‘Wow,’ Gina said, swivelling around. ‘You own this?’
‘No,’ said Lydia, as if the answer was obvious. ‘I rent a room upstairs.’
‘Oh,’ Gina said. She didn’t mention that her father had paid for the deposit and stamp duty on her apartment all by himself.
Lydia pulled open the door of the fridge and surveyed the contents. ‘How does an omelette sound?’
‘Actually amazing.’
Gina watched Lydia putter around. The other girl was wearing the tiniest of shorts under her T-shirt. Gina wondered if a boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or whatever had given that to her. Was that the norm? She wouldn’t know – she had never dated a man. But Lydia had lovely legs. All thick thighs, small knees and curvy calves. She cracked her eggs one-handed.
‘Here,’ Lydia said, sliding the omelette on the plate in front of Gina and passing her a fork. ‘Eat.’
Gina cut off a piece, then placed it in her mouth. As it touched her tongue, she gave a little gasp. She wasn’t sure if it was actually good or because she hadn’t eaten anything but her own breath for days, but the omelette tasted like golden ambrosia. And egg, of course. ‘This is the food of the gods,’ she told Lydia, who laughed.
‘Slow down,’ the other girl said, but she did nothing to stop Gina from shovelling it into her mouth.
When she finished, Lydia gave her a glass of milk.
‘Isn’t this what you do for kids?’ Gina said, accepting it.
‘You need the calories,’ Lydia replied. She rested her elbows on the benchtop and stared at Gina from across the counter. ‘So, what happened yesterday?’
Gina drank her milk and avoided looking into her eyes. ‘Nothing. I just didn’t eat. Which was a mistake. So that’s why I passed out before I could get home.’
‘Were you going to eat at home?’
‘No. I just don’t feel like it sometimes.’
‘Do you have an eating disorder? Is that it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Lydia frowned at her. ‘Well, how do you feel now?’
‘Okay,’ Gina said.
‘Hmmm,’ Lydia said.
She reached over to the fruit bowl on the side of the counter and picked up an orange. ‘Want one?’ she said.
‘Aren’t those Valencias?’ Gina asked. ‘Aren’t they out of season?’
Lydia got out a knife and a worn, plastic cutting board. ‘Yeah, but sometimes winter gets me feeling kind of down so I buy some to cheer me up. Even if they’re expensive.’
Gina had a few memories of summer. Waking up to sunshine and cicadas. Sitting on the floor of her room in her underwear and painting her toenails. Buying flimsy dresses and yellow tulips. Her body sweating and being alive. Peeling Valencia oranges, the scent of them curling and unravelling in the air like pencil shavings.
‘I get sad during winter, too,’ she said. ‘Really sad.’
Lydia hummed, this questioning sound. Her head was down and she looked like she was concentrating on cutting the citrus into perfect slices, but Gina could tell she was listening.
‘There’s water,’ said Gina. She was aware that she sounded insane. ‘I feel it all around me. It pushes me down so I can’t feel anything. But it’s . . . it’s not sadness. It’s more like strangeness. Like I don’t know anyone. Not even myself. It’s always black and I can’t see.’
‘I see,’ Lydia replied carefully. ‘You should see somebody.’
Gina knew it. ‘You think I’m insane,’ she said.
At this, Lydia stopped cutting the orange to look up. ‘I do not think that,’ she said. ‘But I do think that you might be depressed.’
Gina had heard of depression. She had heard of it in books and movies and family gossip. But it was the first time somebody connected the term to her, to the water. Now that it was being applied to her, the term sounded utterly foreign. ‘You think I’m depressed?’
‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘There’s this special kind of depression which sort of matches what you’re saying. Have you heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder?’
‘No,’ said Gina.
‘It happens around the same time every year. Like, for most people, it’s winter. My aunt had it. I remember her telling me about it because I always feel kind of down around winter, too. But probably nowhere near what she felt.’
‘Seasonal Affective Disorder,’ said Gina. ‘So, I’m a crazy person.’
