By: Renishaki Kamalanathan
I always tremble, mumble, twist and turn in my bed feeling dead, cold with that uneven conscious state of not knowing where I was. The wetness of my sweat on the plastic covering over my queen-sized bed that Aunt Sitha left on, annoyed me as if it was residue of blood. I always seemed to repeat Maya’s name regardless of tone, whether it was whispering, mumbling, or yelling. I could recall the time it actually happened and have had the paranoia for the past eight years of my life. That is when Aunt Sitha realized that I had a problem, that I needed help and Dr.Dager is just the right person. Dr.Dager is my psychiatrist and he listens to my stories often. Most of which are the same and I always mentioned Maya.
It was the 6th of July 1987. I can remember feeling misplaced, alone and cold. Opening my eyes I only noticed the darkness that gazed upon me. I smelled a harsh mixture of odours that filled my guts emphasizing the emptiness I felt having not eaten for hours, more like weeks. My body layed lifeless on the moist ground composed of soil and thick muggy residue. It must be blood, I guessed. Parts of my body stung as I reached for the side of my right forearm noticing a deep cut covered in crusted vital fluid and dirt as the faint moonlight seeped through the hovering mango tree leaves. The vague whistling of the wind was unfamiliar with distant screaming in familiar voices. That is when I remembered my little sister Maya, still positioned on the commonplace I felt a twitch in the fingers on my right hand as it searched for her hand. My throat felt scorched as I struggled to even whisper out her name. “M..a..ya…” I tried to pull together my thoughts of what had happened last before I ended up where I was.
Finding the ground felt like fallen, crippled petals trying to be reattached to their stem. Every segment, every limb, ached. My heart gasped with very harsh thumps. Scrutinizing the area of shadowed figures, dirt, dead grass, a vague wrecked building; I began to remember where I was.
We were in school together; it was Maya and I along with twenty-nine other twelve- year- old boys and girls. We were learning about three great kings of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. We were preparing a play based on the kings for Culture Night: a show our school was hosting later that evening for all the people in the village of Vani.
“Aha! Sword fights!” Maya was calling out every second, as she enjoyed playing the role of a ruler. He was described to be as strong and honest as she was.
“Now classes get together your props and we shall begin decorating the stage,”
Ms. Kanmani said and that was the last instruction I heard from her. I loved her very much; we all did. She was gentle and wise much like a mother to all of us.
The atmosphere of the classroom and stage room along with every other room in the school was filled with laughter, joy and anxiety. That is when the massive blasting noises erupted. Kids around me began to scream looking for places to hide in.
“They were back!” I thought to myself. The wetness in my eyes mirrored the expressions that overcrowded the room. I was scared and searched for Maya. Trying to be as loud as I could, forcing my voice to overpower the hollering from room to room.
“Oh MAYA! Where Are You!” Tears rushing down my cheeks as legs and arms peeping from corners tripped me.
I was seeing shadows. I heard very harsh breathing of frightened people. No teacher or student was to be found. Hiding underneath desks, inside cupboards: every breathing soul was clutching onto life. My life was Maya and she was nowhere to be found. I used my sweaty white uniform polo to wipe the wetness off my face, to get a clearer view. I was seeing nothing but darkness and now hearing nothing but dead silence. No sound from inside or outside, even the thundering noise had vanished as well. I took a couple of steps through the inaudible and invisible crowd, still in search of Maya. And that’s when it happened.
The walls, tables, chairs, every piece of matter began rumbling as the roof came crashing into millions of pieces. The loud cries for help erupted. Fifty, seventy-five bombs released continually from all directions. Toys; (I think they were toys) were soaring in the air as lifeless beings separated by appendages.
“MAYA! MAYA! MAYA!” I yelled out. Roaring with fear in my voice, eyes and body, I was running and running through everything that was happening around me. I couldn’t bear to see what was really going on. “*Amma used to tell me a story like this…”, as the thought was rushing quickly through my brain I still was managing to make my way through a place that was once my classroom. The gusty wind that I was breathing was not the same. It felt nauseous. I still heard screams, some were cut short. I didn’t turn to look around to see why. I saw one of Maya’s friends coming my way with half her costume drenched in blood and her hands shaky.
“Where’s Maya! Where’s Maya!”
Before she could answer my hail, I heard a noise similar to the humungous delivery truck that Maya and I saw earlier today. It wasn’t a truck this time. As I was trying to grab hold of Maya’s friend, a massive missile came shooting down right in between us. Splatters of blood hit my body as I then felt a prodigious force lifting me off the uneven ground. My head hit the ledge of a shattered windowsill. I blacked out and my weak body catapulted out of the window. Now I was lying here . . . on my bed was it?
“Why did this just happen?”Confused as my state was, I recollected my thoughts of Maya. I took my filthy right palm, reaching for the side of my head. Every side of it was pounding since the abrupt rackets ceaselessly rung in my ears. Having little to no strength at all, I gripped my paining figure to a stable position. She was the only one on my mind.
That day filled with hours, seconds of curiosity and the deepest feeling of displacement aches in my heart every time the scene replays itself like a movie trailer in my head. Now living my life in a home with my Aunt Sitha having to adapt to a new bed, desk, new faces and names is overwhelming hence I need Mr. Dager. He listens and he listens really well; I sometimes mistake him for a mute. He sits cross-legged on the wooden chair that matches the texture of my desk while I lay on my bed. The half-filled glass of my aunt’s own recipe of a mango shake leaves a permanent mark on the wood.
