ikan bakar - fish grilled in banana leaves, covered in spicy marinate

Rathi was not sure why she was there. She knew she liked spending time with him, he had the right balance of light hearted humour and awkward charm. She knew she liked sharing odd details with him. She also knew of his taste in girls and that she was nowhere near that range.

She stared at a back that was becoming fast becoming familiar to her. He had his blazer off and was wearing a light blue work shirt with small white stripes. Rathi looked away and waited for him to take the escalator down one floor to where she stood – Baskin Robbins.

“I should play it cool,” she thought to herself and decided she would be all grown up about it. Instead she turned and smiled as he walked along the row of shops towards her. She did not realize it then but she was smiling for a good five minutes, taking in his slightly rolling gait, the slight stubble and his loafers.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked as he walked up to her.

“Dinner would be good,” Rathi said a bit stupidly. “Ikan bakar?” she added quickly, trying to save a measure of dignity.

“Ok, suggestions as to where? The best ikan bakar I know of is right here in this mall.” His smile was slow and Rathi was pretty certain he had no clue as to what it was doing to her insides. At least she hoped he did not.

“There’s this place in Damansara. I think. Went there once and I’ve yet to find a place better than that. How? Ok ah?”

James shrugged. “The thing is I parked over at the Gardens. You don’t mind the walk, do you?”

Rathi laughed. “Sure beats taking the commuter.”

They walked along, chatting about nothing much in particular. They spoke about Baskin Robbins and about how he once donned a pink hairband and another friend flashed a pink bra to get the Wednesday discount and Rathi wondered in a small corner of her mind if she had ever owned a pink bra.

Then they got to the car park and James was frowning. “I think I parked on this side,” he said a bit hesitantly and led the way up the ramp and then stopped short. The look on his face as he turned around was so comical it made Rathi laugh in bed for months to come. “The car’s on the other side.” They walked back down the ramp and took the ramp leading to the oppsite side of the car park.

James tried to keep a straight face but he could see the flicker of a laugh on the face of the small woman he was with. He led her to his pride and joy, a red Ford, as old as him, but somehow intimately connected to each of his phases of life. He watched as she pressed her hand against the windshield at a McD’s drivethru sticker.

“So you have this and have yet to stick your roadtax, eh?” she asked quizzically.

“A man’s gotta get his priorities in life right, you know?” James grinned as she laughed a most unladylike laugh and told her a patchy history of his Ford and how it had covered 1000km within the KL-selangor radius within a week more than once.

Rathi smiled and inside she wondered again why he went through so much of trouble for other people and why they hardly knew anything about him as a person. Everything people had said about him being a lady’s man could be true, but all she saw was a pretty normal guy who she liked whiling away the hours with.

She noticed his firm grip on the steering, the relaxed manner with which he shifted gear. She blinked a bit and turned to look out of the window to stop herself from staring and remembering ridiculous details like his stubby fingers with squarish nails or the strong chin or short thick eyelashes.

“Ok so we’re at Damansara uptown, now where is it?”

Rathi squinted at the buildings. “This is where Farah works and did you know 99 Speedmart has the cheapest milk powder?” Saying that she kicked herself inwardly. Way to go to impress a guy, talk grocery shopping list with him. “Let me get the directions, ok? I know there’s a Famous Amos shop opposite the hawker centre.”

James frowned a bit as she asked for directions and grinned when she said she had directed him to the wrong place. They were supposed to go to SS2.

“Oh my God, did you just get me lost in my own backyard? The irony…” the melodrama in his voice made them laugh. He pulled over to the side of the road and Rathi watched as he determinedly tapped on his phone screen and GoogleMapped the hawker centre.

Twenty minutes later they were seated under the KL sky, yellow bulbs shining overhead as they tucked into ikan bakar, claypot chicken rice and popiah nyonya. She remembered his need to drown the fish in sambal and his ironic humour as he recounted work to her. They laughed over common friends and how their friends were convinced that something was up between the two of them.

