Unexpressed

Amma,

I hate housework.

I hated it since that day you spent so long making beautiful flower arrangements trimmed with the scraps of lace and ribbon you had saved. I remember you prepared one of your delicious meals and set the table out so carefully with the best flower arrangement as a center piece. I still remember your calloused hands smoothing out the table cloth. But you couldn’t smooth out the bigger, more glaring wrinkles, no matter how hard you tried.

And you tried so hard.

I remember how you waited… I started out on your lap, on the floor, I moved further away as the hollow minutes ticked and finally ended up on the staircase peeking out warily between the banisters like a scared, caged animal. I can still hear the silence that walked in when he finally came home. Then the screams began. The shattering of a vase, the smashed flowers, the drip of curry hurled at the wall. Choked sobs, unbearably painful, each heave of your chest weighed with years and years of suffocating frustration, became slower… and softer…

Hearing the silence of smothered screams I peeked through the banisters again. You had picked up the crushed flowers, the dirty ribbon and the sharp bloodstained shards of ceramic. You were wiping the walls. My 8 year old brain tried and failed to find a word, an expression, an analogy for what it understood. 20 year old me is filling in the blanks now.

Futile.

Vicious cycle.

Like quicksand, the more you struggle to get out of it the more you are entrenched in it.

I’m sorry amma, for all the times it seemed like I didn’t care because I didn’t pick up a broom, didn’t touch a duster or a mop.

I love you more than you will ever know.

I still don’t have the words to express that feeling.

Duwa 

Christina De Silva
13. 03. 2011

Moon

i have always reflected Your Light

Let the world think

i had a borrowed lustre

subjugated to Your Glory

You were all that mattered

The world revolved around You

i followed its lead, trapped in a mindless orbit

But babe, it’s only a matter of perspective

Galileo made a revolutionary change;

So can I.

I am not a moon, your assertions are baseless.

I am a sun with an inner fire

Radiating my own light.

you are not doing me any favours

Pathetic delusions are all you have

you talk so loud

It is you who have no inner fire, no substance

Dull and lifeless

you depend on borrowed lustre.

Christina De Silva

01. 12. 2010

In The Shadows

Asela sat cross-legged on the grass at the edge of the field. Normally sitting upright and attentive, he now slumped a little with his head resting on his hands following the lull in the game with impatient eyes. The batsman yelled something to the other batsman across the pitch, he yelled something in response, the wicket keeper set the bails on the wicket, and the fielders shuffled impatiently shielding their eyes against the late evening sun. A scruffy red leather ball sailed through the air and was caught by the bowler; the game resumed. Asela sat up straight, his eyes on the bowler who, after a moment of concentration, ran towards the wicket and sent the ball flying towards the batsman. 

Asela sighed. They had lost the ball among the thick undergrowth on the far side of the field again. Two fielders were already wading in the thick growth of leaves looking for the ball. A third fielder joined them. The three boys seemed to be having fun and not feeling any of the impatience Asela was feeling judging by their uproarious laughter. Suddenly one boy collapsed, probably after having his legs entangled in the dense growth of vines, evoking peals of laughter from the other two. Asela squinted, he tried very hard to see what was going on. His heart ached to join their laughter. The boy who fell emerged from the leaves clutching the ball triumphantly and making a face at the other two began to run back to mid field with the other two in close pursuit. Their white uniforms were a little muddy, a little grass stained.

How Asela wanted one of those uniforms! Once, after a long evening of watching the boys play he had asked his father for money to be enrolled in the school cricket team.

What do you want money for? Play cricket on the road!

But Thaththa, it’s for the uniforms…

You don’t need damned uniforms! I have no money to give you anyway.

Asela, still feeling the sting of the slap which he had got for the fault of asking, felt rage building up inside him, and from somewhere he summoned the audacity to say…

If you stopped wasting Amma’s hard earned money on alcohol we wou…

The game resumed, the boys concentrating harder to see the ball in the dimming light. Asela absentmindedly fingered the bruises on his legs which had dulled their throbbing pain over the week. A breeze swirled through the trees sheltering him and ruffled his hair. He sat there watching the boys play, listening to their yells which were indignant and playful until the light became too dim forcing them to stop. In the dark, under the trees, he felt quite content. The lights in the pavilion were switched off, the gates shut, the boys' raucous voices died in the breeze.

Asela got up and walked towards the gate. The moon was out now, accompanied by a smattering of stars. As he was passing the pavilion, something in the grass caught his eye. Curious, he walked towards it and picked it up. The scruffy red leather ball. The ball was heavy in his hands as he walked towards the pitch. In the soft moonlight he imagined a game in place and with a gleeful smile he began to run and tossed the ball into the darkness.

Christina De Silva

20 October 2010

Revulsion

She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes.

‘Don’t… Don’t come near me. I told you…’ Her whisper was barely audible.

He stood there, uncomprehending. His eyes bright with a lifeless light.

‘Heyy baby..’ The slurred words grated on her ears.

He staggered towards her. Stumbled.

The memories came rushing, she had nowhere to hide. From him. From them.

He grasped her arm and she winced with the pain he was unconscious of causing her.

An image forced itself out of the barriers in her heart.

A woman being hit repeatedly and a child screaming.

She shut her eyes tight, hoping vainly that she could shut her heart to the flood of memories which now threatened to paralyze her when she shut out his unfocused eyes.

She felt his breath on her cheek and shuddered as she smelt the alcohol.

A smell that had caused her so much pain.

He coughed, nearly threw up.

A weakened old man, lying in bed for years, waiting for release. His own and for the others who suffered with him.

‘I told you I never want to see you drunk.’

The bitter reproach did not register in his head. She didn’t expect it to. Not now.