“Mangos!” Having to have repeated the fruit’s name in past sessions
“ Mangos? Are they your favourite fruits,Selvi?” Mr. Dager asked.
“Maya. It was Maya’s favourite fruit.”
Formless images of that mango tree hovered over me clouded my mind again, prompting the times Maya would ask to stand on my shoulders to reach for the closest branch with two mangos. She was tiny, fragile with a mind much more mature. “Stand still, I have got one!” Maya’s laugh was soft and victorious. Even then we would feel indefinite rumbles of the ground.
Maya would always find it as a playful action with her light chocolate arms spread across and her size-four feet side to side, “ Hey look at us! We are surfing like Stacey and her friends in that photo.” Stacey is Aunt Sitha’s daughter. Maya would always mention her because we sat around telling each other about our dreams and how we were living our young lives in America. Staring into the dirt beneath our bare feet, we even remembered our dreams about shoes and clothing that covered our bosoms at least. I would hold Maya’s hand intertwined in my coarse fingers and gaze at her juvenile, seeking eyes that knew nothing but only saw the positivity beyond the poverty we lived in and being orphaned at such a vulnerable age. I had always lied to her nervously about *Amma and Appa.
“When are they coming from America to take us? “ Maya asked with curious innocence. I had repeated that response so often that I even forgot why they had not come back to see us although the truth was not close to a horror film. I could remember that night as well.
Our home, very comparable to a fisher’s hut by the coasts, was just enough for the five of us: Appa, Amma, Anna, Maya and I. We all slept on a braided cream-coloured mat, all five of us side to side with Anna and Appa at both ends as Anna said they were the protectors of the princesses of the home. Amma would be beside Appa who always clenched her body near his chest as they whispered and laughed and shared amity in secrecy though Anna and I would notice and share smiles at each other. That night we heard abrupt screaming from our next door neighbour Rani Amma.
“Oh my god. What could be going on at this hour? Come with me, let’s go check,” Amma said panicky as she tapped Appa to get up. As they were making their ways to the front door using only the single candle light in the room, we heard gun shots and Rani Amma’s screaming halted. Anna’s strapping arms tugged around my body as I clutched Maya’s in mine. Amma’s eyes were wide open with tears sitting on the edge of her lids almost like the facial expression she had when telling us ghost stories. Loud battering began to fill the entire house.
“ GO! Go hide under the kitchen now!” Amma said anxiously, shuffling her sari to stay in place as her other arm flicked at her wrist telling all three of us to go. That was the last time I saw Amma and Appa, soon did I realize Anna too. Anna had shoved Maya and me in the cupboard.
“Do not say anything! Do not come outside, and keep Maya safe too. Okay Selvi?” he harshly whispered.
Maya was still half asleep resting her head near my stomach with her soft hands holding on to mine. I heard Appa’s courageous voice asking men who they were and what is that they wanted followed with Amma’s voice being faint as if her mouth had been taped and Anna’s voice slightly shaky then silenced. These men spoke in an unfamiliar language, it was not Tamil.
“Army men!” I whispered, eager to know the state of my family. Holding back because of what Anna had said, I waited as all the chaos silenced and the voices of the men slowly dissociated. I opened the cupboard door and Maya woke up to the sudden jolt. We both crept out quietly. Too focused on where Amma and Appa could be, Maya tugged on my arm and pointed to a spot shadowing a figure.
“Anna?”
“ANNA?” and there was no reply in return.
Holding Maya even closer to me, we walked fearfully towards the shadow. One more step and I felt the warmth of a pool of liquid. I held tightly to Maya’s hand only hoping that she had no idea of what could have taken place. I ran back toward the kitchen, through the back door and into the backyard. Weeks later, Ms. Kanmani found us sitting by a filthy sidewalk and took us to a home.
Dr.Dager’s pen noted down all that I was telling him about and then a familiar voice from the hallway was entering the room.
“I will never forget about you Maya. Never.”
I exchange a look of hope with Dr.Dager’s pen and notebook. I knew that all my problems were pouring out into sheets and sheets of paper, which will soon be history. Dr.Dager gazed up at me and he feels a vibe of hope to experience some sort of mental stability and change.
“Selvi?”
I look up automatically like I had just woken up from a bad dream.
“Eight years is a very long time. You are fortunate to be living and Maya, Amma, Appa, and Anna would hate to see you constantly imprisoning yourself with the past.” Dr. Dager softly whispers across the room to the bed I was lying on.
“But Maya, it was our dream to live in America.” I say quietly in a hesitant voice.
“Write to her! Write letters to Maya about how you are doing, tell her how America is.”
An eager emotion with a smile on my face I quickly opening the desk drawer, pulling out a couple of letter pads and a pen.
“Great! Just get those letters to your Aunt and we will surely speak again in a week or so.” Collecting his things, Dr.Dager drinks the last bit of the mango shake and makes his way to the front door.
I sit with a content face and begin to write away. Beginning with: “Dear Maya, I miss you. But I am living our dream…”
Tags: Cafe, Poetry/Art, Speak Out