As James laughed it off, Rathi told him how he was supposedly dating two other women at the same time, all mere speculations and how she had told a friend that it was his life and he could date whomever he fancied. She listened as to how he had developed feelings for one and was best friends with the other. She remembered how each guy friend she had ever known had fallen head over heels for both of these girls. Rathi looked down a bit self-consciously at her yellowed nails; yellowed from the saffron she had rubbed into the fish she had cooked earlier in the day. She could feel her appetite lessening as he described how those two girls were every guy’s dream girls and Rathi was enthralled. “So that was definitely his type of girl, eh?” she thought to herself.  

“So leaving on Wednesday, huh?” his sudden question brought her out of her reverie.

“Yup,” she replied, nodding. “It has been a good summer, you’ve made it a bit more interesting.”

James’ expression was unreadable as they drove back. They were racing against the clock as he had an appointment with his mother. His phone rang and he picked up.

“Which girl you with now?” Rathi could hear his mother ask teasingly on the phone. “Amma will be a bit late, Aiya,” she heard her say.

“It’s OK, Amma, I’ll just hang out with my friend a bit longer.” Saying that he hung up, smiled at Rathi and made a U-turn at the traffic light. “Let’s maximize our time together, shall we?”

Rathi laughed and wondered if he knew how charming his subtle wit was. They drove back to PJ and swapped stories on PJ outings, his more social oriented, Rathi’s a bit more commonplace.

“You do realize we’re going around this roundabout for a second time, right?” Rathi pointed out.

“Ah, damn, you noticed,” his voice was light. “It’s just nice, driving around, I do it at times.”

“Indicator’s still on,” Rathi said and smiled at the flash of annoyance in the corner of his eye. It felt shockingly comfortable, spending time with this person she was just getting to know.

His phone rang again. He was to go get his mum in fifteen minutes.

The drive back was relatively silent, each lost in thought.

“The white gate,” Rathi said, aware that she might never see him again. “Thanks for dinner, twas good.”

He held out his hand. “I’ll see you around, then.”

Rathi stared at that hand for a while then smiled and reached out for an awkward half hug. She felt the slightest sense of relief as he hugged her back and then they drew apart and she opened the door. She was about to close it again, but then bent down and said seriously, “You still owe me Vitagen you know, I guessed your passion for cars and interest in photography without even knowing you.”

His slow smile wreaked the same havoc on her insides and she gripped the car door a bit more firmly. “You should have reminded me, next time OK?”

Rathi nodded, not trusting herself to answer.

She closed the door and waved. The car did not move. She sighed. He was obviously one of the few guys left that wouldn’t leave until she was safe inside the house. She locked the gate and watched the red car move away.

“Hi, Farah,” she said a bit listlessly, suddenly feeling empty. “Gonna change.” Rathi went into her room and sat on the edge of her bed. So what if she did not see him anymore, she would still try and keep in contact with him. Being his friend was all she wanted, right? Not like he would look at her in any other way. But why had he made that U-turn and that unneeded roundabout circling? What was that? Was that how he was with all the girls? Rathi shook her head.

“Stop over analyzing. He’s being a friend, hopefully enjoying your company as much as you enjoy his,” she muttered under her breath. She giggled as she remembered how she had gotten a hug back.

45 minutes later she dialed his number. “Back home safe?” she asked him.

“Yup, made it just before the weekend jam. What’s plans for the night?”

They kept talking for a while more and as they shared stories and she told him how she was checking out his ex-girlfriends, he wondered what was going on. He decided he’d just go with the flow. After all she was leaving in a few days, and she was the nerd of the group. No way in hell she was developing an attachment for him. She had already established that she did not believe in relationships and had even ‘promoted’ one of her childhood friends as someone he should consider for a serious relationship. Serious relationship. Like he needed one right now. Or ever.

Somehow Rathi’s direct interest in him had a sort of magnetic pull. There was no guile there, at least none he could sense. She was a strange person, hardly the run of the mill girl people fell for. Eh wait what was he thinking. He smiled and went to do his laundry, trying to understand why Rathi kept talking to him or texting him or why he did the same. Boredom, perhaps?

The next morning when he woke up, he looked at his phone. No text message yet. Then his phone vibrated. It was from Rathi. He smiled as he read the message. It was nice to have a friend by him day in and day out. He remembered telling her how he had not texted or called anyone this much since his last relationship. He remembered how he had said it in passing but had looked at her for a response.

