martha. yes, that's my name, and to anybody significant in my life , it gives a ring in their minds. to start we can consider me; i call myself a monotone soliloquy of disappointments. yes! think of it as a music video of a rock band but the lyrics are just sung by a obnoxiously white, chapped lipped blonde woman who's trying to be french (terribly failing), and singing an opera; her voice is shrill and it's clearly unbearable 'cause it's heartbreaking and disappointing since the performance is going south than it was supposed to be.
anyway, that's me by me. but you sure will get a pantone of me from others. let's just say my sister, who is 18 and has awful braces, will probably say that she has never seen me using hair clips or growing hair below my ears (of course not! my convent had strict regulations for not over feminising girls; frankly i didn't care).
obviously english culture outside this part of countryside, didn't knew decent recognitions for a woman and rather you need to reciprocate the fragility society anciently gifted us and each time you step out of your doors, you need to make sure your mirror calls you "oh baby you're just a jude girl from the bible!". yes! that's enough to call you a woman, ripe and full of womb. as if our loins are the only weight our identity bestows, and the more porcelain our face, the better dolls we would be in your wardrobes.
well that's much of rebellion in a word! now my ex lovers would sure like retrospect on what my worth was with them. frankly, the results of unpolished womanhood, didn't seem to be quite wooable. a poor guy in my sophomore year came up to me asking for some help with the juicer machine, while my shift was about to finish at the breakfast plaza. and i suppose i quite didn't give off the proper idea of a countryside girl with terrible conservatism engulfing her like a shell or simply that i too have feminine features as mother biology braced. quite honestly, kingston church, the place where i grew up, the rendezvous were more bizarre and after shifting to boston for college, didn't really surprise my cores with shock, horror or astonishments.
but poor boy, or jeremy (as was he called other than "red nosed bellboy") was too timid or rather out of wits that day, maybe because his first day at work was quite full of curses and menaces, and i felt sorry. seemed like pity was the utmost affection he received all his life. no one should be as paperlike like him; at some point a gush of cold air would eventually blow you into pyre lit for warmth and your soul will be as rotten and burning like the dry leaves burning along with you.
over the winter break, jeremy and i grew accustomed to each other's existence and managed to exchange some slurry secrets over tequila or anything budgeted but alcohol. and it was a night like that when i had put on some blush to hide how pale winter turned me and i think, i think, i think, i was smelling like chloe, my roommate since i borrowed her cardigan, smelling like lemons (much like summer).
jeremy and i chewed some nuts and the pub was pink in my gauzy vision and somehow through my spectacles i managed to visualise the proximity of his face. maybe jeremy mumbled something at that moment but i felt it way different than my library books used to make me feel. romance was fascinating, truly all and everything like moons and stars and ridiculous things inflated like bubblegums. but the sweet and fruity taste it holds didn't sway in my mouth, nor did it dance, nor did it sting me like electric or liquor. not even when when his lips were actually on mine or when he leaned in deep or hold me close. instead it rose above on the roof of my mouth as his lips landed on mine, and died in the air with a poof, empty in the cavity of my oral vessels.
clearly, jeremy photographed me in his eyes as something but disappointing him was necessary since i really let out a sigh of long holding breath. i concluded i can also do better than a breakfast plaza for pocket money.
in convent culture, we are strictly trained to be women of future who would take up the future roles of soft hardworkers, who earn bread with grace and by respecting the forefathers of patriarchal rituals and always humble at the sight of gentlemen because they are the potential life savers of your societal status, so along with the pity of liberty, culture yourself into the bounds of ideal households. a wife, a mother, a daughter; who please their husband, children (sons. and daughters? eh?) and fathers are gifted with heavens to be children of oh! holy christ!
but what if woman with every influence of a perfect world grows up into a teenager with little care for how her limbs are covered with hair or maybe a ombré mustache threaten to reveal its existence? of course, holy creatures despise everyone who isn't as pious as bible, right? what about those pious vows the nuns secretly took, to swear to god, never speak about the kiss they shared once, twice, thrice, infinity?
i knew what i was, just in denial or psychedelic trance or digust, tired, and filled with redundance.
