Sandy stood motionless in the bus. Staring from the window
to the other side of the road. 'Are you who you are?' People brushed against
her in the corridor. Her heart jumped for her breath. The homeless man held the
cardboard sign to his chest. The handwriting was wobbly. Some alphabets were
straight and bold, like a slap to the eye and some were cursive and sloppy,
like a meek reminder unsure if it was important.
The man raised the sign above his head when he caught her
eye. His bare chest was taut. Sandy looked away in disgust, bile rising in her
throat. As the bus curved along the curb, it was inevitable to see him. He kept
his piercing eye on her. Even when the bus exited the main street she felt a
pair of eyes on her head, as if she was a target about to be taken down.
She stepped down at the next bus stop and checked herself
for any inconsistency. The pencil light pink skirt was creaseless. The matching
pink cardigan was pale as ever. Only the black bow bouncing under the collar
seemed to belong to her, though she bought all her clothes. It was not even a
bow, but a silky tie sold with a boy's tuxedo.
It was a cloudy Monday morning last week. The phone had kept
buzzing as it was wedged between her shoulder. She shuffled the shopping bags
and an ache released from her shoulder in spasms. The shattering of glass
informed her of her folly. The phone had slipped. Underneath a labyrinth of
cracks, it flashed with incoming messages. For the first time, in a long time,
she looked up. In the reflection from the polished glass which showed colorful
vehicles passing by, a woman looked back at her. Her ragged hair was disheveled
though she had tucked the strands in neatly when she left the home a half hour
ago. She could never forget the look. She was tired, shoulders sagging, no
different from the lady behind the grocery counter. She hated her, though now
her hate radiated towards everyone.
It was then she looked past her own reflection into the
shop's interior and saw the tie on a dwarf mannequin.
She blinked when the reflection shook in the bus window.
Today a different woman looked back at her. Today she was not falling apart at
the seams. The bus started on its way. She looked down at her light pink pumps.
The veins in her foot swelled up because they were too tight.
'I look like Mrs. Dolores from Harry Potter!'
At the office, the gold trimmed revolving doors invited her.
She felt like a kid scared to go to school. Panic rose in her throat. What if
they make fun of her?
She frantically looked for her mother. But then, she had
been dead for 3 years. There was no familiar face around. She stared down at
the passing people. They all had a similar quality. They never looked her in
the eye. In a sea of navy blue and black, her baby pink didn't fit. She
fidgeted with her cardigan which had weaves of white wool running parallel. She
should run away. But there was nowhere to go.
The lift opened and she found herself walking the alley.
Apart from some open-mouthed stares and smirks, her colleagues did not do
anything.
At lunchtime, she walked up to the lunch room, her back
straight and head high. Some stifled a laugh, and others didn't put in much
effort. Her face turned the same colour as her clothes. This time she ran, her
feet pumping with pain in her pumps.
"Oh Bo pink! Don't you have some tea?" It was
followed by bouts of laughter.
She ran down the stairs and out the building. It was a
brilliant day with the sun beating on the sidewalks, a sight uncommon in the
damp alleys of London. She gave the shoes to the first person she saw sitting
along the walls.
She didn't stop.
She didn't slow.
Until she reached the main street.
Until she saw the curb.
Her beret had fallen off. Clips had slipped from her hair.
She didn't tuck them in.
She slowed down. Waited for the traffic to stop. Then walked
with her head held high like Moses with the walls of rumbling cars on her
sides.
She was only conscious of a pair of blue eyes. Her jaw
tightened. She stopped at the curb. Behind her the cars moved past. She took in
his tangled blond hair grazing his shoulders which almost resembled hers.
The calm had lifted. A storm took its place.
"Who the hell," she grumbled, "Do you think
you are? Who gave you a right to question people? You who has nothing!
Nothing!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "You don't have a home. I have
everything you could dream of." The blue eyes bore the same mocking
confidence. The man didn't flinch. He didn't point, he didn't pretend that she
was acting crazy, he didn't care to decide. His power lay in his knowledge of
being a nobody. He was just a mirror. Her voice eventually lowered as the
exasperation built up with his indifference. Doubt seeped behind her blatant
accusations, which poked her the moment the cruel words left her mouth.