It would never work, whatever it is they were playing at. But for as long as it made them both happy, he’d keep at it. It was not as if either of them was looking for anything serious.

Prologue: James and Rathi are currently dating, nothing serious, just taking things as they come. But they’ve worked out a confidant system and have reached the you-annoy-me-lah stage and are still there in each other’s faces day in and day out. Neither one believes in relationships up till today.

*disclaimer: similarities to real events and people living or dead is almost purely coincidental

Tapping the vein, looking for a juicy one, my head spinning from the turmoil of the previous night, I still smile as my phone beeps. I've got you to go home to, see. Then I think back on the previous night.  Blood taking is very mechanical, small talk required, but it gives room for the tired mind to wander.

The patient was desaturating, 'Tukar high flow mask' I say after listening for ronchi or prolonged expiration. The nurses are well versed, they've already set up the crash cart and he's on the cardiac monitor. 'Boss, I'd like to inform you...' I say over the phone not knwing the patient's going into asystole. I rush back and climb onto the bed to do the chest compressions which many people argue is life saving, but in most cases I've seen it's more of a life prolongation. GCS dropping,intubation required, the MO has arrived. Fluid already being run, patient maxed out on triple ionotropes we get a bradycardic pulse. Arms heavy from fatigue we scramble off the bed and squint at the monitor. Is that a rhythm? Do we need atropine? Then heart rate becomes zero again and we do chest compressions again, patient's heart is stubbornly in asystole. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, the surrounding patients are hushed, suffering qualms of fear at the impending death of a fellow ward-mate.

I don't want my loved ones to spend their last few minutes like that. I've seen enough in the last few months. I feel the helplessness of family and slight glint of (?misplaced) hope as we ask them to stay outside while we resuscitate. Up to today I still tear each time it happens.

As the rib cage becomes more yielding under our persistent compressions, and the pupils become fixed dilated from a previous sluggish response over 2 days, we know our chnaces are slim for the patient to wake up and smile at his family. We know. We tell the family. DIL issued we say. Dia sudah tak ader  we say. Tindakbalas terhadap rawatan sangat kurang, jangkitan kumannya kuat sangat. Each time I say it something twists inside of me. Could we have done more? It's a life. It's a person someone else loves.

I don't want my loved ones to go with an NAR, nor do I want them to have tubes stuck down their throats or central lines flushed with drugs that give us a false impression of haemodynamic stability. I dont want their last active thought to be that of a tired medical worker shining a torch into their pupils or palpating their carotids. I dont want people to stick grey branulas into their groin area as they try for femoral lines when the BP is already spiralling downwards. I dont want them to suffer. But I will be damned if I signed an NAR and didnt try for that slight possibility that I might spend another 2 minutes with someone I care for.

Essentially to me, that's what CPR is. a temporary prolongation of live, and thne if God willing and the patient has what it takes, he/she survives and we medical workers have one less heartache. Don't be fooled. We feel for each person we care for,  whether he's an innocent or crimina, whether he's rich or old, or whether we like him/her or not.

So yes, I am against NAR, unless the prognosis is really horrendously bad. Until then, keep resuscitating. I prefer my people alive.

The Kitchen Business

*WARNING: Do not read if you are vegetarian, or have a particularly sensitive stomach :)

Y was smiling, telling me about how she planned to cook the chicken, what she had put into the marinade and it hit me that we were almost what we used to be – good friends.

We had met in Primary 1 – I think we were seated next to each other on the first day of class (I forget exactly…)

Then that day, almost two decades later, we stood in the same common kitchen; Y pushing the chicken aside and reaching for the basin with prawns in them, and I at the sink, gutting the awful fish that would be dinner.

“Yeah, I miss our markets, where the Aunty will de-scale, gut and cut up the fish into beautiful pieces,” I said over my shoulder at her, wincing inwardly at the slippery feel of the fish stomach lining that I was trying to remove.

“I know! And here, the marketing is a lot more expensive. It’s, what, more than double of the price we pay at home, plus the products aren’t exactly fresh, are they?” From the corner of my eye I saw her yanking off the head of an orange prawn which came off with a squishy sound, making us giggle.