‘No, you’re not,’ said Lydia. ‘But still, you should see someone. I think they have therapy, something with lights. And you should hang around people more. Go out with some friends. Or invite them to your place.’
‘I don’t have any friends,’ said Gina, not even sad as she said it but almost drunk, instead, off feeling validated.
‘Well . . .’ Lydia hesitated, ‘I don’t have a lot of friends either. I would be your friend. But you’re kind of a bully.’
Gina actually laughed, this fast, screechy thing. ‘I’m a bully?’
‘Yeah,’ Lydia said. ‘Well, to Janice at least. You’re not the nicest to her.’
At this, Gina went quiet.
Lydia sighed. ‘Be nice. She’s young. Also, she might be going through some shit, you never know. After all, I didn’t know you were like this until this whole thing happened. Like you said, we don’t know each other.’
‘Yeah,’ Gina said. ‘Yeah, okay.’
Lydia was nice enough to offer to drop her home. Gina accepted, even though she was feeling bad again. It was when she got out of Lydia’s car that she remembered that she hadn’t even said thanks yet, not even once. She muttered it as she closed the door but she wasn’t sure if Lydia heard.
Instead of going in right away, Gina stood outside of her apartment block. Everything was a mystery. She didn’t know anything. Adulthood was only logistics, full of mechanical actions like getting out of bed, working a job, paying the bills, doing laundry, feeding herself. Gina had been trapped in that winter since she was seventeen. If life was nothing but a struggle, then she didn’t want to struggle. If life needed her to be strong, then she just wanted to be asleep.
She wasn’t ready to go inside yet, but she could feel Lydia watching her, so she pretended to check her mailbox. A few seconds later, she heard the sound of the car starting up and her driving away. Gina slowly straightened up. And –
She was back where she always had been.
Just stuck. Nothing waiting for her inside. Nothing waiting for her outside. Just. Stuck.
Something heavy was moving around her ankles again. Something painful was building between her breasts. She could feel it all catching back up to her when, suddenly, something stole her attention. Gina raised a hand to her face. She looked up.
It was the sun.
It was the sun, and it had come out from behind a grey mass.
In an instant, the water around her was illuminated. Gina was surrounded by glistening clouds, castles of them, blooming white, lilac, opal. The sun was almost glaring at her; it was so ferocious. Gina felt intimidated. She felt ashamed. She felt like somebody was demanding her to stand up and, for the first time, her weary body obeyed. She bent down and dipped her hand in the water. Her touch spread ripples throughout the blue reflection. Even the simple movement was still and clear and Gina felt like crying because it was so beautiful. She was standing in a boat in the middle of the sky.
She took a big breath. She had struggled so she could see this. She had drowned so she could breathe.
‘Hey there,’ Gina said. ‘You’re doing good. You’re doing okay.’
‘Thanks,’ she replied. She swallowed hard. ‘That means a lot to me.’
About the author
Jenny is currently undertaking a double major at the University of Sydney: Media and Communications, and English. When not writing novels in her spare time, she contributes to the student-run newspaper Honi Soit.
Her hobbies include reading, taking long walks with her dog, Francis, watching Studio Ghibli films, drinking instant coffee a
nd slipping into the pool on a hot summer’s afternoon.
She intends to spend every holiday throughout the rest of her degree travelling with friends and hopes to publish her own novel one day. She doesn’t know what it’ll be about, but she knows it will definitely have Asians in it.
We Will Go On
Veronica Hester
Co-Winner, Young Writer
‘Who is she?’
‘I dunno. She hasn’t been saying much.’ The young man was crossing his arms and not making eye contact. He paused as an elderly man with an untended beard stumbled out from the cardboard construction that served as his home.
‘A name?’
‘I think . . . I think she said Sahar.’
‘Generally that’s the first thing someone should say when they’re asked who someone is.’
‘Jesus, why do you always have to be so nitpicky?’