but on the spring of 2009, i had to assist my professors at a art carnival. i had a fluffy feeling for it because, cities like boston find it cute to portray literature and books as art. it's personally a affirmation for serene culture to prosper, and that's just my personal choice. to be very honest, apart from appreciating art my mere talent or contribution to the genre is my humility and respect.
when i was touring in front of the art exhibitions, a cacophonous corner of probably art students kept forming a buzz, obviously creating an eye of capture and it was a serious situation when i head up close.
it was a wall of crayon abstracts which i obviously overheard from the the students and the illustrator was having a hard time explaining her metaphors to the audience particularly present. and it was oh so serious! like her asian eyes; soft perm which seemed parloured; the makeup on her nose; the slippery lisps; her cheeks rising slightly making attempts to smile out of nerves (i couldn't focus how deeply did thr crowd affect them); that brown patch on her chin the quivered sometimes and the way she looked at me and uttered "ma'am?"
i think i got lost too much to realise my brain freeze. but her summer eyes were lovable enough to melt the ice in mine.
"uh, pardon me, i kind of spaced out at these artworks!" i recovered somehow.
"ah! that's very natural to how much of a blunder i made. i should actually be the one to ask for excuses." she was actually embarrassed, i was clueless.
"well, if you're talking about the croak voices from a few minutes before, i really don't know how they scrutinised your exibit, but my blunt eyes can only sense something intellectually created. i mean, really don't know about art, yeah! but this is cool and kind of relief to me, because honestly, every oil painting in the arena reek a disgusting smell of tarpin oil!" i shrugged and offered her my bottle of water, honestly it was the coolest gesture i could come up with.
her hazel eyes looked up at me and i still remember how she smiled at me with her exhaustion of a tired world, and she took the bottle out my hand and gulped with relief on her face. if i properly recall it in my head it was probably framed in a polaroid frame in my heart with a caption sincerely, i want to love you, can i please?
"so are you doing any better? is it okay if i ask you about your day, it's 7o'clock anyway!"
she looked at me and smiled again and gestured to walk with me. "you are too kind of a person to ask someone about their day! but thank you for asking, it hasn't been much of an optimistic output, i just wish to survive three more days and take back the huge weight of disappointments."
we walked till the gate through the stalls filled with brochures and souvenir candies but i could really even give a slight damn about whatever happening around me. those two minutes was my life in a french movie where i fall in love with a woman who's got her worries equally transpirating through her skin and in my head that movie was standing at a point were we are walking with our hands holding and fingers laced together and instead of souvenir stalls it was maple trees.
"so ma'am, kind stranger, i guess this is it, we must be parting ways from here. although kind stranger is not kind for a woman like you!" with a smooth smile she almost changed my whole existence from a human to a fool, a lovesick fool.
"martha. martha sebastian. although, a polite and beautiful woman like you would never say goodbye this way, not at least without a name of her existence or without a hint of whether i'll see you again or not!" if i could believe the arrows i was shooting at that hour, i would probably not fidgeting like a bobbing doll.
maybe she saw through me, maybe not, but she smiled after a couple of seconds searching for something amusing on my face and i knew nothing about it;
"when a man asks me out for a coffee date or a walk at park, romances generate like honey! that's how it is and has been. and that's true, probably that will always be like that. and i accepted that way. but not everyone asks me about how my day was or stare at my face and give me water thinking that maybe i am tired." she smiled, giggled and blushed.
"so okay. yes. i'll see you on sunday at the bernie's at 9 am?" she said and started to walk back slowly.
"yes, at bernie's. 9 am." i said and i couldn't control my smile.
she giggled and kept walking back.
"oh! and your name?"
she turned around, "april. april fong!"
and with that i watched her walk back inside.
with a huge fraction of growth of various baritones of various right things, i was taught and moderated towards was shattered at that moment. 'cause i just had my first teenage crush moment, the one where a red rose and a pink enveloped letter inside your locker makes you go cherry and you can't stop thinking about how blessed this human civilisation was that cupid struck us with his arrows with everything seemingly ugly was relevant and valid, even my ugly pleated skirt hanging below my knees, or my growing bob that seemed golden these days and not an dirty washed like an outlaw. but who cares.
i got my summer even if i still sometimes clinged onto my coat; after all i got my april.
shruti bhattacharya
@shr3ut1
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