I rinsed off the pieces of fish and took the twenty steps it takes me to get into my unit door where I unceremoniously stuffed the now clean and cut fish into my tiny refrigerator. 

“Where’s N?” Y asked me when I walked back into the kitchen.

“Sleeping, we finished at 4 this morning.” My roommate and I had been at another friend’s room, celebrating a birthday Malaysian style with a midnight rojak party after a major exam.

I half filled my pot with water and plopped the whole chicken in, waiting for it to defrost.

“Move over, Y.” I made my way to the other end of the kitchen and grabbed my cute little knife and started deveining the pile of headless prawns on her chopping board.

“You’re gonna die…!” Y said in a gruesome voice and snapped the head off the beady-eyed crustacean in her hand.

I concealed a smile. It felt good to have her friendship again. The last four years of awkwardness was fading away from my memory, that time when we had only said hi and exchanged formal pleasantries with each other.

Today, we aren’t exactly soul confidants to each other, but we can still depend on each other.

We have different groups of friends, but that is ay-oh-kay. We have become such different people, but we have somehow rediscovered how to click. That bond that had sprung between us during our school days apparently never really broke, it just got a bit frayed, and I have the kitchen and the time we spend in it to thank for realising that piece of truth.

               

Note: I discovered sometime ago that my Pakistani friends do not eat sea produce as they are not considered ‘halal’, which means that they’ve never tasted prawn/crab/shellfish before. They can eat fish though. I find that fascinating for some odd reason… Maybe it’s like a no pork, no beef thing in Muslims and Hindus and some Buddhists?

Writing.

Havent had time for it lately. The inspiration is in abundance though :p... perhaps one of these days. But that's what i've been saying for the past 3-4-5 mths... hehee... maybe tis time to accept that Connections needs to be put behind me? For a person that lets go of some things easily, some other things are way too hard for me to leave behind.. I think i take attachment to the point of obsession and disattachment to the point of schizoid personailty disorders. I need to find a middle path. This is when I should pay more attention to Buddhist teachings and seek the middle way. Oh well... back to my books for now..

The Cab Ride

This includes a number of slangs commonly used back home and is inspired by a friend who was hobbling around on crutches :)

That Friday morning Jarod’s cell phone rang at 6.30 a.m. He had gotten to bed only at 2 after cleaning up the kitchen where his brother had been camped out, working on something called ‘autocad’. Jarod did not know much about computers, he could use one and that was enough for him. His younger brother however was doing engineering and knew computers as well as Jarod knew the backlanes of KL.

Eyes heavy from barely 5 hours of sleep, he blinked a few times as he answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi, I got your number from a neighbour, I hope I didn’t wake you?” The voice was hesitant and seemed to belong to girl, probably in her late teens.

“It’s all right, moi.” Jarod wriggled his toes experimentally, trying to wake his sleeping body up.

“Are you free to send me to the hospital, Mr. Tan?”  There was a note of urgency in her voice.

Jarod squinted at the alarm clock on his side table. “Where do you live?” he asked, deciding that he might have enough time to squeeze in one more person before his regular customer, Puan Faira.

“Padang Jawa. My brother…I think he may have broken his leg. How fast can you get here?”

Jarod weighed the options between the highway with the toll charges and the back roads with minimal traffic. 

He sighed a small sigh and concluded that he would have to end up paying the toll-man. This sounded like a real emergency. “Fifteen-twenty minutes, can?”

“Yes. Thank you.” She gave him her home address and hung up.

Jarod washed up hurriedly, scribbled a note for his two siblings, stuck it on the fridge with a magnet, made sure he locked the door to his modest home and jumped into the taxi, dressed in the white shirt and black pants which was the uniform of all taxi drivers like himself.

He was at the house within 25 minutes.

Waiting outside the house were an odd couple: a tall lean man in his late twenties sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him on the porch and a girl in her mid twenties, eyebrows knitted in a worried frown.

Jarod pulled up in front of them and stepped out to open the back door. The man leaned on the girl and he hobbled on his left foot to the opened car door.

“Thanks, man,” he said as he slid inside.

The girl nodded at him and got into the co-driver’s seat. “GH. Take the fastest route, please.”