The girl smiled at him, crooked teeth gleaming. ‘It’s fun. I’ll go in and talk to her. You can go and catch a fish in the creek or something.’
‘Hey, Tammy, hold up. Why do you think you’ll be any luckier than I was?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘What?’
‘Well, Timbo, you’re a little . . . how does one put it . . . terrifying.’
‘What?’
‘There you go, anyone outside us two would think you’re about to beat me up. That’s the problem. Did you even smile at her?’ Silence, and a mocking smile later. ‘Thought not.’
She walked the plains, a wanderer. ‘Not all who wander are lost’ – well, not in this case. She was as lost as a bird in war; overwhelmed by senses that couldn’t exist. There was no wind.
The mountains always seemed to be surrounding her, no matter how far she walked or which way she went. They loomed over her, shading the light, like they were providing some sort of mocking comfort. Imprisonment was in her best interests, they thought.
‘No. I will make this journey.’
The mountains continued to loom, grey as everything else, grey that tasted like soot. The wind didn’t start.
She stepped forward.
The tattered flap of the makeshift tent was lifted to reveal a girl with ridiculously frizzy blonde hair and blue eyes, eyes that collided with brown ones.
‘My name is Tamara, though Tim, the dickhead outside, will call me Tammy no matter what I say.’
Sahar flinched.
‘Is it the swearing? I’m sorry –’
‘That’s not . . . it’s this.’
‘What?’
‘This. I feel like I’ve been captured by ruffians or bandits or something. This place,’ she waved her arms in some abstract gesture, ‘is wrong to me. It feels like another country, and one I want to be out of straightaway.’
‘We could help you with that – if you told us what’s going on.’
Sahar mumbled.
‘Louder?’
‘I can’t go back! Okay? There’s no one who will take me in, or whatever your way of talking is.’
‘There’s no need to be dramatic.’
‘Dramatic?’
‘Okay, maybe the wrong word . . . but this isn’t the be all and end all. The government exists. It does its best to support everyone. You’re able to get help.’
‘Then why are you still here?’
‘Good point, but different situations. I’m not going back to my family. Full stop. You look like you have a reason though. I won’t ask,’ she quickly put her hands up. ‘You also look like the sort that doesn’t want to be asked.’
‘And your reason?’
‘Not a reason they’d accept. I’m not a fan of their system either.’
Sahar did not look any less wary, her lips firmly pressed together.
‘Look, you don’t have to like us. I often don’t love me very much either,’ Tamara said, laughing. ‘But we’re gonna look after you till they help you, whether you like it or not. I mean, you could run off, but that’d be stupid.’
At this, Tamara couldn’t tell the expression on the girl – but she definitely felt like Sahar was amused and simultaneously afraid; like she was watching some sort of funny train wreck waiting to happen.
‘I guess there’s nowhere else to go,’ decided Sahar.
Tamara grinned. ‘Welcome to the family.’
Dirty clouds hid a white sun. The ground was cracked into beige polygons. The air tasted like salt.
Sweaty knees hit the ground, and dusty black hair hung around her face, shutting off the surroundings.
‘I can’t go on,’ she said to the polygons. ‘There’s no point in living.’
I can’t even cry, she thought. The salt has dried up everything.
The resignation felt good, felt final. Things could end. Things should end.
Then, an ocean crashed on her skin. Her eyes shot up, wide and hesitant.
The wind had started.
Sahar looked behind her. There stood a tree that had not been there before. Branches reached outwards, like a believer in religious ecstasy.
It was gnarled. Leafless. Lifeless.
Except for a single apple that hung off the rightmost branch. It was red.
She lifted her body, her burden, onto one knee, then began to stagger-run towards the solitary tree. It only took a few minutes, yet it felt like the end of a journey. This would be her revelation. She was sure of it.
Except . . . except there was something else. Orange. Orange fabric hung off that branch, fluttering, twirling, embedded with sparkling orange tears.
Sahar stopped, stared, and ceased to move, hardly daring to breathe.