She took a step behind and took in everyone around her.
Nobody had stopped. They kept walking along the sidewalks. Indifferent.
She was panting like an animal. Hungry she was. Why don't
they cage her? Why don't they hurt her so at least she could blame them for
what she had become? Then the fight would not be internal. She deserved
that at least.
The man raised the sign again. Are you who you are?
She sighed, drooping her shoulders. Tears brimmed her eyes.
She looked at the stranger's feet, at the peeling black boots. The ground he stood
at seemed more sturdy than the one under her feet. "No," She
whispered and turned away. She walked back, slowly this time.
Her feet were black with grime. She stumbled back to her
office desk and moved through the pile of files. "Look at me," she
thought, "working in a corporate firm." Her mother would say that,
her tone etched with vain pride.
Her immigrant Indian parents had convinced her to pursue
business studies. She was a confused teenager, flocking from advice to advice
and the people around her took full advantage of it. She didn't look the way
she had pictured herself working, when she was in college. Hair tangled,
eyeliner dripping on her cheeks and bare feet. When she got up to leave, she
saw a China teaset sitting on a shelf behind her. She shook her head. Her
colleagues were true to their words.
There were pink flowers along the bottom, so delicate that
they were almost transparent. She picked it up and held it close to her face,
her eyes caressing the details. There were a few smirks and escaped sniggers
behind the cubicle. The teaset reminded her of her mother, though she had never
owned a teaset in her lifetime. Her mother never cared for such superficial
things.
Sandy remembered to quit her job after she submitted the
files.
Holding the pink box under her arm she walked barefoot to
her apartment on the other side of town. The sky spilled shades of crimson,
bidding adieu to the sun. She hummed to herself a nursery rhyme. The air was
crisp. Overheard was clear and so was her head.
It was when she sat down on her sofa, that the gravity of
what she had done dawned on her. But there was no guilt, only surprise that she
could change her life. For years, she had been passing through the motions,
doing what was expected of her. Numb. Now she had stepped off the band wagon.
She was lost but not worried.
It was not the longing for home that she had experienced in
the moment when she picked the teaset. But the reminder of the longing she had
felt at her parent's house for years. A longing for home. Her home.
She looked around her apartment. Was this it? Was this her
home? The sickening feeling that was rising up her chest suggested
otherwise. She had thought as a child, that her home would be British in every
sense. Tea would be served in a teapot in the evening. A tiny thought poked her
and soon similar dreams, both big and small tumbled through. Her dream of
owning a library and organizing book readings for the neighborhood children.
She would have served coffee with scones. Once she did muster up the courage to
tell her mother, "You are ambitionless, Sandy."
In that moment, she had realized that the longing would
never go away, unless she did something about it. The thought came again
putting a momentary halt to her tears. She was heartbroken but knew what she
had to do.
For the last five years, she had been making spreadsheets
for a manufacturing company. The respite that people offered her was that one
day she would get the corner office with her skills.
••••••
The next morning, she sat on the same bus she took to office
but did not get down at her stop. Beside her, on the last seat, were all the
belongings that meant something to her. The teaset was on top.
The door on her apartment was locked and would remain that
way until someone else would take a liking to its cramped view and walk in
closet.
She changed her bus at the terminal. Soon the skyscrapers
gave way to corn fields. As day turned into night and night into dawn, the
distant horizon marked the outline of a house. The door was opened by an
elderly housekeeper Mrs. Bertha. Sandy could imagine setting up more shelves in
the living room, using the attached kitchen for serving. Mrs. Bertha pecked
behind her through the rooms.
The air was musty and she could spot cobwebs in the corners.
Some floorboards were missing and the radiator was broken.
The ceiling in the cellar sagged in the middle with strain.
Mrs. Bertha rallied on a list of things that needed a
makeover. The words did not have the affect they would once have had. Sandy
smiled at her, "We will be all right."
/Published in the anthology 'An Ode to Autumn ', available on Amazon/