Jarod nodded back and got behind the wheel and changed his gear and cut out into the road smoothly. The girl looked strangely familiar and he felt puzzled by her voice which sounded much younger than she looked.

He clicked on the indicator and looked left-wards as he tried to cut into the highway traffic that was already building up. As he did so he noticed her uptight manner, her long dark straight eyelashes and the slightly messy ponytail she had pulled her dark hair into in a hurry. She swallowed and he saw the beginnings of a dimple at the corner of her mouth.

“Man, watch it! The motorcyclist!” The injured guy almost yelled from behind.

“Sorry, boss. These motorcyclists ah, they’re a health hazard!” he responded automatically and turned forward to keep his eyes on the road again.

“Maybe you should watch the road and not her.” The man’s eyes flashed with anger in the rearview mirror and Jarod decided it wiser to keep his mouth shut.

Something in the man’s face made him look up twice. There. At the corner of his left eye was a faint scar, a single white line, much like the one on his own face. Subconsciously his left hand went to the scar on his right cheek.

Jarod glanced up again but the man’s face was turned away. “I’m sorry, are you from KL?” he asked over his shoulder.

“How does that matter to you?” The man’s voice was abrupt.

“You just don’t look like a KL-ite,” Jarod said placatingly. “Did you move here from somewhere up north?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” The man’s eyes were narrowed as he stared back at him in the rearview mirror, 

the scar visible once more in his reflection. “This is why I told you I’d drive,” he said at the girl in the front seat.

“With your broken leg?” The girl’s voice was calm.

Jarod’s heart was beating faster. “Kedah? Slim River?” he asked without thinking.

The girl turned to look at him. “Why do you say that?”

“All right, just stop the cab right here. That’s enough. I don’t know who you are but she knows Taekwondo, 

and I have a licensed revolver in this bag right here.” The guy patted a cloth bag they had brought with them.

Jarod could not help grinning. “Yes, yes and your dog’s a Doberman who can follow the scent of my cab, right or not, leng chai?” He turned to the guy in the back seat and pointed at the scar on his cheek, one hand still on the steering wheel. A moment later his eyes were on the road again, but the corners of his mouth were curled up in the beginnings of a smile.

The girl’s eyes widened and became fearful, convinced that they were in the cab of a serial murderer, or stalker or worse. To her utter astonishment she heard a guffaw of laughter from the back, which made her 

turn around to look at her brother.

“How bloody long has it been? Jerry, you ass!” Her brother was doubled over in laughter.

She stared at the taxi driver who was grinning like a madman now.

“You and I are supposed to get married,” he told her, winking.

“What?” was all she could manage. She turned back to look at her brother who had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard.

“Sal, you remember Jerry from primary school, don’t you?” her brother asked, eyes twinkling and ankle pain forgotten.

She shook her head.

“Sure you do, remember the guy I hit with the 7-Up glass bottle? He hit me back, remember? An eye for an eye?”

Sal felt her heart thump against her chest once and she felt her cheeks flush. “Jer? No way…”

The guy behind the wheel was still grinning. “Yes, I’m the one who kissed you and proposed to you la,  before your brother whacked the living daylights out of me, his best buddy.”

“Hey, my body ached for a week after that, all right? Who did the whacking of the daylights out of whom, huh?” Her brother reached forward and slapped the other guy’s shoulder playfully.

“Keh-keh! He’s driving!” Sal admonished him.

“Right. I forgot you said ‘yes’ to him. You two always ganged up on me,” her brother replied and leaned back into the seat, eyes crinkled up with laughter.   

*****

Jarod laughed. “OK, OK, you two must come over for dinner tonight. Keith would have just finished his model presentation today and Crystal’s on her school holiday. I cook very well, one.”

“Where are Aunty and Uncle?” Sal asked, without thinking,

“They passed on two years after we moved. Why do you think I’m driving a taxi?” Jarod gave her a half-smile, hoping that his voice did not sound too bitter. He always felt their loss even these many years after the fact.

“I’m sorry,” her brother said, seeing that Sal was at a loss for words. “It must be hard for you.”