The clouds in the sky began to coalesce, forming into one wispy helix. Still she could not move.
Without warning, an olive-skinned hand, wearing a golden bangle, burst through the helix’s centre with the speed and force of an angry god’s wrath. It carefully plucked the fabric into its giant fingers, before elevating again into the sky, returning to a higher existence beyond any human reach.
Sahar did not notice that the force of the hand had pushed her away, forwards, to where she had been before.
She did notice, however, that her face was wet.
‘I will go on,’ she screamed. There was no point in living, not yet, but there was no point in dying either.
‘You have got to be kidding me.’
‘Honestly, it’s not that bad. I mean it looks really bad, but I promise it’s only mildly bad.’
‘It’s a dumpster.’
‘Suit yourself then.’
Sahar watched as Tamara eagerly climbed into the dumpster. Her hair, done into a bun, was barely restrained by a hairband that had probably been used by several generations, while she wore a hoodie covered in multiple stains. Tamara had given Sahar a hoodie with a large tear in the side to wear.
No matter how much Sahar wore it, it still felt wrong to her.
They were behind a supermarket. Sahar had shopped here before, once every few weeks. Whenever her mother ordered her to, due to ‘great savings’. Mum always had been a bargain freak.
Tamara took about twenty minutes. The smell wasn’t as bad as Sahar had expected. It was still bad, though.
‘Not the best today. Lots of plastic and off stuff. But hey, look, zucchinis! Moderately good bread! And thank the heavens, nice plums!’
‘Are you freaking out over nice-looking dumpster food?’
‘Hell yeah.’
Tamara took the lead, and Sahar trailed behind her.
‘There’s always that op shop dumpster. You’ll be fine with that one.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Just try it at least once, alright?’
Sahar sighed exasperatedly. ‘You’re very persistent.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yes, Tammy.’
Tamara shook her head. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, Sa.’
‘That really doesn’t work.’
Tamara helped Sahar up, the latter girl gingerly making he
r way onto the dumpster.
Considering it was an op shop, it had a distressing amount of rubbish. They sifted through piles of clothing – tattered shirts with missing buttons, broken fabric – while sitting on the edges of the dumpster, on opposite sides.
‘Not so bad, is it?’
She didn’t give smug Tamara an answer. Her eyes were focused somewhere else.
‘Sahar?’
Between the rags, there was a flash of orange. Orange, orange, with sparkling orange sequins . . .
Shaking hands drew the fabric from its burrow. For a moment, Sahar’s face was empty. Climbing off the dumpster, she kneeled on the concrete. She drew the fabric around her head, covering her hair, taking time to perfect everything.
Abruptly, Sahar pulled it off and began to punch it. Tamara flinched, stranded, watching this confusing performance art.
Sahar punched the hijab until the sequins fell off.
In every religion it seemed to be a cave, a cave that started it all. This was a cave like any other, brittle and damp. However it was not dark; the cave stood atop a peak, sunlight filtering through a great hole.
Was this Hira, the cave where Gabriel appeared to Muhammad?
‘Is anyone here?’
As if she’d uttered blasphemy, Sahar was engulfed by a presence. It was as Muhammad had been: overwhelmed, terrified. A dull buzzing scream bounced off the walls.
Then, in a second and simultaneously an eternity, the presence seemed to step away, but nevertheless it poked her, as if it wasn’t quite sure what it had been brought. She didn’t feel like a pilgrim or a prophet anymore, but like prey. Is this what the prophet had felt? Taunted? A play-thing of superior beings?
‘I can’t be a prophet. I’m a sinner.’
She didn’t mean to say it out loud. A paranoid voice in her head whispered that she had been forced to say her thoughts, that the being would know anyway. It just wanted to humiliate her.
Now it was moving towards her. It was less like seeing it, more like feeling it crawl. More humiliation.
There was nowhere to go, and everything was inevitable. So there was nothing stopping her from shouting.
‘Why?’
Hope Shines Page 10