now crying in the other room. Maybe she was cold or mosquitoes were biting her poor little toes.

With the baskets in either arm, Kumudu set out to the Kade (shop). “Maybe Kade Aiya will give me a toffee today”, she smiled broadly at the little squirrel that was perched on a dead tree. “Maybe today’s toffee will be coffee flavor…. maybe caramel. Who knows, he may even have an apple taste toffee… maybe if I am lucky, he would have an extra Kandos (a popular brand of Sri Lankan chocolate) chocolate from yesterday…………maybe if I drop a piece of chocolate in the right spot on the ground, it will become a chocolate fountain!!! I will call it my mother’s name! All the children can come and fill buckets of chocolate. And near that I will plant toffee trees, red one on the right……………”

(Adapted from a true story)

Easy recipe fro Aappa - http://www.infolanka.com/recipes/mess1/35.html