“It’s OK. I earn quite well. Enough to put Keith in university and get Crystal things that she wants for school.” He shifted gear and pulled up at the entrance of the reception area of the hospital. “Go ahead, I’ll wait in the canteen till you two finish. Give me a call when you are done.”

“You sure you want to wait, Jerry?” Sal asked, helping her brother out of the back seat.

“Can. No problem, one. Don’t worry.” He gave her a reassuring smile.

The brother and sister got out of the cab and as they walked away, Jarod heard Sal say, “It’s a pity, he was a very good student, wasn’t he, Keh-keh?”

Jarod sighed and pulled out his cell phone and looked for Puan Faira’s number. He was going to have to ask her to take a different taxi to work today.

Word count: 1402 (!!!)

Maybe I should have ended it at at the point marked ‘*****’?

Doing the Needful

I twisted the ponytail into a bun and looked at my reflection in the mirror. “You can do this,” I told myself, noting cynically that my eyes seemed a bit apprehensive. I snapped on the rubber gloves and felt the familiar lurch in my tummy. Nerves.

I managed a smile at my colleague and together we strode into the well-lighted room. She stood at one end, and I positioned myself opposite her.

We wiped the area clean first, meticulously and saw no sign of the disease. Then we made the opening carefully and that was when we smelt it, the subtle smell of decay, and we saw the little dots that patterned the inside lining, tell tale signs that we had the right diagnosis.

“Are you ready to rumble?” she asked me with that quirky sense of humour of hers and I gave her the thumbs up. I was as ready as I would ever be.

Then we set to work.

We held ourselves in awkward positions, standing, bending over, squatting and squinting. Perspiration ran down our faces in rivulets. We gently moved the insides, sometimes removing whole complexes and just letting the cleaning solution run through. We made sure the amount of cleaning fluid was just right and dabbed up the excess quickly.

Then we found the focus of infection.

I am not sure how she felt, but I wanted to get the hell out of there. But to do so would have been a waste of our efforts and I hunched up my shoulders, reached for the roll of toilet tissue and started squashing the six-legged vermin.

They were small and fast but we were faster and meaner.

Squish-squish-stomp-stomp-stompity-squeal-squishity-shudder-stomp!

Both of us brought out our A-game and we murdered a good twenty roaches in under thirty minutes.

Then came the gross part. We had to collect their mutilated carcasses and scrub out their eggs and droppings. Our jaws set, we moved our hands mechanically, gripping the soap riddled sponges as though our very lives depended on it.

Satisfied, we dried the area with a clean towel, replaced the planks and arranged back the containers we had removed earlier.

She made one last survey and gave me a grim nod. “Good work,” she said and her voice sounded as disgusted as I felt.

I shut the door on the food cupboard.

We removed the gloves and scrubbed out, weary to the bone.

We had managed to contain the infection for another month, but there would have to be a follow up procedure soon for those buggers multiply damn fast.

* twenty or so roaches were brutally murdered to inspire this story, and every bit of the story’s true. Almost ;)

Life’s Drama: Lies and Forgiveness

Adam looked at the two adults seated at the same table and he thought back to the day that this had all begun:

“You talk too much!” the lady’s voice had been harsh with hardly suppressed anger.

“You should know,” the man had almost sneered at the beautiful woman dressed smartly in calf-length skirt and a light blue blouse. “Judging a person’s talk is what you do at work anyway and you never knew how to keep work and personal life separate, now did you?”

Adam had just looked on in bewilderment, gripping the handle of his little plastic mug tight, unsure of what to do.

“Are you saying something here? If you are, say it outright! We’re both adults. Aren’t we?” Her voice had become louder and louder and her eyebrow had shot up, a danger signal that the man knew very well.

“You want me to utter those filthy words. Words that you have no qualms about acting out.” He had wanted her to hurt. She deserved to after the hell she had put him through.

“I have had enough!” Her fists had been clenched into tight balls. “You are jumping to conclusions, and I will not stoop to your level! You did it before, you think I didn’t know? Well, I do and I think of it everyday and I-would-love-to-do-the-same-to-you!” Her words had been grated out between clenched teeth.

“You ungrateful ….!” The man had brought his fist down on the glass coffee table, shattering it in one violent movement and drowning out the rest of his words.