‘We were just having fun. I’m not that drunk.’

The old excuse.

Words she had come to hate because they were a premonition of a fight.

He wavered. She instinctively put her arms around him to steady him. He hugged her and she responded despite the bitter tears that were running down her face.

‘I love you’

Never trust a man capable of getting drunk senseless.

A child always believes his mother.

As if burnt, she drew back her hands. Drunken words never held a meaning for her.

Love Is Just A Chemical Reaction

In the morning, wake up… and remember.

What homework is due today?

That day, that dress..

Sulphur dioxide in industrial waste causes acid deposition.

The look in his eyes, those eyes..

French has too many irregular verbs!

History. Past. Forgotten. Over. Memories.

Juxtaposition is a literary feature.

What am I now? Does he care?

An oligopoly is where a few firms dominate the market.

It can be either a collusive or a non collusive oligopoly.

Doesn’t anyone realize this smile is fake??

Alienation and Brecht. Actors stay on stage through out.

Everything is done in full view of the audience.

Damn Brecht. No one needs to learn alienation to be alienated.

Conversations, if any, are shorter… distant.

Like intimacy never existed. Feelings are just hormones.

Shakespeare manipulated the iambic pentameter to emphasize words.

Especially in Hamlet’s speeches, they are used

To mirror his state of mind and relationships with others.

That’s interesting. Random text. Oh no. Wait. Never mind.

L’imparfait. Le future. Le present. Le conditionnelle.

Pretty phrases – au contaire, autrement,

Il me semble que, j’imagine que, si vous le permettez...

Laying in bed, remembering his touch…

Get up at 5, get up at 5. Math homework.

Christina De Silva

23 August 2010 

Reflection

She looked back at me with a rueful smile.

I finally saw the beauty in her eyes, the messy softness of her hair and the fullness of her cheeks. I had always said that everyone is beautiful in their own way and beauty is something that radiates from within. It’s not skin deep, it goes right down into your heart. But I had never believed in her beauty.

‘It’s not your fault. The lies, the hurt… none of this. You are beautiful.’

She smiled as she heard those words but the smile wasn’t reflected in her eyes. I saw the hesitancy to trust in the crinkle of her eyes. The automatic analyzing and dismissing of my words in the way the momentary sparkle in her eyes dulled.

I wanted to reach out and hug her. She looked so vulnerable. She was careful to hide it and put up a wonderful front that could fool anyone except someone who cared enough to look deeper. But no one bothered to care these days so it was effective. But you could see it in the defiant point of her chin and the way she would suddenly go quiet that she had a lot to hide.

‘They don’t change a damn thing about you. You’re still a great person and one day you know that someone is gonna come along and wow you. If anything, all they’ve done is make you stronger, wiser and prepared you for what people are like.’

She looked at me. A look of concentration. A slight frown.

The corners of her mouth relaxed. The wrinkles eased out of her forehead.

The radiant, full smile was reflected in her eyes.

Satisfied, I walked away from the mirror. 

Christina De Silva 

03 October 2010 

Where The Conflict Stagnates

‘Dhemala huththi’

‘Dhemala wesi’

The bright lights and the uproarious laughter seemed almost vulgar as I listened to the old woman huddled in a corner. She was dressed in a red sari which lent some fullness to her scant frame. Her graying hair was neatly plaited and her smile took away some of the gauntness of her face. Laying on the bare wooden surface of the little dais which served as a tv area, she said the music gave her a headache. 

‘I have been to Muskeliya. It’s so beautiful there, and the air is so clean. Achchi why are you living here in Colombo? Do you have no work there?’ 

‘No I had work there. I have enough money. I am here because of my daughter. She can’t take the cold, she gets sick a lot. She has asthma. I couldn’t send her to Colombo alone so we live in Rajagiriya in a slum. I hate it there. But what to do. I miss Muskeliya a lot.’ 

‘What does your daughter do, Achchi?’

‘She works for a family of foreigners. She cooks and cleans for them.’ 

‘Do they treat her well?’ 

I could feel the burning stares of my relatives as they wandered through the house, congregating here to discuss the plight of some unmarried niece, joining a pair of whispering women to add to the scandal under dissection, being pulled into dancing by a pack of tipsy old men or being forced to eat some more. 
Why is she sitting on the floor talking to a servant? their stares clearly said. 

‘Yes they do. My daughter is honest and hard working. They like that. It’s the people in the neighborhood that I don’t understand. There’s so much jealousy and hatred. Now in the neighbourhood we used to live in there was no discrimination. We were so happy there. The people used to call me Rani akka or amma. But we had to move here because of my daughter’s new job. The women in the slums don’t do any work so they gossip the whole day. They always harass me on my way to work every morning, calling me dhemala wesi, dhemala huththi. And I say to them; ‘Nangi why do you say this? Doesn’t the same blood run in our veins? Colour is the only difference we have. I am human too, just like you.’’ 

I sat there, tears in my eyes, marveling at the strength and wisdom of this woman. 

‘See this chain? I never wear it at home. We never wear any jewelry when we step out of the house. Baba, we can’t even dress well when we leave the house. Those women ask me where I’m going dressed so well and I tell them you must look presentable where ever you go. You can’t go about looking shabby. There was this old amma who lived behind our house. Her treasure, 10 thousand rupees and a little jewelry, was inside a battered ice cream container. She guarded it with her life and slept with it under her. One night she was stabbed and robbed.’ 

‘I’m not lying to you, baba.’ She said in reply to my shocked look. 

Finally, I had to get up to go, echoes of dhemala wesi and dhemala huththi downing out the loud music. 

- This is a true story. 


Christina De Silva 
18 June 2010