“Your daughter told me she was
probably meant to be a tree.” Niri’s sister said in her matter-of-fact sort of
way. Niri heard, but said nothing.
It was morning, a still one,
that felt like the way a body turned calm after a horrendous episode of tears.
It was sunny, the kind of sun that taunted a person when they imagined their
death—saying everything would carry on just the same whether you were here or
not. The kind that reminded all that lay between the earth and the sun’s rays
that they were merely fleeting, and stuck its tongue out to mock their silly
mortality.
“Saidi? She's doing okay I
think,” Niri stated, so mechanically one could almost assume her voice was
initiated by a “speak” button on a remote control. She wasn’t very old, but her
face was worn down in a way that showed she’d been crying—not today perhaps,
but the consecutive few preceding it.
She turned to her sister,
suddenly, the way people turn when someone taps them on the shoulder. The two
shared such a striking resemblance that it was almost depressing to see how
unimaginative their parents’ genes had been in the procreation process.
“I know she said that,” Niri
continued, “that whole thing about being a tree. “She paused as her eyes
quietly blanketed themselves with a layer of water. “It’s just that she has a hard time dealing
with all this life business, you know? She just said pretending to be a tree is
the only time she feels alive.”
“I’m worried about her,
regardless of what anyone says. I really am, but I don’t want to stifle her
imagination.” Niri continued, feeling that quiet need to justify herself.
“What are you talking about? Stifling her
imagination? You’re starting to sound
like a
hippie, you know that?”
“So?”
“So, your daughter’s been
standing in the courtyard pretending to be a tree while the rest of the kids
are playing basketball or something. You
know I love her just as much as you do, but it’s just not normal behavior,
Niri. And that stunt she pulled…my God! You know, the counselors have a
point.”
“That was blown out of proportion,” Niri said.
“She didn’t really try to kill herself. She just wasn’t paying attention,
that’s all. She can get lost in her own head. You know how she is. I was the
same way when I was her age.”
“Don’t be so naive, Niri. You’d have to be in one
hell of a daze to thrust yourself into a busy street. I mean, luckily the
driver was paying a little
attention, but I’m sorry Niri, I just don’t
believe her.”
“She’s
going through a lot these days. It’s not easy for her.”
“Don’t think you’re doing her
any favors the way you’re dealing with it. I think the school’s right to
interfere.”The room grew silent as the sun warmed its way even further through
the windows and split the couch into two shades of blue. Footsteps tumbled down
the stairs like an unsteady drum roll growing closer and closer until they
stopped.
“Just drop it for now, OK?”
Niri whispered, as her daughter made her way into the room.
“I think I live for the
weekend,” Saidi exclaimed as she stumbled in, in her wrinkled pajamas. Her
ruffled head of brown hair, if combed out, would turn pleasantly straight and
hang nicely off her shoulders. She flopped herself on the love seat and let her
legs fall over the side. Her eyes instantly sunk into the vertical line that
separated one shade from the other on the blue couch.
“Good morning, sweetie. Did you
sleep well?” her mother asked.
“I guess... I don’t remember
really,” Saidi smiled. “So, I must’ve.”
“What were you reading last
night?” her aunt quickly asked, before Saidi’s eyes fell further into the
couch, to be lost forever. “You were so consumed. If there had been an
earthquake you probably wouldn’t have even noticed.” She let out a laugh that
sounded more like a big truck stopping than anything that might have resembled amusement.
Saidi looked up, stared at her
for a second and, as if trying to recall an answer on a test, finally
remembered and opened her mouth to speak.
“The Bell Jar.”
Her aunt raised her eyebrows
and sighed. “Isn’t that your mother’s?” she asked, turning her head to Niri to
further impose her disapproval of the pair’s disturbed choice in literature.
“Yeah. I borrowed it from her
library.” She paused for a second and raised her eyes towards the ceiling,
searching for the invisible one who would tell her just what she wanted to
remember. She found him as he whispered it softly into her ear, “You even
underlined the same lines that got to me.” She turned her head towards her
mother and smiled at their similarity.
“I read it so long ago.” Niri
dug her eyes into the rug on the floor, trying to see through it and all the
way to the core of the Earth with her newly found super powers.
“I just love her descriptions!”
Saidi quoted:
She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop
windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, she continued to exist.
She’d spent her night weighing
the words down on her tongue and tattooing them into her memory, to be a mark
on her mind forever.
Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided
off, like a skater, into a large empty space and pirouetted there, absently.
“I don’t think I’ve understood
anything so well,” Saidi said. Her eyes
gleamed, until her aunt spoke again and extinguished them like water over a
dying flame.
“Didn’t she kill herself? Come
on! Why would you want to read something like that when you know what
eventually came out of it?”
“Because it’s real!” Saidi
quickly said, defending the right of madness on paper for all those who have
circled it, but dared not step any further than the words themselves. “And
that’s not the point!” She was growing furious with her aunt’s lack of
understanding for beautifully written truth.
Niri was quiet. She stared at
her daughter and smiled. Saidi always said exactly what Niri felt but dared not
say herself.
“I guess I’m just too ignorant
to get the point then,” Saidi’s aunt stated mockingly, as if she were the only
sane person in the room. She got up and walked towards the kitchen.
Saidi sighed. “She just doesn’t
get it, does she mom?”
“No, sweetie, I guess not. She
loves you though…” Niri smiled as she surrendered herself to her maternal heart
and accepted that this person that was a product of her. “You know, people are
just different.”
“But you don’t think I’m a
suicidal nut like she does.” Saidi grew quiet for a moment, her thoughts
fumbling around for an explanation for it all inside her. “I just have a hard
time focusing, mom. I really do…”
“I know, I know, sweetie… You
don’t have to justify anything to me.” She watched Saidi for a moment, trying
to find the words that would reassure her daughter that everything will be just
fine – whether she herself believed it or not. “People tend to feel threatened
when you’re not what they want you to be. It’s just the way they are.”
“What about the way I am?” Saidi sighed.
“I guess you just have to find your way around
it.”
“How do you do it, mom?”
“I just pretend, sweetie.” She
smiled. “That’s all. I just pretend.”