Adam had felt the tears falling and his chest had clenched in fear. “Mummy?” he had managed through his sobs. “Why are you and Daddy fighting?”

“We aren’t fighting, honey,” the lady had told him.

The man had been swearing under his breath.

“Jaan, you’re bleeding.” She had grabbed the table cloth and reached out for his hand.

“Don’t touch me,” he had snarled and stalked out of the room, a fury burning within his throat. 

Anger at her for seeking solace in another, anger at himself for not being able to deny her accusations. Disgust at himself for the accusations he had hurled at her, disgust at her for not honouring her vows. Fear for their home. Pity for Adam.

The cool wind from the porch had hit his face, helping him breathe a little easier. His hand had begun to throb where the glass pieces had pierced through.

“Da?” The voice had shook slightly.

The man had turned to face his eight-year-old. “Come here, son.”

The boy had gone to the man’s side. “Mummy asked you to hold the hand tight and wrap it in this,” the child had told him, brown eyes big and saucer-like as he held out a dish cloth. “Does it hurt, Da? Shall we go to the doctor?”

The man had laughed a short curt laugh. “I am a doctor, Adam.”

The boy had nodded and kept quiet for a minute. “I thought you told Mummy that she was always your doctor?” His brows had been furrowed as he tried to recall a memory.

“I’m not sure that’s true anymore.” The man’s voice had been gruff.

“Do you have another doctor now?” the boy had asked seriously.

“Jaan, get into the car. You probably need stitches.” The lady had appeared at the doorway with her handbag slung over one shoulder.

“Mummy, why are you crying?” Adam had asked noticing her tear-streaked face.

“Stop being melodramatic. I’m the one with the bleeding hands.”

“Just shut the hell up and get into the car.” Her voice had been cool. She knew her ability to keep an even temper infuriated her husband even more than her anger.

“Let me tell you what you can do with the car…” His voice had been dangerous and his eyes glinting as he advanced on her, pinning her against the white walls of the porch.

“Daddy, stop…!” Adam had started crying again as he watched his mother’s face pale with fear.

“Jaan, I never slept with him,” the lady had whispered into his broad shoulders. “There was flirting, but it was on his side.”

“You lie,” he had growled in a low voice.

“You believe what you want. I made it seem that way because I was mad at you about Anita.”

“What?” His dark eyes had been fixed on her face.

“She told me that…”

The man had taken two steps backwards. “That’s untrue. You actually believed her?” His tone had been incredulous.

“Why would she lie?”

“I wish I knew…”

“So, shared custody?” his father asked his mother and his polite voice cut through Adam’s reverie.

“Agreed. We’ll sell the house and car and share the sum equally.”

Now they were signing a whole sheaf of papers.  His father was in a hurry, he was going to meet Aunty Anita for tea. His mother’s cell phone beeped and she picked up the call.

“Hi, honey,” she said into the mouthpiece and Adam saw his father grimace.

His father had said that his mother was going to marry a friend from work but he still looked at her in the same way and at nights sometimes his mother cried herself to sleep and mumbled his father’s name in her troubled slumber.

The nine-year-old looked at the two adults who had been the pillars of his life and wondered how they failed to see what was so clear to him.

He watched the weave of the pen across the divorce papers as they signed the agreement to end their marriage and Adam felt hollow inside. He felt helpless and wished he could do something to make it right again. He watched and wished that they would see and understand that he did not want this.

“Take care then.” Adam stood by his father as his mother walked away and he heard the shallow intake of breath from his father and knew that it was a sigh of regret.

Adam wanted to cry but instead he put his hand into his father’s and held on tightly, willing him some comfort.

“Mummy won’t be coming back. She’ll be happier this way,” his father said softly as the black Toyota pulled away.

Adam wondered if what his father had said was true and wondered if his father actually believed it to be true. Adam wondered if his father was just pretending to be OK, like his mother was. Adam wondered how much longer he could wear the façade of the shoulder to lean against for his parents for he too was pretending not to hurt inside.

“All the world is a play and we are but actors in it”             -William Shakespeare -

“Forgive and forget. Easier said than done.”                        - Anon -